CHAPTER XXIV

GERMAN EXPLORERS DETERMINE THE SOUTHERN LIMITS OF THE NILE BASIN

The acquisition by Germany of those interior regions of the Zanzibar coast-line which now constitute German East Africa led to a considerable development of exploration in the southernmost regions of the Nile basin. Prior to 1890 there had been much discussion as to what was the Nile’s furthest tributary,--what stream, in fact, was the ultimate source of the Nile. Stanley’s journeys in search of Emin Pasha had revealed the existence of the Semliki and of Lake Albert Edward, and had thus extended considerably the length of the Albertine Nile system. Later on Count Götzen had shown by his remarkable journeys north from Tanganyika that Lake Kivu (the existence of which had been already reported by Burton, Speke, and Stanley) was connected with Tanganyika, and therefore with the Congo. This put a limit to the Nile basin in that direction, and disposed for ever of the last vestige of Livingstone’s wild dream, by which the main course of the Nile would have risen far south of the equator in what we now know to be the basin of the Congo, and have flowed through Lake Albert instead of through the Victoria Nyanza. Speke had discovered the important Kagera River (which he called the Kitangule), and Stanley had extended our knowledge of this, the largest affluent of the Victoria Nyanza. Stanley had, in fact, in 1875 christened it the Alexandra Nile, but he was very much misled about its origin and course, and he made it issue from a hypothetical lake, Akanyaru,[108] which has no existence, but which was no doubt in part an exaggeration of swamps along the course of the Kagera, and in part a confusion with the rumoured Lake Kivu.

The Kagera is now acknowledged to be the extreme head-waters of the Nile. A distinctly observable current passes across the Victoria Nyanza from the mouth of the Kagera to the Ripon Falls. In 1891–1893 Dr. Oscar Baumann, a German official, who had previously done some good exploring work in West Africa, made extensive journeys through southern Masailand and Unyamwezi to the sources of the Kagera River. This stream (especially in its upper waters, where it is known as Ruvuvu), was further explored in 1899–1900 by M. Lionel Dècle, a French traveller, who had done a great deal to increase our knowledge of Central Africa.[109] Dr. Kandt,[110] in 1898, and other Germans, have also put on the map portions of the Kagera’s course, and our knowledge of this stream has received contributions from Messrs. Racey, Mundy, and R. W. Macallister, officials of the Uganda Protectorate. The Kagera River has two principal sources, both of them almost within sight of the waters of Tanganyika. The stream which is usually taken to be the more important source rises in south latitude 3° in the country of Ruziga, about fifteen miles due north of the north end of Tanganyika, at an altitude of about 6,270 feet above sea-level. Some fifty miles south-southeast of this point, however, there is another source, which may be taken to be the southernmost extension of the Nile system. This fountain, in south latitude 3° 45′, is on the eastern slope of the Utembera or Kangozi Mountains, only ten miles east of Tanganyika. The altitude is about 6,300 feet. This would seem to be the farthest source of the Nile.

[Illustration: A NATIVE OF UNYAMWEZI, FROM NEAR SOUTH SHORES OF VICTORIA NYANZA.]

Herr Baumann made another contribution of negative value to Nile exploration. Stanley and some other travellers had believed that the southernmost source of the Nile lay in the country of Unyamwezi, in certain streams which flowed northward into the Victoria Nyanza, which they entered under the name of the river Simiyu or Shimeyu. But in these deductions they were wrong. Baumann showed that the river Simiyu was an inconsiderable stream of short course, and that the waters much further to the south which had been identified with this river really flowed northeastwards into a largish salt lake, discovered by Baumann and called Lake Eyasi. Eyasi has no outlet. It is situated in a rift valley which joins the great Rift valley of Masailand. The journeys of Baumann and of other Germans considerably curtailed the present extent of the Nile basin in Unyamwezi. The waters of this somewhat arid tableland, which apparently is almost below the surface of the Victoria Nyanza, flow mainly to Tanganyika, to Lake Rukwa, and to Lake Eyasi and other isolated pools of the rift valleys.

[Illustration:

_Photo by J. Thomson._]

SIR FREDERIC D. LUGARD.]