NAVIGATION OF THE ALBERT NYANZA.

THE successful exploration of the Albert Nyanza is, after the navigation of the Victoria Nyanza by Stanley, and the discovery of the river Congo outlet by Cameron, one of the most important additions made to the geography of Central Africa since the first discovery of the lakes by our own gallant countryman.

The exploration was due to the initiative of Colonel Gordon, M. Romolo Gessi, the successful navigator, being upon the Colonel's staff, and the boats with which the exploration was effected were brought up by the commander of the expedition.

M. Gessi started with two boats from Duffili, on the Upper Nile, on the 8th of March, accompanied by the well-known Italian traveller, Piaggia, and a crew of Arabs, and he reached Magungo, on the Albert Nyanza, on the 30th of the same month. From this point, he visited the falls of Naruma (or Murchison Falls), which are not far distant; and the point below the falls appears, as we had previously heard from Sir Samuel Baker, their discoverer, to be a very extraordinary place; for the noise made at night-time by the hippopotami, crocodiles, great fish, and beasts of prey, was so great as to almost drown the sound of the falling waters. Piaggia quitted the boats at this place to explore the course of the Victoria Nile, so we may soon expect further information as to the extent and character of Lake Ibrahim, discovered by Long Bey, between the Victoria Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza. Colonel Gordon's defeat and expulsion of Raba Rega, the hostile king of Unyoro, or Kittara, will, to a great extent, deprive this exploration of its previous difficulties and dangers.

Gessi started, on the 12th of April, to circumnavigate the Albert Nyanza, and he was nine days in carrying out his purpose. The details which have as yet reached us are very meagre, but of great importance. It appears that the lake is in reality only 140 miles in length by 50 in breadth so that Speke's first designation of the "little Luta Nziga," is not, after all, so far wrong. On the eastern side there are some available harbours,* but on the western shores the mountains come down abruptly to the water. No great river (always excepting the Victoria Nile) was found flowing into

* Mr. Stanley, who appears to have marched from King Mtesa's capital, across country to the Albert Nyanza at the head of his own force and 2000 spearmen of Uganda, and pitched his camp upon the shores of the lake at a place called Unyampaka, named one of these large inlets, where he was camped, "Eeatrice Gulf," after Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice. Mr. Stanley, when last heard of, was marching towards Ujiji, whence he proposed

the lake; so Sir Samuel Baker must have been misled by play of light when he fanciel that he saw, from his standpoint near Magungo, great rivers flowing into the lake from the opposite distant coast. The expedition encountered strong gusts of wind, and had at times to struggle against a heavy sea, which terrified the Arabs, accustomed only to river navigation; but Gessi, who had navigated the Black Sea, carried them through in safety; and the boats, built by Samuda, proved themselves to be in every way effective.

The southern extremity of the lake was low, and covered with forests, chiefly of the ambatch plant, which flourishes only in eighteen inches to two feet of water. The explorer did not see any junction between the mountains on the east of the lake and those on the west at this point, and he therefore came to the conclusion that there may be, as Sir Samuel Baker was informed, a chain of lakes and marshes extending between Tanganyika and Lake Albert. Part of this district may, indeed, have been inundated in Sir Samuel Baker's time, if the eye could penetrate such remote distances, whence the extent which he gave approximatively to the lake.

Captain Burton, who has always held, with Sir Samuel Baker, to the theory of a communication between the two lakes-at all events at certain seasons of the year-still advocates upon this (in a letter to the Athenæum, No. 2543), that Tanganyika is a lake with two outlets, but that the outlet to Albert Nyanza is blocked up by papyrus and other plants. On the other hand, Dr. Behm writes, with a sketch of Gessi's of the Upper Nile, from Duffili to Lake Albert, forwarded to the Geographical Society of Paris (July 5, 1876), that, contrary to the opinions advanced by Burton and Baker, there is positively no communication whatever with Tanganyika.

It is obvious that if such communication exists, even only at the period of flood, and as information to that effect was obtained from the Arabs, there is still much probability in its favour; the sources of the Nile would be where Livingstone first reached a northerly water-shed at Moi Tawa, north of Lake Nyassa. But if no such communication exists, these sources must lie at the head of Stanley's Shimuyū; its tributaries-the Monunguh, Luwamberri, and Duma rivers, flowing from the eastern slopes or spurs of the snow

to re-visit the Albert Nyanza by way of Lake Tanganyika. This is just one of the points which it is most desirable to settle satisfactorily and finally. Mr. Stanley certainly deserves the highest credit for his pluck and perseverance in exploring the Lake Regions, and for the ability shown in holding his own among hostile savages without assistance from any government whatsoever.

clad Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenia, Obal, and other "Fahs," or culminating points of the great mountain chain of the Himadu, of Brur, of Rollet, Tremaux (Esquisse de l'Afrique), and Beke, into the Victoria Nyanza. The point most in favour of the latter view of the case is that these mountains represent the Tes Selenes oros of Ptolemy (Geo. lib. iv. cap. ix. S.S., edit. Berti p. 135), which should be translated "moon mountains" or "white mountains," rather than "mountains of the moon," and whence the Alexan. drine geographer made the waters of the Nile descend. These points have been previously discussed in the pages of the New Monthly Magazine, and it is clear that every successive exploration. adds to the evidence before accumulated, that there are no "moon mountains," as advocated by the lamented Captain Speke, south of the Albert Nyanza.*

Next, if not of still greater interest and importance than the determination of the limits and character of this great African lake, comes the positive information that the Upper Nile divides into two branches after leaving the lake, about a hundred miles south of Duffili, one branch constituting the Nile of Gondokoro, the other, over 200 yards in width, flowing to the north-west. It had long been suspected, from the rivers discovered west of the Nile by various and successive explorers, that there were two outlets from Albert Nyanza, from the lake itself, or from the river flowing out of it—and this point has also been often previously discussed in our pages. Colonel Gordon and Lieutenant Chippendale had previously reported, from information derived from the natives, that the Nile divided into two channels after leaving the Albert Nyanza, or that "it left that lake by two channels," but where the western stream rejoined the main river was still doubtful.

It has been hastily advocated by some that this north-westerly river is the same as the Uelle or Welle of Schweinfurth, and the Kubanda of Barth-the latter a supposed tributary to the Congo, but both tributaries, it has also been conjectured, to the central lake

* There are, however, in this region, the so-called "Blue Mountains," rising to an elevation of some 7000 feet, west and south-west of the Albert Nyanza, as also Mfumbiro, supposed to attain an altitude of 10,000 feet south-east of the lake; and Stanley appears, from the reports in the Daily Telegraph, to have visited a mountain in the same regions, called Gambaragara, upon whose lofty uplands dwelt a strange tribe of pale-faced people. These, however, are not snow-clad mountains, or of "moon-like" whiteness. Mr. Stanley, looks upon the Kagera river (Speke's Kitangule), as "the true parent of the Victoria Nile." This may be so far correct-it may be the largest tributary, it spreads more, and opens into large lacustrine expanses yet it may not present the most remote sources, which we still expect will be. met with to the east or south-east, and not to the west, or south-west of the lake.

heard of by Poncet and Piaggia, as the Matuassat, the MuatoYamoo of D'Auville-and which, again, is supposed to supply a tributary rather to Lake Tsad, or the Benuwe branch of the Niger than to the Congo. Colonel Gordon appears to think that this north-west branch, which he designates as the Yeh or Iaïe (the same as the laïe of Peney), or Bahr Jemit,* and which is navigable as far as Eliab, falls into lake Jak or Djak, and joins the Nile at the point where the Bahr Zaraf leaves it.

But this would appear to be only one of its mouths or outlets, for successive explorers, as more particularly the Messrs. Poncet (Carte du Cours Moyen des Deux Nils, 1860), Petherick and Peney found the whole country south of Lakes Nû and Jak, and of the Bahr al Ghazal, to be intersected by rivers, canals, and lakes. It appears, indeed, to be an inland delta. The Bahr Jûr, or Nam, appears to be the largest, and may be an outlet of the north-west branch of the Nile. Petherick long ago described the Giratfe river as being a branch of the Nile (Egypt, the Soudan, &c., p. 361.) It may be the same with other intervening rivers and canals. The Gazelle lake, it is to be observed, is estimated by Petherick as being in the season of the flood 180 miles in length by 60 in width (p. 388). It is, therefore, a greater reservoir of the Nile waters than the Albert Nyanza.

As to the Uelle or Welle of Schweinfurth, it appears to be the same as the Babura or Bahr Bura of others, also called Bahr Mumbutu, just as the upper portion of the Jur is designated as the Bahr Kakunda, and the lower is known to the Arabs as the Bahr al Ghazal.

It appears to have been Schweinfurth's opinion that the Welle had its origin in the mountains west of the Albert Nyanza. Others have argued that it came from the north-west corner of that lake, and now it is suggested that it is a prolongation of the north-west branch of the Nile. Considering the amount of drainage effected by the delta of the Bahr al Ghazal, the first opinion appears most likely to be the correct one.

But opposed to this view of the case is the remarkable fact that the ancients and the old Arab geographers, more especially al Edrisi and Abu'lfada, alike state that the Nile divides into an Egyptian and an Ethiopian river. This would seem to intimate that the north-west branch flowed to Lake Tsad, the Benuwe branch of the Niger, or to the Congo. The fact of there being two branches to the Nile below Albert Nyanza remains under any circumstances an extraordinary hydrographical phenomen.

* Long Bey makes the Yeh river a congeries of streams, where seen by bim a little south of the parallel of Gondokoro.”—Bull, de la Soc. de Ges graphie, Oct. 1875.

JOHN CHRISTOPHER.

THERE was a gleam of sunshine over the meadows in spite of the April shower; and after the showera rainbow, which, arching over the village church, lost itself among the branches of the distant treetops.

Suddenly the passing bell began to toll.

"Who's dead?" asked Mrs. Minton, pausing, as she worked herself backward and forward in her chair. "I didn't know any one in the village was ill."

"I suppose it will be old Mr. Christopher," answered her granddaughter. I heard this morning that he couldn't last till sundown. But one car scarcely say he's been ill; he's been just quietly fading away these months past."

"Old Mr. Christopher, once young John Christopher," said the old woman, in a voice that struck strangely on Susan's ear; and looking up at the grandmother, she saw a tear slowly coursing down her cheek, and her hands clasped tightly together.

"Forgotten by all but me," murmured Mrs. Minton; "I didn't think one's memory was so long, but young days come back in the latter days, and it seems but yesterday since I was a girl."

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Why, did you know Mr. Christopher, granny ?" asked the girl, in surprise.

But Mrs. Minton made no reply; she closed her eyes, and sat quite quiet for some minutes. Perhaps she was going over a piece of her history that had lain dormant for long enough, but had su l. denly started up before her at the sound of the bell.

"I didn't think I should have felt his death like this. I haven't spoken to him for these fifty years; I thought he was dead and buried long and long ago to me. We must go to the funeral, Susan; not to be seen like as mourners, but still to be at the grave. I should like to do it; it may make me feel better over it. You've got a black dress, child, and you can get a black riband for your bonnet."

"Granny!" ejaculated Susan, wondering if her grandmother were in her right senses.

"It will be quite right and proper; we've been neighbours these five years."

"But you've never spoken to him, and scarce seen him.” "That was my own doing," answered Mrs. Minton; "this is my doing, too; and it's all right anl proper, and as it should be, and I don't care who talks."