THE LAKES OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 
523 
have much to answer for. I hope that the disease may 
never spread in the United States. The people there are 
believed to be inoculated with common sense. 
But why go among cannibals at all? Was it not like 
joining the Alpine Club in order to be lauded, if you don’t 
break your neck, where your neck ought to be broken ? 
This makes me turn back to the watershed, as I promised. 
It is a belt of tree-covered upland, some seven hundred 
miles in length from west to east. The general altitude is 
between four thousand and five thousand feet above the sea, 
and mountains stand on it at various points, which are be- 
tween six thousand and seven thousand feet above the 
ocean level. On this watershed springs rise, which arc 
well nigh innumerable; that is, it would take half a man’s 
life to count them. These springs join each other and form 
brooks, which again converge and become rivers, or say 
streams, of twenty, forty, or eight)'- yards, that never dry. 
All flow towards the centre of an immense valley, which I 
believe to be the Valley of the Nile. In this trough ive 
have at first three large rivers ; then all unite into one 
enormous lacustrine river, the central line of drainage, 
which I name Webb’s Lualaba. In this great valley there 
are five great lakes. One near the upper end is called Lake 
Bunba, or more properly Bangweolo, but it is not a source 
of the Nile, for no large river begins in a lake. It is sup- 
plied by a river called Cbambezi, and several others which 
may be considered sources, and out of it flows the larger 
river Luapula, which enters Lake Moero, and comes out as 
the great lake river Lualaba, to form Lake Komolondo. 
West of Komolondo, but still in the great valley, lies 
Lake Lincoln, which I name as my tribute of love to the 
great and good man America enjoyed for some time and 
then lost. One of the three great rivers I mentioned, 
Bartle Frere’s, or Lufira, falls into Komolondo, and Lake 
Lincoln becomes a lacustrine river, and it too joins the 
central line of drainage, but lower down; and all these 
united form the fifth lake, which the slaves, sent to me in- 
