In A
Little While We Struck On The Nile, Where It Was Running Like A
Fine Highland Stream Between The Gneiss And Mica-Schist Hills Of
Kuku, And Followed It Down To Near Where The Asua River Joined
It.
For a while we sat here watching the water, which was
greatly discoloured, and floating down rushes.
The river was not
as full as it was when we crossed it at the Karuma Falls, yet,
according to Dr Khoblecher's[FN#26] account, it ought to have
been flooding just at this time: if so, we had beaten the stream.
Here we left it again as it arched round by the west, and forded
the Asua river, a stiff rocky stream, deep enough to reach the
breast when waded, but not very broad. It did not appear to me as
if connected with Victoria N'yanza, as the waters were falling,
and not much discoloured; whereas judging from the Nile's
condition, it ought to have been rising. No vessel ever could
have gone up it, and it bore no comparison with the Nile itself.
The exaggerated account of its volume, however, given by the
expeditionists who were sent up the Nile by Mehemet Ali, did not
surprise us, since they had mistaken its position; for we were
now 3§ 42' north, and therefore had passed their "farthest point"
by twenty miles.
In two hours more we reached a settlement called Madi, and found
it deserted. Every man and woman had run off into the jungles
from fright, and would not come back again.
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