atorial Province and Upper Nile was beyond
both the power and the sphere of the Khedive; but in the task of
winning one of the most important of African zones formally recognised
as lying within the British sphere of influence, the route advocated
by General Gordon in 1875 has now become of the most undoubted value
and importance.

The aversion to all forms of notoriety except that which was
inseparable from his duty led Gordon to shrink from the publicity and
congratulations sure to follow if he were the first to navigate those
inland seas on the Equator. Having made all the arrangements, and
provided for the complete security of the task, he decided to baffle
the plans in his honour of the Royal Geographical Society, by
delegating the duty of first unfurling the Khedive's flag on their
waters to his able and much-trusted lieutenant, Gessi. Although he
sometimes took hasty resolutions, in flat opposition to his declared
intentions, he would probably have adhered to this determination but
for reading in one of Dr Schweinfurth's published lectures that "it
may be that Lake Albert belongs to the Nile basin, but it is not a
settled fact, for there are seventy miles between Foweira and Lake
Albert never explored, and one is not authorised in making the Nile
leave Lake Albert. The question is very doubtful." The accidental
perusal of this passage changed General Gordon's views. He felt that
this task devolved on him as the responsible administrator of the
whole region, and that his natural shrinking from trumpery and too
often easily-earned geographical honours, which he has bluntly
asserted should only be granted by the Sovereign, did not justify his
evading a piece of work that came within his day's duty. Therefore he
resolved to ascertain the fact by personal examination, and to set at
rest the doubts expressed by the German traveller.

Expanding Dr Schweinfurth's remarks, he explained that "it was
contended that the Nile did not flow out of Lake Victoria, and thence
through Lake Albert, and so northward, but that one river flowed out
of Lake Victoria and another out of Lake Albert, and that these two
rivers united and formed the Nile. This statement could not be
positively denied, inasmuch as no one had actually gone along the
river from Foweira to Magungo. So I went along it with much suffering,
and settled the question. I also found that from Foweira or Karuma
Falls there was a series of rapids to Murchison Falls, th