I had to
feel every step of the way, and generally was groping in the
dark. No one knew anything beyond his own district, and who
cared where the rivers ran? Casembe said, when I was going to
Lake Bangweolo: 'One piece of water was just like another (it
is the Bangweolo water), but as your chief desired you to
visit that one, go to it. If you see a traveling party going
north, join it. If not, come back to me and I will send you
safely along my path by Moero;' and gave me a man's load of a
fish like whitebait. I gradually gained more light on the
country, and slowly and surely saw the problem of the
fountains of the Nile developing before my eyes. The vast
volume of water draining away to the north made me conjecture
that I had been working at the sources of the Congo too. My
present trip to Manyuema proves that all goes to the river of
Egypt. In fact, the head-waters of the Nile are gathered into
two or three arms, very much as was depicted by Ptolemy in
the second century of our era.
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