DOWN THE VICTORIA NILE 
i37 
The Albert Nyanza lies at a height of two thousand three hun¬ 
dred feet above sea level, so that in its first two hundred miles the Nile 
descends more than one-third of its whole fall. This is done in two 
long stretches of rapids, one about thirty miles long below the Ripon 
Falls, and another of the same length above the Murchison Falls. 
Between and below these rapids it flows level and smooth, midway in 
its course running through another large body of water. Lake Chi- 
oga, which, like the other two lakes, forms one of the feeders of the 
Nile. 
With this necessary explanation, we can go on in our path down 
the Victoria Nile, the first part of which must be made in a march 
through the forest to Kakindu, the head of navigation on the Nile; 
the second part by canoes or motorboats down the stream and across 
Lake Chioga; the third part again through the forest past the Mur¬ 
chison rapids, and then by boat or through the woods along the lower 
stream to the Albert Lake. 
The forest travel of our first stage, from camp to camp, is a cus¬ 
tomary incident in the life of a Central African traveler. He goes 
“on safari” as the Boer goes “on trek.” “Safari” is a Swahali word, 
of Arabic origin, meaning an expedition and all its belongings. In it 
are included the traveler and all his companions and baggage. It 
embraces his food, tents, rifles, clothing; his cooks, servants, escort 
and porters, the latter especially, as porters are essential elements of 
forest travel, in which all the impedimenta of an expedition must be 
carried on men’s heads and shoulders. The British officer, on an 
official expedition, comes to think of a ten or twenty days “Safari” as 
we would of a journey to Alaska or Hawaii. 
Instead of making the wearisome journey ourselves, let us follow 
in the footsteps of a traveler who gives us a graphic and picturesque 
description of the route. Here is the experience of Winston Churchill, 
in his forest trip down the stream. After taking a long and lingering 
look at Ripon Falls he committed himself to the forest depths. The 
porters had already been long on the road with their burdens and he 
thus describes the route by which he followed them: 
“The native path struck northeast from the Nile, and led into a 
hilly and densely wooded region. The elephant grass on each side of 
