DOWN THE VICTORIA NILE 
M3 
In the desperation of the moment, he and several of his men 
seized her, and dragged her across, sinking in the weeds up to their 
waists, and just keeping her head above water. She lay perfectly 
insensible, as though dead, with clenched hands and set teeth, all 
efforts at restoring animation being for a time utterly useless. When 
at length these had succeeded, she was gently borne forward like a 
corpse—the rattle was in her throat, and the end seemed to be very 
near. Three days of insensibility were followed by seven more of 
brain-fever and delirium. Preparations were made for the worst, 
which it was believed had actually come; but the spark of life was not 
fully extinguished, and it began to brighten, and by and by burnt more 
steadily. It was now possible to move, and at the close of the sixteenth 
day from M’rooli they were at the village of Parkani, one hundred 
miles on a straight line from M’rooli; and they began to hope once 
more that the object of these two years’ weary wanderings was close 
at hand. 
They did not suppose that it was actually within one day’s march; 
yet such was really the case. On the day before they arived at 
Parkani, Baker had observed, at a great distance to the northwest of 
their course, a range of very lofty mountains. He fancied that the 
lake must lie on the other side of this range, but now he was informed 
that these mountains were the western boundary of the Nzige, and 
that if he started early he might reach it by noon. Accordingly on the 
14th of March, 1864, starting early, he, “the first European who had 
ever seen it,” looked on this magnificent body of water. 
“It is impossible,” he says, “to describe the triumph of that 
momenthere was the reward for all our labor—for the years of ten¬ 
acity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the 
sources of the Nile! I was about 1,500 feet above the lake, and I 
looked down from the steep granite cliff upon those welcome waters, 
upon that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt and brought fertility 
where all was wilderness, upon that great source so long hidden from 
mankind, that source of bounty and of blessings to millions of human 
beings; and as one of the greatest objects of nature, I determined to 
honor it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one 
loved and mourned by our gracious Queen and deplored by every Eng- 
