70 
SPEKE AND GRANT'S DISCOVERIES . [chap. ii. 
nately engaged by me for five months, thus Speke 
and Grant could take charge of them to Khartoum. 
At the first blush on meeting them I had considered 
my expedition as terminated by having met them, and 
by their having accomplished the discovery of the Nile 
source ; but upon my congratulating them with all my 
heart, upon the honour they had so nobly earned, 
Speke and Grant with characteristic candour and gene¬ 
rosity gave me a map of their route, showing that they 
had been unable to complete the actual exploration of 
the Nile, and that a most important portion still re¬ 
mained to be determined. It appeared that in N. lat. 
2° 17', they had crossed the Nile, which they had tracked 
from the Victoria Lake; but the river, which from its 
exit from that lake had a northern course, turned sud¬ 
denly to the west from Karuma Falls (the point at 
which they crossed it at lat. 2° 17'). They did not see 
the Nile again until they arrived in N. lat. 3° 32', which 
was then flowing from the W.S.W. The natives and 
the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them that 
the Nile from the Victoria N’yanza, which they had 
crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for several days’ 
journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the 
Luta N’zige; that this lake came from the south, and 
that the Nile on entering the northern extremity almost 
immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river con¬ 
tinued its course to the north, through the Koshi and 
Madi countries. Both Speke and Grant attached great 
importance to this lake Luta N’zige, and the former 
was much annoyed that it had been impossible for 
them to carry out the exploration. He foresaw that 
.stay-at-home geographers, who, with a comfortable 
arm-chair to sit in, travel so easily with their fingers 
on a map, would ask him why he had not gone from 
such a place to such a place ? why he had not followed 
the Nile to the Luta N’zige lake, and from the lake to 
Gondokoro ? As it happened, it was impossible for 
Speke and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma :— 
the tribes were fighting with Kamrasi, and no strangers 
