Savage Africa, 
7 
and that the country is cursed by a system of slave-catching, 
and slave-deporting, which renders whole districts desolate, 
and raises suspicion, fear, and hatred against strangers. 
For ages, the Nile and its sources have furnished a problem 
to the geographer and historian. Where does it rise ? and 
from whence comes this prodigious flood, which periodi- 
cally overflows its channel and covers the land of Egypt 
with fertihty ? It issues from a desert dry and rainless, yet 
at a certain period of the year it overflows, and by the feet 
and inches of its overflow, according to the Nilometer, 
may be computed the harvest. It was long supposed that 
the Nile rose in the Mountains of the Moon ; but the 
researches of explorers have proved that it takes its rise 
in the Albert, and Victoria Nyanzas. At Khartoum, the 
Blue, and White Nile join, and the swollen river then 
proceeds through the Nubian desert, into Egypt. It is 
however held, that the real sources of the Nile extend still 
further south, through the Alexandra Nyanza, right down to 
Lake Tanganyika itself. The mighty river of Egypt is still 
to some extent a mystery as it regards its furthest source, 
although 4,200 miles of its course have been traced. 
The Congo, or Livingstone, finds its source in the basin 
of Lake Tanganyika, being there known as the Lualaba, 
having also as tributaries the Lukuga, and Lufira. Living- 
stone believed this great river to be one of the foun- 
tains of the Nile, and would fain have followed it to its 
mouth in order to solve his doubt or confirm his belief ; 
but almost at the outset his weakened frame gave way, and 
he died at Chitambo, in Illala, on May ist, 1873. 1876 
Stanley commenced the work of exploring the Congo, and 
after fourteen months of unparalleled difficulty and eflbrt, suc- 
ceeded in reaching the mouth of that river, where it rushes 
into the Atlantic through a channel ten miles broad, and 
