Vlll 
PREFACE. 
Grant won the Victoria source of the great White 
Nile; and I have been permitted to succeed in com¬ 
pleting the Nile Sources by the discovery of the 
great reservoir of the equatorial waters, the Albert 
N’yanza, from which the river issues as the entire 
White Nile. 
Having thus completed the work after nearly five 
years passed in Africa, there still remains a task before 
me. I must take the reader of these volumes by the 
hand, and lead him step by step along my rough path 
from the beginning to the end; through scorching 
deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp, and jungle, 
and interminable morass; through difficulties, fatigues, 
and sickness, until I bring him, faint with the wearying 
journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall 
burst "upon his view—from which he shall look down 
upon the vast Albert Lake, and drink with me from 
the Sources of the Nile ! 
I have written “ he ! ” How can I lead the more 
tender sex through dangers and fatigues, and passages 
of savage life ? A veil shall be thrown over many 
scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but 
