Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/65

 dared to approach the island of U-Vuma. The islanders, armed with nothing but a knife, would swim towards the boats, dive under the keels, and sever the connecting wooden ropes. Presently the frail craft were swamped and their crews struggling in the water. Those and other dangers of the navigation insure for the divinities of the lake the respect of all the surrounding populations. The water-gods, who dwell on the islands, condescend to communicate with mortals only through their envoys, who dare not be approached by empty-handed votaries. But the steam launches must ere long deprive these local deities of their prestige and reduce them to the level of ordinary mortals. When the American Chaillé-Long wanted to embark on the lake, the king of U-Ganda struck off the heads of seven wizards who had hitherto been both worshipped and hated as the evil genii of Nyanza. By this summary process he hoped to ensure the safety of his guest. Storms and waterspouts are frequent on the lake. "Wilson has also determined the existence of a current, which sets steadily from Speke Bay parallel with the coast westwards. It is caused by the south-east trade winds, which prevail throughout the greater part of the year.

The superfluous waters of the inland sea flow gently through a broad opening on the north coast over against the island of U-Vuma. This emissary, forming the head of the Nile properly so called, gradually narrows its banks to the proportions of a river, when its liquid contents are precipitated over a tremendous cascade, to which Speke has given the name of the Ripon Falls. A group of boulders, on which a few trees have taken root, stands nearly in the centre of the stream, which is here about 1,300 feet broad. Other less elevated blocks divide the current right and left, which lower down is studded with other reefs and rocks scarcely rising above the surface of the seething waters. Hence the expression Jinja, or "Stones," applied by the natives to these falls. Although they have a vertical height of 13 feet, hundreds of fishes crowding the lower reach are able to leap the rapids and pass to the upper stream, which a short distance higher up is gentle enough to be crossed by a ferry. Here the view of the lake is to a great extent concealed by a wooded headland, while the line of separation between the gulf and the course of the river is marked by a low peninsula crowned with a clump of palms. The hills of the mainland merge farther on in the verdant isles of the lake.

According to Stanley, the Kivira, as the Nile is here called, is about a third larger than the Tangur^, the chief affluent of Nyanza. It flows with a mean breadth of 550 yards, at first towards the north-west, and after passing a few smaller rapids, spreads out right and left in vast reedy lagoons. But even here its normal depth is maintained, and some 60 miles below the fulls it enters the Gita-Nzigé, another lake, to which the name of Ibrahim has been given by Chaillé-Long, who discovered it in 1875. Compared with the other equatorial basins, it is of small extent, having an area of probably not more than 200 square miles. In this region the Nile receives a number of tributaries, including the Luajerri, which