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The guide Rabonga now appeared, and declared that if we started early on the following morning we should be able to wash in the lake by noon! That night I hardly slept. For years I had striven to reach the "sources of the Nile."
After some hours the people returned, minus the boatmen, with a message from the headman of a village they had visited, that the oxen were there, but not the guide Rabonga, who had remained at Magungo, but that the animals should be brought to us that evening, together with porters to convey the luggage.
At sunrise on the following morning I took the compass, and accompanied by the chief of the village, my guide Rabonga, and the woman Bacheeta, I went to the borders of the lake to survey the country. It was beautifully clear, and with a powerful telescope I could distinguish two large waterfalls that cleft the sides of the mountains on the opposite shore.
I impressed upon our guide and the chief that we must be furnished with large canoes immediately, as we had no time to spare, and I started off Rabonga to Magungo, where he was to meet us with our riding oxen. The animals would be taken by a path upon the high ground; there was no possibility of travelling near the lake, as the cliffs in many places descended abruptly into deep water.
We had heard voices for some time while obscured on the other side of the rushes, and we now found a number of natives, who had arrived to meet us, with the chief of Magungo and our guide Rabonga, whom we had sent in advance with the riding oxen from Vacovia. The water was extremely shallow near the shore, and the natives rushed in and dragged the canoes by sheer force over the mud to the land.
Added to the distress of mind at being thus thwarted, there was also a great scarcity of provision. Many of my men were weak, the whole party having suffered much from fever in fact, we were completely helpless. Our guide Rabonga, who had accompanied us from M'rooli, had absconded, and we were left to shift for ourselves.
The guide Rabonga now appeared, and declared that if we started early on the following morning we should be able to wash in the lake by noon! That night I hardly slept. For years I had striven to reach the "sources of the Nile."
We were informed that we had arrived at Magungo, and after skirting the floating reeds for about a mile we entered a broad channel, which we were told was the embouchure of the Somerset River from Victoria N'yanza. In a short time we landed at Magungo, where we were welcomed by the chief and by our guide Rabonga, who had been sent in advance to procure oxen.
I told my vakeel to return to me with the fifty men, and to be sure to bring from Kamrasi some token by which I should know that he had actually seen him. The vakeel and Yaseen started. After some days the absconded guide, Rabonga, appeared with a number of men, but without either my vakeel or Yaseen.
Rabonga made a lame excuse for his previous desertion; he delivered a thin ox that Kamrasi had sent me, and he declared that his orders were, that he should take my whole party immediately to Kamrasi, as he was anxious that we should attack Fowooka without loss of time; we were positively to start on the following morning!
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