Year: 1872




Where Are the Sources OF that Won
derful Rivers


In addition to the gratifying dispatches
which we give to our readers this morning, in
reference to DR.. Livingstone and the success
of Mr.. Stanley in his perilous adventure in
search of the long-missing explorer of Eastern
Equatorial Africa, we publish two very in
teresting letters from the HERALD expedition
up the Nile, under the generous protection and
cooperation of the enlightened Viceroy of
Egypt It will be remembered that Sir Samuel
Baker had been despatched by the Viceroy up
the Nile at the head of powerful and admirably
equipped military expedition, including light
draught and portable steamers and other boats
for the navigation of the river that his object
was the exploration and annexation to Egypt
| of the whole Nile basin to its sources, and it
| will be remembered that after he had been
gone several months on this important mission
news came of q mutiny among Sir Samuers
troops, and that as he was seriously wounded
he and his expedition, if not lost, were in
great peril. Upon this hint our Nile expedi-
ton was undertaken in search of this greatly
distinguished African explorer, and, as we
have sail, with the generous cooperation of
the enlightened Khedive.


With the news from this expedition that
Baker was not only alive and unhurt, but was
pushing ahead bravely far up the river, in the
heavy work Of opening way around its
cataracts and through its reedy flats for the
passage of his vessels, the object of our expedi-
ton was enlarged to the design Of joining and
accompanying Sir Samuel to the end of his up
river journey, and not without the hope of a
the head streams or lakes of the mighty Nile.
With this explanation the reader will discover
that though widely separated, our African
expedition from Zanzibar and this other one
from Cairo have the common objects in view
of the solution of the mystery Of the Nile
sources and the finding OF DR.. Livingstone.
| Apart, however, from this view of the subject,
the letters which we publish to-day from
our Nile expedition will be found very in
teresting in the accounts given of the city of
Khartoum and its people and its trade, and of
that mysterious, blind old despot, the unap-
proachable Sultan of Darfour and his kingdom
of African barbarians We are sorry that Mr..
Southworth found it impossible to get sais-
factory invitation to visit this puissant Sultan ;
and our commissioner acted wisely in not
risking this adventure, in which the white
man who attempts it mysteriously disappears.
We presume, however, that this royal rebuff
will not interfere with the main object of Mr..
Southworths expedition.


And now for the long undiscovered mys-
teries of the Nile. They were three and they
are now reduced to one. They were, first, the
sources of the great river second, the supply
of the annual inundation of Egypt, and third,
the supply of the inexhaustible volume of the
river through all the year, Notwithstanding its
course of over fourteen hundred miles through
roasting desert without tributary, and the
enormous quantities Of its water exhaled by
the sun, absorbed by the sands and used in
the irrigation Of the fields of Egypt
Sir Samuel Baker has solved these last two
problems by actual observation. He saw fol
himself that the enormous spring rainfall or
Abyssinia through the Atbara and Blue Nile
bring down the annual inundation of Egypt
He saw, for instance, one night, as by o tida
wave, the dry bed of the Atbara changed int
deep and rapid river, half mile wide ant
this was but the beginning of the Abyssiniar
food. Next, he saw for himself that the never
failing stream Of the Nile-the White Nile, o
main river-is furnished from the equatoria
rains which fill up those great equatorin
lakes, or reservoirs, to APPOINT which maintains
the steady volume of the river through all th'
dry season.


But the main question, the sources of th'
Nile, which Spoke and Grant and Burton sup
posed they had discovered in the great equa
torial lake, Victoria Nyanza, and which Baker
supposed be bad found in the Albert Nyanza