carried me
through scenes which, in other circumstances, it might have been worth
while to describe. Thinking, however, that I have already sufficiently
trespassed on the patience of the reader, I am unwilling to overload my
volume with any matter that does not directly relate to the solution
of the great problem which I went to solve. Having now, then, after
a period of twenty-eight months, come upon the tracks of European
travellers, and met them face to face, I close my Journal, to conclude
with a few explanations, for the purpose of comparing the various
branches of the Nile with its affluences, so as to show their respective
values.

The first affluent, the Bahr el Ghazal, took us by surprise; for instead
of finding a huge lake, as described in our maps, at an elbow of the
Nile, we found only a small piece of water resembling a duck-pond buried
in a sea of rushes. The old Nile swept through it with majestic grace,
and carried us next to the Geraffe branch of the Sobat river, the
second affluent, which we found flowing into the Nile with a graceful
semicircular sweep and good stiff current, apparently deep, but not more
than fifty yards broad.

Next in order came the main stream of the Sobat, flowing into the Nile
in the same graceful way as the Geraffe, which in breadth it surpassed,
but in velocity of current was inferior. The Nile by these additions was
greatly increased; still it did not assume that noble appearance which
astonished us so much, immediately after the rainy season, when we were
navigating it in canoes in Unyoro.

I here took my last lunar observations, and made its mouth N. lat. 9 deg.
20' 48", E. long. 31 deg. 24' 0". The Sobat has a third mouth farther down
the Nile, which unfortunately was passed without my knowing it; but as
it is so well known to be unimportant, the loss was not great.

Next to be treated of is the famous Blue Nile, which we found a
miserable river, even when compared with the Geraffe branch of the
Sobat. It is very broad at the mouth, it is true, but so shallow that
our vessel with difficulty was able to come up it. It has all
the appearance of a mountain stream, subject to great periodical
fluctuations. I was never more disappointed that with this river; if the
White river was cut off from it, its waters would all be absorbed before
they could reach Lower Egypt.

The Atbara river, which is the last affluent, was more like the Blue
river than any of the other affluence