120 
WESTWARD TO LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA 
from the stream, passing through rich jungle and plantain gardens, 
and reached the Isamba Rapids on the 25th of July. The river is 
here extremely beautiful. The water runs between deep banks which 
are covered with fine grass, soft cloudy acacias, and festoons of lilac 
convolvuli. On the 28th, they reached Ripon Falls, after a long march 
over rough hills, and through extensive village plantations lately 
devastated by elephants. But they were well rewarded, for the falls 
were the most interesting sight that Speke had yet seen in Africa. 
“Everybody,” he says, “ran to see them at once, though the march 
had been long and fatiguing, and even my sketch-book was called 
into play. Though beautiful, the scene was not exactly what I 
expected; for the broad surface of the lake was shut out from view 
by a spur of hill, and the falls, about 12 feet deep, and 400 to 500 feet 
broad, were broken by rocks. Still it was a sight that attracted one 
to it for hours—the roar of the waters, the thousands of passenger- 
fish, leaping at the falls with all their might, the Wasoga and Waganda 
fishermen coming out in boats and taking post on all the rocks, with 
rod and hook, hippopotami and crocodiles lying sleepily on the water, 
the ferry at work above the falls, and cattle driven down to drink at 
the margin of the lake, made, in all, with the pretty nature of the 
country—small hills, grassy-topped, with trees in the folds, and gar¬ 
dens on the lower slopes—as interesting a picture as one could wish 
to see.” 
“The expedition,” he adds, “had now performed its functions. 
I saw that Old Father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria 
Nyanza, and, as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the 
holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief. 
I mourned, however, when I thought how much time I had lost by 
the delays in the journey which had deprived me of the pleasure of 
going to look at the northeast corner of the Nyanza to see what con¬ 
nection there was, by a strait frequently spoken of, between it and 
the other lake where the Waganda went to get their salt, and from 
which another river flowed to the north, making ‘Usoga an island/ 
But I felt I ought to be content with what I had been spared to accom¬ 
plish, for I had seen full half of the lake, and had information given 
me of the other half, by means of which I knew all about the lake, a$ 
