The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-21 00:00:00

THAMES.

AN INCORRIGIBLE YOUNG THIEF.—A poor woman,
Elizabeth Loney, the wife of a labourer in the service of
the General Steam Navigation Company, entered the wit-
ness box, sobbing loudly, and much affected, and at the
same time her son, Richard Loney, a stubborn boy, aged
12i years, was arraigned in the dock, charged with robbing
his parents.
The mother of the prisoner said her son had repeatedly
plundered her of money. She had lost a florin, and six
pences and shillings. Yesterday morning she went out on
an errand, leaving her purse, containing 35., under her pil-
low. On her return there were only 2s. in the purse. The
prisoner was out all day and in bad company, and when
ho was found at night he admitted stealing the shilling.
Richard Loney, the father of the boy, gave a very bad
account of him, and said ho was anxious to save him. lie
had sent his son to school, and he could road and write
well. On being asked why he did not obtain employment
for his son, he said ho could not entrust hhn anywhere.
He pilfered everything he could lay his hands on.
Mr. Partridge—How many children have you to main•
taiu ?

Witness—Two, sir—this boy and a daughter, 20 years
of age. He has continually robbed us. He has got into
bad company. I don't know what to do with him. If he
is left at home for a moment ho steals something and
runs away. I wish you to correct him.
Mr. Partridge was of opinion that the parents of a boy
were the best persons to correct and reform him. It was
a sad case, indeed. He would remand the prisoner for a
week, and on Thursday next decide what was to be done
with him,

A BENEFACTOII—BEYOND THE PLANTING OF AN
ACORN.—The Earl of Seafield has planted on his
Strathspey estate, during the past eight years, upwards of
16,000,000 plants, being at an average of two millions
annually.

.•
In this splendidly appointed volume Captain Speke
has recounted with manly simplicity and with per-
fect ingenuousness the precise manner in which he
was enabled to accomplish his magnificent enter-
prise.
As the Discoverer of The Source of the
Nile—emphatically the Source of the Nile (for one
of the Sources, the lesser of the two Sources, James
Bruce has still the glory of having brought to light
a century ago)—Captain J. H. Speke, aided
by his friend and companion, Captain J. W.
Grant, is now known to have achieved, in our
own time, what had previously baffled the efforts
repeatedly made towards its acquisition, alternately.
sometimes oven simultateously, by the imperial
rulers of the world, by the mightiest of conquerors,
by the most daring of adventurers. It is recorded
in ancient history how both Alexander the Great
and Ptolemy Philudelphas respectively, strove to
solve the very problem which has nevertheless
remained inscrutable until the date of its actual
solution, very recently, by the gallant English-
man, the author of this enthralling narrative.
Equally, by Julius Caesar, as, before him, by Alex-
ander and by Ptolemy, the alluring, nay it should
rather be said the absolutely captivating, project,was
cherished. Lucan in melodious numbers avers this
of Cm jar, as Seneca subsequently, in his stately
prose, recounts the like of his infamous pupil, that
later and degenerate Caesar, the Emperor Nero.
This heretofore apparently all but insoluble pro-
blem being, in effect, quite simply, the source whence
flows northwards from the mountainous interior
of the great African Continent, the mighty current
of the River Nile, along a length of more than two
thousand miles down to the point at which its
sweet and sacred waters are mingled with those of

the blue and tideless Mediterranean. Happily, the
mystery surrounding the fountain-head of the Nile,
is as mystery now no longer. Captains 6peko and
Grant have cleared it up, for once and for all, and
they have done this not, observe, partially, but
altogether. Several years ago Captain speke may
be said to have put his finger upon the spot upon
the map at which he believed that the Source of the
Nile would be discovered eventually. That, spot being
upon the borders of the Lake Victoria N'ynnza—
a lake situated in lat. 2.50 S., at an elevation of
3,740 feet above the level of the sea, ninety miles in
breadth, three hundred in length. There, in that
half-fabulous region in the south-eastern division
of Africa—among the shadows of what are for
Europeans the untrodden Mountains of the Moon,
mountains familiar at least by name to the reader
of Loekaley Hall, as sacred to the worship of Mumbo-
jumbo—there in Lake Victoria N'yanza, it was con-
fidently felt in 1857.8, by Captain Speke, that the
Niie would eventually be found to take its rise. So
confident was he of this, that his very confidence
powerfully impressed even the least credulous of
contemporary geographers. By one of the
commentators upon his lucubrations descriptive of
the African regions he had even then traversed, it
was remarked some time back with considerable
emphasis, "If by subsequent travel this gallant
explorer shall demonstrate the accuracy of this
opinion [that is, that the source of the Nile would be
discovered at last upon the borders of the Victoria
N'yanza] to him must be awarded the honour of
having solved the greatest geographical problem of
ancient or modern times." How entirety that if
has been cleared away by Captain Speke, how far
that gallant explorer has made good his claim to
the honour awarded to him, thus conditionally,;by
anticipation, let his own unadorned statement
of a fact—of the paramount fact—related in this
lengthened Journal of his last African wanderings,
at once quite clearly indicate without a word
of circumlocution. The passage we are about to
give is, beyond all doubt of it, the most important
passage in the whole volume. It affords us, as
through a loophole a glimpse of the goal won at
last !—that is, of the Source of the Nile as at length
reached at—

" THE STONES"—ON THE VICTORIA ',CYAN ZA.
Az LAST, with a good push for it, crossing hills and thread-
ing huge grasses, as well as extensive village plantations
lately devastated by elephants—they had eaten all that was
eatable, and what would not serve for food they had destroyed
with their trunks, not one plantain or one hut being let 't
entire—we arrived at the extreme end of the journey, the
farthest point ever visited by the expedition en the same
parallel of latitude as King Mtesa's palace, and just forty

miles east of it.
We were well rewarded ; for the " Stones," as the
Waganda call the Falls, was by far the most interesting
sight I had seen in Africa. Everybody ran to see them at
once, though the march had been long and fatiguing; and
even my sketch-block was called into play. Though beau-
tiful, the scene was not exactly what I expected ; for the
broad surface of the lake was shut out from view by a spur
of hills, and the falls, about 12 feet deep, and 400 to 600 teat
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 gardens on the lower slopes—as
interesting a picture as one could wish to see.
The expedition had now performed its functions.
[Note this.] I saw that old Father Nile, without
any doubt, rises in the Victoria N'yanza, and, as
j lead 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 I had lost by the delays in the journey
having deprived me of the pleasure of going to look at the
there was, by the strait so often spoken of, with it and the
north-oasttheotherlackoernwer of
herethteheNw'angda went to get their salt, Nyanza, to see what connection
and from which another river flowed to the north, making
Ya
" Usoga an island." but I felt I ought to be content with
what I had been spared to accomplish ; for I had seen full
half of the lake, and hal information given me of the other
half, by means of which I knew all about the lake, as far,
at least, as the chief objects of geographical importance
were concerned.

e2Bthis of July, 1862, that Captain
and arrivedthree-quarters his long wished-for destina-
tion.lt Speke was
Ao n
year the
at this
quarters previously he
had set out upon his last and crowning expedition
of discovery, 'verifying his confident as-
sertion, years previously made, and
two o bent
three uP on
to—his unhesitatingly posi-
tivethat in the outlet of the
already
and hero
explicit
av avowal
w a l
Victoria
the Nyanvantain.i
(Nyanzaa, d mtheaenminygs,tebryiotuhserwisainyg,
simply "pond") would sooner or later be found the
of the River Nile- by nis ii,„wit„ie
perseverance,
his prediction of the remit cer-
tain
to be
arrived
at,ll be himself has happily
been
Accomplishing his feat
only, however, by means of a journey made on foot
enabled t o f fulfil lfi
over a distance of fully one thousand five hundred
miles! Having in attendance upon him while pas-
sing through these vast districts of savage Africa—
districts for the most part wholly unexplored until
then by Europeans--it cluster of native porters or
negro freedmen, liberated slaves called Wanguanas
—and as his one solitary English companion,
Captain Grant, to whose Penchi the Journal of Cap-
tain Spekegri Travels, as now published by Messrs.
Blackwood, are indeb;e4 fora profusion of very clever
and every one of them Oirice-welcome illustrations.
The Wanguanas, it elould be said, are the roughs
or rowdies of the Afrisan population. Those selected
by Captain Speke on starting upon his enterprize,
numbered, in all, to begin with, seventy-six—that is
to say when he set lais face westwards on the 3d of
October, 1860, and, qtitting the coast of the main-
land immediately ()Nolte the Island of Zanzibar
began the first of his ong series of marches in that
westerly direction, marches that extended in that
direction steadily fo' five or six hundred miles
altogether. Not anti that distance from the west
had been reached did ',lapt. Speke turn northwards.
Long before then his 4eventy• five African porters
had dwindled down nanerically by a succession of
desertions. Arrived,however, at length at some-
where about the sow meridian as the Victoria
Lake, or Pond, or Nyanza—northwards, the ex-
plorer then did turn is earnest with his diminished
body of attendants, tad with Capt. Grant, his one
gallant English companion. The little party turned
northwards then and there—advancing first of
all midway between the oblong lake of Tangan-
yika and the triangular lake, pond, or N'yenza