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Updated: May 28, 2025
Indeed, by all accounts of the country lying between the N'yanza, as seen by the Arabs in Uganda, and let us say Gondokoro, a mission station on the Nile, in north latitude 4o 44', which was occupied by two Austrian missionaries, Knoblecher and Dooyak, we find it is somewhat analogous to what we observed between the low Mrima or maritime plain in front of Zanzibar, and the high interior plateau, divided from one another by the East Coast Range, which is of granitic formation, the same in its nature exactly as those which they describe, and intersected by rivers so rapid and boisterous that no canoes can live upon them; as, for instance, we found the Kingani and Lufiji rivers were when passing over the East Coast Range.
They had various instruments with them; they fixed their station, Gondokoro, at 4o 44' north latitude by astronomical observations, and determined the altitude of the Nile's bed to be only 1605 feet above the sea, by numerous good barometrical observations.... Gondokoro is surrounded on three sides by small granitic hills, ranging about 2000 feet high, which are intersected by the Nile coming from the south, as the king of the Bari country says, from 200 to 300 miles;" which is equivalent to saying from the N'yanza, as it lies exactly on the place he directs us to.
On my return to England I constructed a map representing this view, and lectured on the same in presence of Captain Burton, who then raised no objections to what I said. In England geographers doubted this; and after it was printed, Dr Petermann had reason to change his opinion. However, Knoblecher was not far wrong, as I have since made the latitude of Gondokoro 4o 54' north.
There the land dropped from 2000 or more feet to less than 300 in the short distance of 100 miles. I will now proceed to give, first, the missionary account in 4o 44' N., and then the Arab one in 2o N. a debatable bit of ground, extending over 2o 44', or 160 English miles.
Do we not share his indignation at that stupid Martin who had graduated his thermometer no lower than 4o above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest weather ever known the mercury basely absconded into the bulb, and left us to see the victory slip through our fingers, just as they were closing upon it?
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