Chapter I. 
landscape, it forms a spectacle at once so imposing and so un¬ 
expected as to strike the imagination of those who behold it 
more forcibly than any other feature of the whole region, and 
so impresses itself upon their memory as not to be effaced by 
any subsequent vicissitude or experience of their journey. 
The opinion of Stanley, however, met with numerous 
opponents, including a number of competent geographers. 
The German explorer, Dr. O. Baumann, discovered the 
sources of the Kagera, the greatest tributary of the Victoria 
Nyanza, in the mountains of Missossi ya Mwesi, in Urundi, a 
district situated to the north-east of Lake Tanganika. These 
1 le considered to be the mountains mentioned by Ptolemy; 
Missossi ya Mwesi does, as a matter of fact, mean literally 
“ Mountains of the Moon. - ’ The surrounding country is called 
Charo elm Mwesi, which means “ Land of the Moon.” At the 
same time the Kagera, which had been called by Stanley the 
Alexandra Nile, may certainly be counted as the southernmost 
and one of the principal sources of the Eastern Nile. 
In England the theory of Dr. Baumann, in its general 
outline, has been accepted by Sir Clements Markham. Neither, 
indeed, has failed to recognize the objection that the small 
importance and low altitude of the Missossi ya Mwesi scarcely 
justify so far-reaching a celebrity. The natives of the Unyamwesi 
are certainly unconscious of the existence of the “ Mountains 
of the Moon” in their country. Years ago, in fact, Speke heard 
from them a tale of a marvellous mountain situated to the 
north of Kasagwe, a region to the west of the Victoria Nyanza. 
This mountain was said to be so high and so steep that no 
one could ever possibly ascend it, and to be rarely visible 
because it soared up into the clouds from which a pure white 
substance was wont to fall upon it. 
G 
