The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-15

Poncet. on a great river which flows from
southeast to northwest, and which is called
Bahr- -Bura, or Bahr-Munbutu. This river,
they saw, which evidently comes from Lake
Luta N'zige, divides itself in about four de-
grees of north latitude into two branches,
that to the east flowing, under the name OF
Suwa, TO the northwest, to go probably to
form the Shary or Asu, which throws itself,
after its junction with the Bah-gun
or Bah-bai into Lake Tsad. The west
keeps it's name of Bahr-Bura, and flows
in a west-northwest direction to about the
sixth degree of north latitude, at which point,
according to the Munbutu people, after re-
ceiving another considerable affluent coming
likewise from the southeast, it emptes itself
into great lake. in part marshy, and which
was called by the people of Ali Umuri, an
Arab trader, Birka Matuassat. This lake,
again, is described as having two outlets: one
to the north known as the Bah-gun or Bah-bai,
joins the Shary south of Lake Tsad the other
and the most important, issuing from the
west end of the lake, according to all appear
ances gives birth to the Binuwa Niger, or, at
| all events, to an affluent of the Binuwa and
Kwarra-the Kibbi or Kulla-which in that
case will possess much greater importance
than has hitherto been conceded to it-an i'm
portance equal to that Of the Binuwa or
Kwarra itself.
1t is not likely that there should be so much
| division and subdivision of waters as is here
| described. Excepting in a delta, the general
rule of rivers is to receive affluents in their
progress to the sea, and not to divide off
into branches; but the region between the
Albert N'yanza and the Gazelle Lake is
nothing more than an inland delta, as is also
| apparently the case at the north end of the
| Victoria N'yanza, and the same thing may
| hold good of the Bahr-Bura and Lake Ma
| tuassat.
This latter lake would appear to correspond
| to the Muato Yanvo, of which the old geo.
| grapher DAnville obtained some notice, and
near which was Monsol, or Munsul, capital
of the Anziko, proximately placed on the
map attached to Mr.. w. d. Cooleys Timer
Africa Laid Open" (London, 1862.
1t appears that an Italian explorer, Carlo
Piagga, has also pushed his researches in the
same direction, and that he las obtained in
| formation of the existence of "a vast interior
| lake lying on the equator or south of it; and
Sir r. L. bIurchison has justly pointed out
| that an entirely new field for research is thus
| laid open to the enterprise of explorers, who
will have to determine whether the streams
| issuing from this immense lake and the adj
| jacent region to the west of twenty-five de-
| grees east longitude do not flow from
| watershed entirely separated from that of all
| the afhuents of the Nile, and which sends its
waters into the South Alantic Ocean, and pro-
DaDly up tne BreaC l1Nef Oh congo.
1t would scarcely seem that the immense
lake here alluded to as lying on the equator,
or south of it, is the same as the Matuassat of
Messrs. Poncet, which is placed in about six
| degrees north latitude, unless it has an ex-
| tent of some six degrees, which is not at all
impossible. Albert N'yanza has possibly an
| almost equal extent, and, if it joins Lake
Tanganyika, would embrace in its prolonga-
| tion over ten degrees of latitude. 1t is GU
rious, in connection with Sir r. [. Murchi-
sons suggestion, that this great central lake
may give birth to the Congo, that Fernando
de Enciso speaks in his ''Suma de Geografa,"
| of fact learned from the natives of Congo,
| that the River Zaire, or Congo, rises from a
| lake in the interior, from which another great
river, presumed to be the Nile, flows in an
opposite direction. This may be one of the
rivers seen by Sir Samuel Baker, tumbling
through gorges in the Blue Mountains west of
the Albert N'yanza.
The theory, however, advocated by the
Messrs Poncet, of Lake Matuassat sending
off tributaries to the Binuwa Niger, and to
the Shary and Lake Tsad as also by Fernando
de Enciso and Sir r. l. Murchison, to the
Congo, only corroborates the old opinion held
by the father of history and by all the old
geographers, that one half of the Nile flowed
over Egypt and the other half over Ethiopia.
''There are two mountains, said Herodotus,
of Minerals treasury at Lais, ''rising into
sharp peak, situated between the city of
Syene in Thebais and Elephantine; the names
of these mountains are the one Crophi and
the other MophI; that the sources Of the Nile,
which are bottomless, flow from between
these mountains, and that half of the water
flows over Egypt and to the north, and the
other half over Ethiopia and the south.
The sources of the Nile, being described as
bottomless, are evidently meant as issuing
from lake, and it is afterwards that they
pass through the mountains, the names of
which, admitting an error in their positioning,
would be represented by the Koshi and Madi
of the present day. The transposition and
| identification are rendered all the more neces-
sary, as the sources Of the Nile could not
have been between Syene and Elephantine,
nor could the river have divided itself in such
a latitude to flow one-half to Egypt and the
other half to Ethiopia. 1t is remarkable that
the Oriental geogaphers, as more especially
Al Idrisi and Abul Fada, represent this divi-
sion of the head waters of the Nile into an
Egyptian and an Ethiopian river as a we'll
determined fact.
Such, then, are some of the points to be de-
termined by the navigation and exploration
of the Albert N'yanza, and they are of the
greatest possible interest, as they will proba-
bly, either themselves lead to the unveiling Of
the mystery which has 50 long made bl NIX
of our maps in as far as Central Africa is con-
cerned, or they may paye.the way to the
gradual unfolding Of every detail connected
with the origin of the Nile, the Congo, an1
the Binuwa Kwarra, or Eastern Niger, of the
Egyptian Nile, and the Ethiopic Nile.
Interesting and curious as the solution Of
L A