Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/66

 rises in the U-Ganda hills near the shores of Nyanza, and which was supposed by Speke to flow from the lake itself. On his map he sketched a third emissary, the Kafu, which after a course of about 120 miles joined the Nile lower down. But such a phenomenon as three rivers flowing from the same lake and meeting again after traversing a hilly region would indeed be remarkable. In point of fact the Kafu, like the Luajerri, rises not in, but near the lake, with which it has no communication.

Soon after leaving Lake Ibrahim the Nile is described by Chaillé-Long as again expanding into a vast morass covered with vegetation, and with a mean depth of scarcely more than 10 or 12 feet. This is the Kioja or Kapeki lagoon, which was discovered by the Italian explorer Piaggia, and a short distance below which the Nile is joined by the navigable river Kafu. Farther on it describes a bend towards the east and north, after which it trends abruptly westwards to its confluence with the great lake Mwútan-Nzigé, or Albert Nyanza. Throughout this section of its course the Nile is usually designated on English maps by the name of Somerset.

The river, which has here a mean breadth of over 1,300 feet, would be perfectly navigable but for its precipitous incline. According to the approximate measurements taken by travellers, the total fall in this distance of about 90 miles appears to be 2,310 feet, or about 1 in 205 feet. The Kuruma, the first fall occurring in this part of the Nile, is rather a rapid, where the water, confined between walls of syenite, escapes in sheets of foam down a total incline of about 10 feet. But this is followed by the Tada, Nakoni, Assaka, Kadia, Wade, and Ketutu Falls, forming the chief barriers to the Nile on its descent from the high plateaux. In a space of 18 miles it passes from gorge to gorge, rushing over rocky boulders, filling the atmosphere with vapours, which are precipitated as rain on the trees lining its banks. The action of the stream has, so to say, sawn through its stony walls, while gradually lowering its level. On the south bank the cliffs rise to a vertical height of from 140 to 160 feet above the boiling waters.

This boisterous course of the Somerset Nile terminates in a magnificent fall. For about 12 miles above it, the bed of the river is so steep that rapids follow in quick succession, with a mean incline of at least 10 in 1,000 yards. Suddenly the current, contracted to a width of scarcely more than 160 feet, is precipitated over a ledge between two black cliffs, plunging from a height of 115 feet into a cauldron of seething waters, above which floats an iridescent haze quivering in the breeze. Some 300 feet above the ever restless flood the cliffs are fringed with the waving branches of the feathery palm. To this cataract Baker, its discoverer, gave the name of the Murchison Falls, in honour of the learned president of the English Geographical Society. Almost immediately below its last eddies the water becomes quite still, expanding to a breadth of from 500 to 800 feet without any perceptible current, and resembling a backwater of Lake Albert Nyanza rather than the continuation of a rapid stream. This phenomenon is said to be due to a lateral affluent flowing north-west to the Lower Nile without traversing the lake, and constituting the real main stream.