last, with a good push for it, crossing hills and threading huge
grasses, as well as extensive village plantations lately devastated by
elephants--they had eaten all that was eatable, and what would not serve
for food they had destroyed with their trunks, not one plantain or one
hut being left entire--we arrived at the extreme end of the journey, the
farthest point ever visited by the expedition on the same parallel of
latitude as king Mtesa's palace, and just forty miles east of it.

We were well rewarded; for the "stones," as the Waganda call the falls,
was by far the most interesting sight I had seen in Africa. Everybody
ran to see them at once, though the march had been long and fatiguing,
and even my sketch-block was called into play. Though beautiful, the
scene was not exactly what I expected; for the broad surface of the lake
was shut out from view by a spur of hill, and the falls, about 12 feet
deep, and 400 to 500 feet broad, were broken by rocks. Still it was a
sight that attracted one to it for hours--the roar of the waters, the
thousands of passenger-fish, leaping at the falls with all their might;
the Wasoga and Waganda fisherman coming out in boats and taking post
on all the rocks with rod and hook, hippopotami and crocodiles lying
sleepily on the water, the ferry at work above the falls, and cattle
driven down to drink at the margin of the lake,--made, in all, with the
pretty nature of the country--small hills, grassy-topped, with trees in
the folds, and gardens on the lower slopes--as interesting a picture as
one could wish to see.

The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father
Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria N'yanza, and, as I had
foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled
the first expounder of our religious belief. I mourned, however, when I
thought how much I had lost by the delays in the journey having deprived
me of the pleasure of going to look at the north-east corner of the
N'yanza to see what connection there was, by the strait so often spoken
of, with it and the other lake where the Waganda went to get their
salt, and from which another river flowed to the north, making "Usoga an
island." But I felt I ought to be content with what I had been spared
to accomplish; for I had seen full half of the lake, and had information
given me of the other half, by means of which I knew all about the lake,
as far, at least, as the chief object