DOWN THE VICTORIA NILE 
141 
animal life is astonishing. Here are birds as bright as butterflies; 
butterflies as big as birds. The air hums with flying creatures, the 
earth fairly crawls with creeping life. Through it passes the telegraph 
wire running north to Gondokoro, the very poles of which break into 
bud. In the forest itself huge trees jostle each other for room to live, 
lower plants throng the soil, and the trees are fettered together with 
a thick tangle of twining parasites, which at intervals burst into a sea 
of bright blossoms. 
But we must hurry on to the falls themselves, the most remark¬ 
able in the whole course of the Nile. The cataracts begin many miles 
above, the river hurrying forward in foam down a continuous stair¬ 
way inclosed by rocky walls. It is still, however, a broad flood, but, 
about two miles above Fajao, these walls suddenly contract until they 
are less than six yards apart, and through this narrow opening the 
whole great stream shoots like water from the nozzle of a hose, pour¬ 
ing in a single jet and with a far-reaching roar down an abyss of a 
hundred and sixty feet in depth. 
On seeing the great size of the river below the falls it is difficult 
to believe that this vast volume of water comes through that single 
spout. On climbing to the summit of the rock, through clouds of spray 
and a thunder of sound, the observer can walk within an inch of the 
edge, and lying down can look over into the torment of foam below. 
It seems as if the rock must have been worn away to a great extent 
below, for otherwise it seems impossible for so much water to pass 
through so narrow a space. 
The Nile below the falls swarms with crocodiles, and farther 
down are herds of hippopotami, so that the stream throbs with life. 
The crocodiles haunt this spot on the lookout for the dead fish and 
animals carried over by the water, even the great hippos from the 
upper river being often caught and hurled down the watery cliff. So 
numerous are the saurians that at a rifle shot hundreds of them may 
be seen rushing from the banks into the Nile, the water of which they 
churn into milk-white foam. 
We can perhaps best tell the story of these falls and also of the 
lake of which they form the threshold, in the words of their discov¬ 
erer, Sir Samuel Baker. On his journey of exploration into Central 
