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Around the boat stood crowds of Africans, their dark faces full of astonishment at the white man mending his big canoe. "Why should a man toil so terribly hard?" they wondered. The tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed out from a tree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn together with fibres from the banana tree. At last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the Victoria Nyanza.
The expedition not only explored the western and northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, but followed for some distance the river proceeding northwards from it, which they held, and as we now know, correctly, to be the main stream of the Nile. Burton, however, was still of the opinion that the honour of being the head waters of that river belonged to Tanganyika and its affluents.
A terrible tale of man-eating lions is told by Colonel Patterson in his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo. Colonel Patterson had been ordered for service on the Uganda Railway, which runs from Mombasa north-westwards through British East Africa to the great lake Victoria Nyanza, the largest source-lake of the Nile.
To-day Islam dominates Africa north of ten degrees north latitude and is strong between five and ten degrees north latitude. In the east it reaches below the Victoria Nyanza. Christianity early entered Africa; indeed, as Mommsen says, "It was through Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world.
This order is formal and admits of no delay. You will appreciate the necessity of absolute and unquestioning obedience when I tell you that I am practically on the brink of the most astonishing discovery recorded in natural history since Monsieur Zani discovered the purple-spotted zoombok in Nyanza; and that I depend upon you and your zeal and fidelity for success.
After two months' work the now dumpier Daisy took the water again, and carried Mackay and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria Nyanza to the goal of all his travelling, the capital of M'tesa, King of Uganda. The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs.
The German forces were greatly superior to those of the British in East Africa, and the Uganda railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria Nyanza running parallel with the frontier was a tempting object of attack. The Germans took the offensive against the British north and south-west, without achieving any great success.
It is grateful as well as kind, and readily acknowledges kind actions. Curiously enough, Captain Speke found this quality of character recognised even by the natives of Uganda on the shores of Lake Nyanza, in the heart of Africa, where, he says. "Ingratitude, or neglecting to thank a person for a benefit conferred, is punishable."
Had they not given their own mistaken views, the wise foresight by which she provided a steamer, would inevitably have led her to pull up, and by canoes to reach Lake Bangweolo's sources full five hundred miles south of the most southerly part of Victoria Nyanza. She evidently possesses some of the indomitable pluck of Van Tromp, whose tomb every Englishman who goes to Holland must see.
Kilimanjaro, 18,881 feet high, and Kenia, in the equatorial regions of Central Africa, are about 150 miles from the Victoria Nyanza, and a still greater distance from the ocean; and Mount Demavend, in Persia, which rises to an elevation of 18,464 feet near the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, a volcanic mountain of the first magnitude, is now extinct or dormant.
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