360 
LEAVE MAGTJNGO. 
[chap. XII. 
in the Madi and Koshi country, the Nile that we now 
saw would not be the Nile of Gondokoro. We knew, 
however, that it was so, as Speke and Grant had gone 
by that route, and had met the Nile near Miani s tree 
in lat. 3° 34' in the Madi country, the Koshi being on 
its western bank; thus, as we were now at the Nile 
head and saw it passing through the Madi and Koshi, 
any argument against the river would be the argu- 
mentum ad absurdum. I ordered the boats to be got 
ready to start immediately. 
The chief gave me much information, confirming the 
accounts that I had heard a year previous in the La- 
tooka countries, that formerly cowrie shells were brought 
in boats from the south, and that these shells and brass 
coil brackets came by the lake from Karagwe. He 
called also several of the natives of Mallegga, who had 
arrived with beautifully-prepared mantles of antelope 
and goat-skins, to exchange for bracelets and glass 
beads. The Mallegga people were in appearance the 
same as those of Unyoro, but they spoke a different 
language. 
The boats being ready, we took leave of the chief, 
leaving him an acceptable present of beads, and we 
descended the hill to the river, thankful at having 
so far successfully terminated the expedition as to 
have traced the lake to that important point Magungo, 
which had been our clue to the discovery even so far 
away in time and place as the distant country of 
Latooka. We were both very weak and ill, and my 
knees trembled beneath me as we walked down the 
easy descent. I, in my enervated state, endeavouring 
to assist my wife, we were the “ blind leading the 
blind; ” but had life closed on that day we could have 
died most happily, for the hard fight through sick¬ 
ness and misery had ended in victory; and, although 
I looked to home as a paradise never to be regained, 
I could have lain down to sleep in contentment on 
this spot, with the consolation that, if the body had 
been vanquished, we died with the prize in our grasp. 
