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Updated: September 27, 2025
River level below Karuma Falls . . . . . . . . 3,996 feet Rionga's island 3,864 80 feet cliff . . . . . 3,784 = 212 fall. to the west. Level of Albert lake . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,720 = 475 fall. from Patooan to lake. From Karuma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,276 fall.
Our servants and people had, like all natives, 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.
We could get no supplies from Rionga's people, who returned to their island after their conference with Bacheeta, promising to send us some plantains and a basket of flour; but upon gaining their secure retreat they shouted, "that we might go to Kamrasi if we liked, but that we should receive no assistance from them." Early in the morning we started for Karuma.
Nevertheless, I was determined to verify it, although by this circuitous route I might lose the boats from Gondokoro and become a prisoner in Central Africa, ill, and without quinine, for another year. I proposed it to my wife, who not only voted in her state of abject weakness to complete the river to Karuma, but wished, if possible, to return and follow the Nile from the lake down to Gondokoro!
We could discern the course of this great river for about twenty miles, and distinctly, trace the line of mountains on the west bank that we had seen at about sixty miles' distance when on the route from Karuma to Shooa; the commencement of this chain we had seen when at Magungo, forming the Koshi frontier of the Nile.
South of Karuma, river level on road to M'rooli 4,056 Feb. 21. M'rooli lat. 1 degree 38' river level . . . . . . 4,061Ft. Mar. 14. Albert N'yanza, lake level . . . . . . . . . . . 2,720Ft. April 7.
Tonight I obtained a good observation of Canopus, giving latitude 1 degree 38 minutes N. By Casella's thermometer I made the altitude of the Somerset at M'rooli 4,061 feet above the sea, showing a fall of 65 feet between this point and below the falls at Karuma in a distance of 37 miles of latitude.
He KNEW that both rivers were the Nile, as he bad been told this by the natives; the one, before it had joined the Albert lake the other, after its exit; but he had been told that the river was NAVIGABLE from Gebel Kookoo, lat. 3 degrees 34', straight up to the junction of the lake; thus, there could be no great difference in altitude between the lake and the Nile where he met it, in lat. 3 degrees 34'. Nevertheless, he found so enormous a difference in his observations between the river at Karuma and at Gebel Kookoo, that he concluded there must be a fall between Karuma and the Albert lake of at least 1,000 feet; by careful measurements I proved the closeness of his reasoning and observation, by finding a fall of only 275 feet more than he had anticipated.
I had followed the Somerset from its junction with the lake at Magungo to this point; here it was a beautiful river, precisely similar in character to the point at which I had left it at Karuma: we were now within thirty miles of that place, and about eighteen miles from the point opposite Rionga's island, where we had first hit upon the river on our arrival from the north.
Kamrasi urged that, although the guns had been of great service, no prisoners could have been captured without the aid of his canoes, that had been brought by land, dragged all the way from Karuma by hundreds of his people in readiness for the attack upon the islands. As usual in all cases of dispute, I was to be referee.
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