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

The Great Nile Discoverer.

Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.
By John Henning Speke. One Vol. pp. 658.
Wm. Blackwood and Seas.
In this splendidly appointed volume Captain Speke
has recounted with manly simplicity and with per-
feet ingenuousness the precise manner in which he
WWI enabled to accomplish his magnificent enter-
prise.
As the Discoverer of The Source of the
Nile—emphatically the Source of the N:le (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 even simultaneously, 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 Philadelphus 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 Cse ear, as Seneca subsequently, in his stately
prose, rec3unts 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 a mystery now no longer. Captains Speke 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'yanza—
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 Lockaley Hall, as sacred to the worship of Mambo-
j umbo—there in Lake Victoria N'yanza, it was con-
fidently felt in 1857.8, by Captain Speke, that the
Nile 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'S anza] to him must be awarded the honour of
having solved the greatest geographical problem of
ancient or modern tima." How entirely 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 left
entire—we arrived at the extreme end of the journey, the
farthest point ever visited by the expedition on 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 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 bills, grasay-toppcd,
Nith 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
1 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 I had lost by the delays in the journey
having deprived me of the pleasure of going to look at the
north-east corner of the N,yartEra _ ,
to see what connection
oaverifyinghis
confident as-
sertion, d
there was, by the strait so often spoken of, with it and the
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 aught to be content with
for I had seen full
what I had been spared to accomplish ;
half of the lake, and had 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.
It was on the 28th of July, 1862, that Captain
A year and longthree-
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ianqaarters previously he
Spekeho
fa ddi
sc setao rvoreairvtyed u,
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o a thih
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o hiss wished-for
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last and crowning
two or three years previously made, and
already here adverted to—his unhesitatingly posi-
tive and explicit avowal that in the outlet of the
Victoria Nyanza (Nyanza meaning, by the way,
simply " pond") would sooner or later be found the
source, the fountainhead, the mysterious rising
of the River Nile. `IQ
--y his indomitable
perseverance, his prediction of the result cer-
tain to be arrived at, he himself has happily
been enabled to fulfil ! Accomplishing his feat
only, however, by means of a journey made on foot
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--a cluster of
native porters or
negro freedmen, liberated slaves called Wanguanas
—and as his one solitary English companion,
Captain Grant, to whcse pencil the Journal of Cap-
tain Speke's Travels, as now published by Messrs.
Blackwood, are indebted for a profusion of very clever
and every one of them thrice-welcome illustrations.
The Wanguanas, it should be said, are the roughs
or rowdies of the African 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 his
.face westwards on the 3d of
October, 1860, and, quitting the coast of the main-
land immediately opposite the Island of Zanzibar
began the first of his long series of marches in that
westerly direction, marches that extended in that
direction steadily for five or six hundred miles
altogether. Not until that distance from the west
had been reached did Capt. Speke turn northwards.
Long before then his seventy-five African porters
had dwindled down numerically by a succession of
desertions. Arrived, however, at length at some-
where about the same meridian as the Victoria
Lake, or Pond; or N'yanza—northwards, the ex-
plorer then did turn in earnest with his diminished
body of attendants, and 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'yanza