590 
THE GREAT WATER-SHED. 
“ No honors seem to have been given the Dutch lady ex- 
plorer, though her noble perseverance after losing her two 
aunts by fever awakens my admiration. She had pro- 
vided so well for both land and water exploration that 
had she not been, honestly enough no doubt, assured by 
Speke and Grant that they had already found the sources 
she sought, she must inevitably by boat or on land have 
reached the sources. She came a great deal further up 
than Nero’s centurion. They say exploration was not 
becoming her sex. Well, considering that 1600 years 
have elapsed since Ptolemy wrote, and kings, emperors, 
all the great men of antiquity longed to know the foun- 
tains whence flowed the famous river, exploration docs 
not seem to have been very becoming the other sex either. 
I do not know anything more about her than what has 
appeared in newspapers. She possesses indomitable pluck 
and no mistake. 
“When Sir Roderick Murchison proposed to me the 
examination of the water-slied of South Central Africa I 
indicated the true scientific mode of ascertaining the cor- 
rect position of the fountains of the Nile. The problem 
put thus had a charm for my mind. I had no theory on 
the subject, and was prepared to find the water-shed im- 
mediately' to the south of Speke’s Lake or anywhere else. 
The dividing line between the drainage south and north 
was unknown and a fit object for exploration. 1 recom- 
mended Dr. Kirk for the task, and he having declined I 
ultimately accepted it myself in the belief that I could in 
two years pass across the head of Nyassa, examine the 
water-shed, and in returning begin a benevolent mission 
on the slope back again to the sea. Had 1 known all the 
toil, hunger, hardship, and time involved in getting a clear 
idea of the drainage, I might have preferred a strait waist- 
coat, the head shaved, and a blister on it, to undertaking 
the task. The water-shed is 800 miles long from west to 
east. Forwards, backwnrds, sideways I went, in a route 
which can never all be put down. I had to feel my f way, 
