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Updated: July 27, 2025
The guide and natives laughed at my unbelief, and declared that it was dead water for a considerable distance from the junction with the lake, but that a great waterfall rushed down from a mountain, and that beyond that fall the river was merely a succession of cataracts throughout the entire distance of about six days' march to Karuma Falls.
It will therefore be interesting to compare the observations taken at the various points on the Nile and Albert lake in the countries of Unyoro and Chopi the correctness of which relatively will be seen by comparison: Jan. 22. Rionga's island, 80 feet above the Nile . . . 3,864 Jan. 25. Karuma, below the falls, river level Atadaj. . 3,996 Jan. 31.
Kamrasi being the king, it was natural that he should know his own frontier most intimately; but, although the chief of Magungo and all the natives assured me that the broad channel of dead water at my feet was positively the brawling river that I had crossed below the Karuma Falls, I could not understand how so fine a body of water as that had appeared could possibly enter the Albert lake as dead water.
The name given to the Karuma Falls arose from the absurd belief that Karuma, the agent or familiar of a certain great spirit, placed the stones that break the waters in the river, and, for so doing, was applauded by his master, who, to reward his services by an appropriate distinction, allowed the stones to be called Karuma.
Our servants and people had, like all native, made themselves much more comfortable than their employers; nor did they attempt to interfere with our misery in any way until summoned to appear at sunrise. The island of Patooan was about half a mile long by 150 yards wide, and was one of the numerous masses of rocks that choke the river between Karuma Falls and the great Murchison cataract.
From M'rooli to the head of the Karuma Falls the river is navigable; thus the observations of altitudes showing a fall of one foot per mile must be extremely accurate. The next observations to be compared are those from Karuma Falls throughout the westerly course of the river to the Albert lake:
She, however, had no desire to return to her own country, and endeavoured to mislead them, by taking them to the country of Rionga, an enemy of Kamrasi. Fortunately Mr Baker detected her treachery, and he and his Turkish allies reached the Karuma Falls, close to the village of Atada.
The river was not as full as it was when we crossed it at the Karuma Falls, yet, according to Dr Khoblecher's account, it ought to have been flooding just at this time: if so, we had beaten the stream. Here we left it again as it arched round by the west, and forded the Asua river, a stiff rocky stream, deep enough to reach the breast when waded, but not very broad.
The entire Nile system, from the first Abyssinian tributary the Atbara in N. latitude 17 deg. 37 min. even to the equator, exhibits a uniform drainage from S.E. to N.W., every tributary flowing in that direction to the main stream of the Nile; this system is persisted in by the Victoria Nile, which having continued a northerly course from its exit from the Victoria lake to Karuma in lat. 2 degrees 16' N. turns suddenly to the west and meets the Albert lake at Magungo; thus, a line drawn from Magungo to the Ripon Falls from the Victoria lake will prove the general slope of the country to be the same as exemplified throughout the entire system of the eastern basin of the Nile, tending from S.E. to N.W.
Accordingly that night, when Canopus was in the meridian, I asked our conductor to point by a star the direction of Karuma Falls. He immediately pointed to Canopus, which I knew by Speke's map should be the direction of Rionga's islands, and I charged him with the deceit.
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