First Sight of the Victoria N’yanza — Its Physical Geography — Speculations on its Being the Source of the Nile — Sport on the Lake — Sultans Machunda and Mahaya — Missionary Accounts of the Geography — Arab Accounts — Regrets at Inability to Complete the Discovery — The March Resumed — History of the Watuta — Hippopotamus-hunting — Adventures — Kahama.
August 3d.— The caravan, after quitting Isamiro, began winding up a long but gradually inclined hill — which, as it bears no native name, I shall call Somerset — until it reached its summit, when the vast expanse of the pale-blue waters of the N’yanza burst suddenly upon my gaze. It was early morning. The distant sea-line of the north horizon was defined in the calm atmosphere between the north and west points of the compass; but even this did not afford me any idea of the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago of islands (vide Map, Bengal Archipelago), each consisting of a single hill, rising to a height of 200 or 300 feet above the water, intersected the line of vision to the left; while on the right the western horn of the Ukéréwé Island cut off any farther view of its distant waters to the eastward of north. A sheet of water — an elbow of the sea, however, at the base of the low range on which I stood — extended far away to the eastward, to where, in the dim distance, a hummock-like elevation of the mainland marked what I understood to be the south and east angle of the lake. The important islands of Ukéréwé and Mzita, distant about twenty or thirty miles, formed the visible north shore of this firth. The name of the former of these islands was familiar to us as that by which this long-sought lake was usually known. It is reported by the natives to be of no great extent; and though of no considerable elevation, I could discover several spurs stretching down to the water’s edge from its central ridge of hills. The other island, Mzita, is of greater elevation, of a hog-backed shape, but being more distant, its physical features were not so distinctly visible.
In consequence of the northern islands of the Bengal Archipelago before mentioned obstructing the view, the western shore of the lake could not be defined: a series of low hill-tops extended in this direction as far as the eye could reach; while below me, at no great distance, was the debouchure of the creek, which enters the lake from the south, and along the banks of which my last three days’ journey had led me. This view was one which, even in a well-known and explored country, would have arrested the traveller by its peaceful beauty. The islands, each swelling in a gentle slope to a rounded summit, clothed with wood between the rugged angular closely-cropping rocks of granite, seemed mirrored in the calm surface of the lake; on which I here and there detected a small black speck, the tiny canoe of some Muanza fisherman. On the gently shelving plain below me, blue smoke curled above the trees, which here and there partially concealed villages and hamlets, their brown thatched roofs contrasting with the emerald green of the beautiful milk-bush, the coral branches of which cluster in such profusion round the cottages, and form alleys and hedgerows about the villages as ornamental as any garden shrub in England. But the pleasure of the mere view vanished in the presence of those more intense and exciting emotions which are called up by the consideration of the commercial and geographical importance of the prospect before me.
I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to that interesting river, the source of which has been the subject of so much speculation, and the object of so many explorers. The Arabs’ tale was proved to the letter. This is a far more extensive lake than the Tanganyika; “so broad you could not see across it, and so long that nobody knew its length.”27 I had now the pleasure of perceiving that a map I had constructed on Arab testimony, and sent home to the Royal Geographical Society before leaving Unyanyembé, was so substantially correct that in its general outlines I had nothing whatever to alter. Further, as I drew that map after proving their first statements about the Tanganyika, which were made before my going there, I have every reason to feel confident of their veracity relative to their travels north through Karagué, and to Kibuga in Uganda.
When Sheikh Snay told us of the Ukéréwé, as he called the N’yanza, on our first arrival at Kazé, proceeding westward from Zanzibar, he said, “If you have come only to see a large bit of water, you had better go northwards and see the Ukéréwé; for it is much greater in every respect than the Tanganyika;” and so, as far as I can ascertain, it is. Muanza, our journey’s end, now lay at our feet. It is an open, well-cultivated plain on the southern end, and lies almost flush with the lake; a happy, secluded-looking corner, containing every natural facility to make life pleasant. After descending the hill, we followed along the borders of the lake, and at first entered Mahaya’s Palace, when the absence of boats arousing my suspicions, made me inquire where the Arabs, on coming to Muanza, and wishing to visit Ukéréwé, usually resided. This, I heard, was some way farther on; so with great difficulty I persuaded the porters to come away and proceed at once to where they said an Arab was actually living. It was a singular coincidence that, after Sheikh Snay’s caution as to my avoiding Sultan Mahaya’s Palace, by inquiring diligently about him yesterday, and finding no one who knew his name, the first person I should have encountered was himself, and that, too, in his own Palace. The reason of this was, that big men in this country, to keep up their dignity, have several names, and thus mystify the traveller.
I then proceeded along the shore of the lake in an easterly direction, and on the way shot a number of red Egyptian geese, which were very numerous; they are the same sort here as I once saw in the Somali country. Another goose, which unfortunately I could not kill, is very different from any I ever saw or heard of: it stands as high as the Canadian bird, or higher, and is black all over, saving one little white patch beneath the lower mandible. It was fortunate that I came on here, for the Arab in question, called Mansur bin Salim, treated me very kindly, and he had retainers belonging to the country, who knew as much about the lake as anybody, and were of very great assistance. I also found a good station for making observations on the lake. It was Mansur who first informed me of my mistake of the morning; but he said that the evil reports spread at Unyanyembé about Mahaya had no foundation; on the contrary, he had found him a very excellent and obliging person.
To-day we marched eight miles, and have concluded our journey northwards, a total distance of 226 miles from Kazé, which, occupying twenty-five days, is at the rate of nine miles per diem, halts inclusive.
4th.— Early in the morning I took a walk of three miles easterly along the shore of the lake, and, ascending a small hill (which, to distinguish it, I have called Observatory Hill), took compass bearings of all the principal features of the lake. Mansur and a native, the greatest traveller of the place, kindly accompanied me, and gave me every obtainable information. This man had traversed the island, as he called it, of Ukéréwé from north to south. But by his rough mode of describing it, I am rather inclined to think that instead of its being an actual island, it is a connected tongue of land, stretching southwards from a promontory lying at right angles to the eastern shore of the lake, which, being a wash, affords a passage to the mainland during the fine season, but during the wet becomes submerged, and thus makes Ukéréwé temporarily an island.
If this conjecture be true, Mzita must be similarly circumstanced. Cattle, he says, can cross over from the mainland at all seasons of the year, by swimming from one elevation of the promontory to another; but the Warudi, who live upon the eastern shore of the lake, and bring their ivory for sale to Ukéréwé, usually employ boats for the transit. A sultan called Machunda lives at the southern extremity of the Ukéréwé, and has dealings in ivory with all the Arabs who go there. One Arab at this time was stopping there, and had sent his men coasting along this said promontory to deal with the natives on the mainland, as he could not obtain enough ivory on the island itself. Considering how near the eastern shore of the lake is to Zanzibar, it appears surprising that it can pay men to carry ivory all the way round by Unyanyembé. But the Masai, and especially those tribes who live near to the lake, are so hostile to travellers, that the risk of going there is considered too great to be profitable, though all Arabs concur in stating that a surprising quantity of ivory is to be obtained there at a very cheap rate.
The little hill alluded to as marking the south-east angle of the lake, I again saw; but so indistinctly, though the atmosphere was very clear, that I imagined it to be at least forty miles distant. It is due east of my station on Observatory Hill. I further draw my conclusions from the fact, that all the hills on the country are much about the same height — two or three hundred feet above the basial surface of the land; and I could only see the top of the hill like a hazy brown spot, contrasted in relief against the clear blue sky. Indeed, had my attention not been drawn to it, I should probably have overlooked it, and have thought there was only a sea horizon before me. On facing to the W.N.W., I could only see a sea horizon; and on inquiring how far back the land lay, was assured that, beyond the island of Ukéréwé, there was an equal expanse of it east and west, and that it would be more than double the distance of the little hill before alluded to, or from eighty to one hundred miles in breadth.28
On my inquiring about the lake’s length, the man faced to the north, and began nodding his head to it; at the same time he kept throwing forward his right hand, and, making repeated snaps of his fingers, endeavoured to indicate something immeasurable; and added, that nobody knew, but he thought it probably extended to the end of the world. To the east of the Observatory, a six hours’ journey, probably fourteen or fifteen miles, the village of Sukuma is situated, and there canoes are obtainable for crossing to Ukéréwé, which island being six hours’ paddling, and lying due north of it, must give the firth a breadth of about fifteen miles.
Whilst walking back to camp, I shot two red geese and a florikan, like those I once shot in the Somali country. This must have been a dainty dish for my half-starved Arab companion, who had lost all his property on first arriving here, and was now living on Mahaya’s generosity. It appears that nine months ago he was enabled, by the assistance of Mahaya, to hire some boats and men at Sukuma, and had sent his property, consisting of fifteen loads of cloth and 250 jembis or hoes, by them to Ukéréwé, to exchange for ivory. But by the advice of Mahaya, and fearing to trust himself as a stranger amongst the islanders, he did not accompany his merchandise. Sultan Machunda, a man of the highest character by Unyanyembé report, on seeing such a prize enter his port, gave orders for its seizure, and will now give no redress to the unfortunate Mansur. All Mahaya’s exertions to recover it have proved abortive: and Mansur has therefore been desirous of taking his revenge by making an attack in person on Ukéréwé, but the “generous” Mahaya said, “No; your life is yet safe, do not risk it; but let my men do what they can, and in the meanwhile, as I have been a party to your losses, I will feed you and your people; and if I do not succeed in the end, you shall be my guest until I can amass sufficient property to reimburse your losses.”
Mansur has all this time been living, like the slaves of the country, on jowari porridge, which is made by grinding the seed into flour and boiling it in water until it forms a good thick paste, when master and man sit round the earthen pot it is boiled in, pick out lumps, and suck it off their fingers. It was a delicious sight yesterday, on coming through Muanza, to see the great deference paid to the sick Beluch, Shadad, mistaken for the great Arab merchant (Mundewa), my humble self, in consequence of his riding my donkey, and to perceive the stoical manner in which he treated their attentions; but, more fortunate than I usually have been, he escaped the rude peeping and peering of the crowd, for he did not, like his employer, wear “double eyes” (spectacles).
During the last five or six marches, the word Marabu (Arab), instead of Mzungu (European), has usually been applied to me; and no one, I am sure, would have discovered the difference, were it not that the tiresome pagazis, to increase their own dignity and importance, generally gave the clue by singing the song of “the White Man.” The Arabs at Unyanyembé had advised my donning their habit for the trip, in order to attract less attention: a vain precaution, which I believe they suggested more to gratify their own vanity by seeing an Englishman lower himself to their position, than for any benefit that I might receive by doing so. At any rate, I was more comfortable and better off in my flannel shirt, long togs, and wide-awake, than I should have been, both mentally and physically, had I degraded myself, and adopted their hot, long, and particularly uncomfortable gown.
Sultan Mahaya sent a messenger to say that he was hurt at the cavalier manner in which I treated him yesterday; and, to show his wounded feelings, gave an order to his subjects that no man should supply me with provisions, or render me any assistance during my sojourn at Muanza. Luckily my larder was well supplied with game, or I should have had to go supperless to bed, for no inducement would prevail on the people to sell anything to me after the mandate had been proclaimed. This morning, however, we settled the difference, in the most amicable manner, thus: previous to my departure for Observatory Hill, I sent the Jemadar, the Kirangozi, and a large deputation of the Beluches and pagazis, to explain away the reason of my having left his house so rudely, and to tender apologies, which were accompanied, as an earnest of good-will, with a large hongo, consisting of one barsati, one dhoti merikani, and one gora kiniki, as also an intimation that I would pay him a visit the next day. This pleased him excessively; it was considered a visit of itself; and he returned the usual bullock, with a notification that I must remain where I was, to enable him to return the compliment I had paid him, for he intended walking out to see me on the morrow.
5th.— As my time was getting short, I forestalled Mahaya in his intentions, and changed ground to the Palace, a rural-looking little place, perched on a small rocky promontory, shrouded by green trees, facing the N.W. side of the lake. Mahaya received me with great courtesy, arranged a hut comfortably, and presented a number of eggs and fresh milk, as he had heard that I was partial to such fare. He is a man of more than ordinary stature, a giant in miniature, with massive and muscular but well-proportioned limbs: he must number fifty years or more. His dress was the ordinary barsati; his arms were set off by heavy brass and copper ornaments encircling the wrists, and by numberless sambo, or thin circles made from the twisted fibres of an aloetic plant, on each of which a single infi, or white porcelain bead resembling a little piece of tobacco-pipe, was strung; these ranged in massive rows down the whole of his upper arm. Just above his elbow-joints sat a pair of large ivory rings. On his forehead two small goat or deer horns were fastened by thin talismanic ornaments of thong for keeping off the evil eye; and, finally, his neck was adorned with two strings of very coarse blue beads. Mahaya has the fame of being the best and most just sultan in these quarters, and his benign square countenance, lit up with a pleasing expression when in conversation, confirms this opinion, though a casual observer passing by that dark, broad, massive face, still more darkened by a matting of short, close, and tightly-curled-up ringlets, would be apt to carry away a contrary impression.29
Before leaving Kazé I notified my intention of visiting Ukéréwé, supposing I could do so in three or four days, and explained to my men my wishes on this point. Hearing this, they told both Mahaya and Mansur, in direct terms, that I was going, and so needlessly set them to work finessing to show how much they were in earnest in their consideration of me. However, they have both been very warm in dissuading me from visiting Ukéréwé, apparently quite in a parental way, for each seems to think himself in a measure my guardian. Mahaya thinks it his duty to caution those who visit him from running into danger, which a journey to Ukéréwé, he considers, would be. Mansur, on the other hand, says, as I have come from his Sultan Majid, he also is bound to render me any assistance in his power; but strongly advises my giving up the notion of going across the water. I could get boats from Sukuma, he said, but there would be great delay in the business, as I should have first to send over and ask permission from Machunda to land, and then the collecting men and boats would occupy a long time.
As regards the collection of boats taking a long time, these arguments are very fair, as I know from experience; but the only danger would consist in the circumstance of the two sultans being at enmity with each other, as in this land any one coming direct from an enemy’s country is suspected and treated as an enemy. This difficulty I should have avoided by going straight to Sukuma (where the boats, I am inclined to think, usually do start from, though all concur in stating that this is their point of departure), and there obtaining boats direct. However, I told them that I should have gone if I had found boats ready at once to take me across; but now I saw the probability of so much delay, that I could not afford to waste time in trying to obtain boats, which, had I succeeded in getting, I should have employed my time not in going to Ukéréwé, but to the more elevated and friendly island of Mzita, this being a more suitable observatory than the former. These negroes’ manoeuvres are quite incomprehensible. If Mahaya had desired to fleece me — and one can hardly give a despotic negro credit for anything short of that — he surely would have tried to detain me under false hopes, and have thus necessitated my spending cloths in his village; while, on the contrary, he lost all chance of gaining anything by giving advice which induced me to leave him at once, never to return again to see him.
At my request, Mahaya assembled all his principal men, and we went into a discussion about the lake; but not a soul knew anything about its northern extremity, although people had sometimes travelled in canoes, coasting along its shores by the Karagué district to as far, I believe, as the Line.30 His wife, a pretty crummy little creature of the Wanyoro tribe, came farther from the north than anybody present, and gave me the names of many districts in the Uganda country, which, she says, lies along the seashore. She had never heard of there being any end to the lake, and supposed, if any way of going round it did exist, she would certainly have known it. It is well known that there is no communication between the east and west shores of the lake, excepting by a few occasional canoe-parties coasting along the southern end, because the waters are so very broad they dare not venture.31 That there can be no high mountain-range intersecting the N’yanza from the watercourses which we hear of north of the equator, as some people have supposed, is evident from the numerous accounts given of the kingdom of Uganda being so flat and marshy from the equator to 2° or 3° north latitude; whilst I must have seen any, did they exist, on the south side of the equator, being only 150 miles from it when standing on its southern shore. Now, judging from all the information given us by the several Egyptian expeditions and missionaries sent up the Nile, who came across small hills in 4?° north latitude and 32° east longitude, which are intersected by the Nile in the same way that the East Coast Range is intersected by the interior plateau rivers (Lufiji and Kingani), as we saw on our passage inwards from Zanzibar; and further, by the Arabs telling us that all the country on the same meridian, from the Line up to the second parallel north latitude, is flat and full of watercourses; and then again, by knowing the respective heights of the N’yanza on the one side, being nearly 4000 feet, and the Nile’s bed in latitude 5° N., or beyond the small hills alluded to, being under 2000 feet — it would indeed be a marvel if this lake is not the fountain of the Nile.32 The reason why those expeditions sent up the Nile have failed in discovering the N’yanza, is clearly attributable to the important rapids which must exist in consequence of this great variation of altitude between the north end of the N’yanza (which, let us suppose, is on the equator) and the position, in 4° 44’ north latitude, at which the expeditions and missions arrived, the rise of the river being 2000 feet in 300 miles.
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 4° 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. 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 4° 44’ N., and then the Arab one in 2° N.— a debatable bit of ground, extending over 2° 44’, or 160 English miles. Talking of the missionaries, “these two men,” says Dr Petermann, “kept an annual hygrometrical and meteorological register with great precision and scientific regularity.33 They had various instruments with them; they fixed their station, Gondokoro, at 4° 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.
As the Arabs do not keep thermometers, scientific instruments, or properly distributed months and seasons, I must say for them that from 2° to 6° south latitude we found the mean temperature in the hottest month, August, to be only 80°; that Uganda must be quite 4000 feet above the sea, to be higher than the lake which it borders; that the rainy season is during our winter months, but most so in the spring; and that the rivers, as we see by the Malagarazi, increase more after than before that date; that as the movement of the rains tends from the southward to the northward, advancing with the sun, the same influence that swells the Malagarazi would also affect the Uganda rivers, as they rise merely on opposite sides of the axis of the same mountains. The Arabs say, as we also have found it, “that thunder accompanies nearly all the storms, and the lightning there is excessive, and so destructive that the King of Uganda expresses the greatest dread of it — indeed his own palace has been often destroyed by lightning. The Kitangulé and Katonga rivers are affected by the rainy season in the same proportion as the Malagarazi, and flow north-easterly towards the lake.34 There the Kivira (island) river (Nile) of which they bring information, flows somewhere to the northward, and is not a slow sluggish stream like the other two, but is rapid and boisterous, showing that the country drops to the northward.” Now here, in 3° north latitude, where this river is said to flow with such great rapidity, I think will be found the southern base-line of those small hills, 2000 feet high, lying to the south of Gondokoro, as the missionaries describe them; though these hills, to any one looking at them from the northern side, where the land is low, might appear a barrier to the waters of the lake lying beyond them. This idea would not occur to any one standing on the southern side, where the land is nearly, if not quite, as high as these hills themselves. Indeed, from the levels given, the two countries about Kibuga35 (Palace of Uganda) and Gondokoro may be described as two landings, with the fall between them representing a staircase formed by the hills in question. The country in latitudes 2° and 5° north is therefore terraced like a hanging garden.36
The N’yanza, as we now see, is a large expansive sheet of water, flush with the basial surface of the country, and lies between the Mountains of the Moon (on its western side), having, according to Dr Krapf, snowy K?nia on its eastern flank. Krapf tells us of a large river flowing down from the western side of this snowy peak, and trending away to the north-west in a direction, as will be seen by the map, leading right into my lake. Now, returning again to the western side, we find that the N’yanza is plentifully supplied by those streams coming from the Lun? Montes, of which the Arabs, one and all, give such consistent and concise accounts; and the flowings of which, being north-easterly, must, in course of time and distance, commingle with those north-westerly off-flowings, before mentioned, of Mount K?nia. My impression is, after hearing everybody’s story on the matter, that these streams enter at opposite sides of the lake, on the northern side of the equator, and are consequently very considerable feeders to it. To help at once in the argument that the N’yanza exists as a large sheet of water to the north of the equator, I will anticipate a story recorded in my diary, by adverting to it before its order of succession. On the return to Unyanyembé, a native of Msalala told me that he had once travelled up the western shore of the N’yanza to the district of Kitara, or Uddu–Uganda, where, he says, coffee grows, and which place, by fair computation of the distances given as their travelling rates, I believe to be in about 1° north lat. To the east of this land, at no great distance from the shore, he described the island of Kitiri as occupied by a tribe called Watiri, who also grow coffee; and there the sea was of such great extent, and when winds blew was so boisterous, that the canoes, although as large as the Tanganyika ones (which he had also seen), did not trust themselves upon it.
The lake has the credit of being very deep, which I cannot believe. It certainly presents the appearance of the temporary deposit of a vast flood overspreading a large flat surface, rather than the usual characteristics of a lake or inland sea lying in a deep hollow, or shut in, like the Tanganyika, by mountains.37 The islands about it are low hill-tops, standing out like paps on the soft placid bosom of the waters, and are precisely similar to those amongst which I have been travelling; indeed, any part of the country inundated to the same extent would wear the same aspect.
Its water appears, perhaps owing to the disturbing influence of the wind, of a dirty-white colour, but it is very good and sweet, though not so pleasant to my taste as the very clear Tanganyika water. The natives, however, who have wonderfully keen palates for detecting the relative distinctions in such matters, differ from me, and affirm that all the inhabitants prefer it to any other, and consequently never dig wells on the margin of the lake; whereas the Tanganyika water is invariably shunned, nobody ever drinking it unless from necessity; not so much because they consider it to be unwholesome, as because it does not quench or satisfy the thirst so well as spring-water. Whether this peculiarity in the qualities of the waters is to be attributed to the N’yanza lying on a foundation chiefly composed of iron, or whether the one lake is drained by a river, whilst the other is not, I must leave for other and superior talents to decide.
Fish and crocodiles are said to be very abundant in the lake; but with all my endeavours to obtain some specimens, I have succeeded in seeing only two sorts — one similar to those taken at Ujiji, of a perch-like form, and another very small, resembling our common minnow, but not found in the Ujiji market. The quantity of mosquitoes on the borders of the lake is perfectly marvellous; the grass, bushes, and everything growing there, are literally covered with them. As I walked along its shores, disturbing the vegetation, they rose in clouds, and kept tapping, in dozens at a time, against my hands and face, in the most disagreeable manner. Unlike the Indian mosquito, they are of a light dun-brown colour. The Muanza dogs are the largest that I have yet seen in Africa, and still are not more than twenty inches high; but Mahaya says the Ukéréwé dog is a fine animal, and quite different from any on the mainland. There are very few canoes about here, and those are of miserable construction, and only fitted for the purpose they turn them to — catching fish close to the shore. The paddle the fishermen use is a sort of mongrel between a spade and a shovel. The fact of there being no boats of any size here, must be attributed to the want of material for constructing them. On the route from Kazé there are no trees of any girth, save the calabash, the wood of which is too soft for boat-building. I hear that the island of Ukéréwé has two sultans besides Machunda, and that it is very fertile and populous. Mahaya says, “All the tribes, from the Wasukuma (or Northern Wanyamuézi, Sukuma meaning the north), along the south and east of the lake, are so savage and inhospitable to travellers, that it would be impossible to go amongst them unless accompanied by a large and expensive escort.”
6th.— As no further information about the lake could be gained, I bade Mahaya and the Sheikh adieu, leaving as a token of recollection one shukka merikani for the former, one dhoti kiniki for his wife, and a fundo of beads for the poor Arab, and retraced my steps by a double march back to Ukumbi. Whilst passing alongside the archipelago, I shot two geese and a crested crane. What a pity it seemed I could not pluck the fruit almost within my............