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I took off my clothes at the end of the bridge and jumped into the stream, which I found was twelve yards or so broad, and deeper than my height. I was delighted beyond measure at this very surprising fact, that I was indeed on the northern slopes of the continent, and had, to all appearance, found one of the branches of the Nile's exit from the N'yanza.
That there can be no high mountain-range intersecting the N'yanza from the watercourses which we hear of north of the equator, as some people have supposed, is evident from the numerous accounts given of the kingdom of Uganda being so flat and marshy from the equator to 2o or 3o north latitude; whilst I must have seen any, did they exist, on the south side of the equator, being only 150 miles from it when standing on its southern shore.
The Kagera was deep and dark, of itself a very fine stream, and, considering it was only one and that, too, a minor one of the various affluents which drain the mountain valleys into the Victoria N'yanza through the medium of the Kitangule river, I saw at once there must be water sufficient to make the Kitangule a very powerful tributary to the lake.
The most severe instrument of chastisement is a knob-stick, sharpened at the back, like that used in Uganda, for breaking a man's neck before he is thrown into the N'yanza; but this severity is seldom resorted to, Kamrasi being of a mild disposition compared with Mtesa, whom he invariably alludes to when ordering men to be flogged, telling them that were they in Uganda, their heads would suffer instead of their backs.
That river, which had become so curiously obstructed by masses of vegetation that had formed a solid dam, already described by me in "The Albert N'yanza," had been entirely neglected by the Egyptian authorities. In consequence of this neglect an extraordinary change had taken place.
It is the same piece of water we heard of in Karague as the Little Luta Nzige, beyond Utumbi; and the same story of Unyoro being an island circumscribed by it and the Victoria N'yanza connected by the Nile, is related here, showing that both the Karague and Unyoro people, as indeed all negroes and Arabs, have the common defect in their language, of using the same word for a peninsula and an island.
My former travels, as described in "The Albert N'yanza," had led me behind the curtain, and the traders were well aware that I knew every secret of their atrocities; thus my reappearance upon the scene with rank of pacha and major-general, at the head of a small army, together with the possession of absolute and supreme power, threw the entire population into a state of consternation.
Signor Gessi was entrusted with the command of the two life-boats upon their completion, and had the honour of first entering the Albert N'yanza from the north by the river Nile. The plan of connecting the equatorial Lake Albert with Khartoum by steam communication which I had originated, was now completed by the untiring energy and patience of my successor.
Then, turning to geography, I told Abdulla all I had written and lectured in England concerning his stories about navigators on the N'yanza, which I explained must be the Nile, and wished to know if I should alter it in any way: but he said, "Do not; you may depend it will all turn out right;" to which Musa added, all the people in the north told him that when the N'yanza rose, the stream rushed with such violence it tore up islands and floated them away.
* This faithful black, a native of the White Nile regions, subsequently became my servant, and, for four years accompanied us honestly and courageously through all our difficulties to the Albert N'yanza.
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