The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-11-12
THE NILE MYSTERY.

y Review of what Has Seen Already Dis
covered in Regard to the Niles Sources
An Intelligible Statement of What STAN
ley Has Done and Is To DO.
The march of Stanley on this expedi-
ton from the East African coast through
a wilderness of 700 miles of difficult
swamps, iungles, malaria, and hostile
tribes OF sayages, furnishes one of the
most remarkable examples of military
sagacity, discipline and heroism, forti-
tude and successful perseverance of all
the heroic adventures into the heart of
aboriginal Africa. Yet it is apparent,
from his first reports of his fifty-eight
days reconnaissance of the Victoria
Lake, that the civilized world will be
amply rewarded for his labors, whatever
NAV be the fate in those African wilds
reserved for him. He is so completely
acclimatej, however, to the pestilential
mir of Equatorial Africa, so thoroughly
experienced as an African traveller, so
quick to provide for all probable contin-
gencies Of danger, and so fully informed
MS to the field of labor still before him,
that we have the highest confidence that
he will return from his enterprise
crowned with ali the honors of complete
success.
He has established the truth of
Spekes report that the Victoria Lake
is one vast body of water, and not a
chain of lakes, as conjectured to be by
Burton and as supposed to be by Liv-
ingstone. He has shown TO the world
that the wild tribes inhabiting the shores
of this great lake occupy large tracts of
amazing fertility, and that these people
are rich in their resources of cattle and
elephants for profitable trade with the
outside world. Unquestionably his dis
closures of these riches will shortly at
tract the 'enterprising mercantile spirit
of England and the United States to the
project of opening a commercial high
way from the seaboard to the Victoria
Niyanza We anticipate a similar re-
port from the Albert Niyanza.
Sir Samuel Baker, i'll his famous mill
tary expedition up the Nile in the ser.
vice of the enlightened and progressive
Khedive of Egypt, narrowly escaped
with his command from the treacherous
and warlike savages and slave traders on
the peninsula between these two great
lakes but he gave those savages such a
wholesome chastisemept that they have
since been comparatively peaceable.
General Gordon and Capt. Long, too, at
present in the Khedive's s service, have re-
Gently impressed those tribes with the
invincible power of the white man, SO
that in crossing over from the Victoria
TO the Albert Lake we expect that Stan
lev will find friends among those tribes
instead of enemies. In his circumnavi-
CATION of the Albert Lake, which has
been explored only by Baker southwark
for 100 miles or so from its northern
outlet. Stanley may solve the only re-
manning mystery of the Nile, which is
its reported connection with the Tan
oanyika. IT was by some of the natives
reported to Baker, while on the borders
of this lake on his military expedition,
that there was navigable connection
between this lake and the Tanganyika
but this report was treated as invention,
with the fact before the world that Liv-
inpstone and Stanley, in canoe trip
from Uiiji to the north end of the Tan
panyika, found there n river with q
strong current from the north flowing
into the lake. Thus a dividing ridge
was established between the two lakes,
and vet there may be a navigable con
nection between them, as we shall pres
emily show. Proceeding now to gen
eral explanation of the Central African
discoveries, we find that these recorded
results of many explorations within the
last sixty years are due to the lofty am
bition and the inspiring temptation ol
discovering the source or sources OF the
wonderful Nile, and of its steady anC
never failing stream, and of its annua
fertilizing inundation of Egypt. Bruce
on reaching in Abyssinia the sources o
the Blue Nile, thought he had discovered
the head springs of the main river bu
the Blue Nile to the White Nile bears
hardly the same comparison of lengtl
and drainage that the Upper MississIp
pi bears to the greater Missouri.
The Viceroy of Egypt's expedition
over thirty years ago, was the first regu
larly organized and equipped undertak
ing to determine the length and sources
of the White Nile or main river. Thi
expedition ascended the stream from
the cataracts of Egypt to point fou
degrees north of the equator, and within
q hundred miles of Lake Albert, when
dispirited and exhausted, it faced abou
and returned down the river to Cairo