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Discovery and Exploration.—The quest for the Nile sources led to the discovery of the lake by J. H. Speke in 1858, and it was by him named Victoria in honour of the queen of England. In 1862 Speke and his companion, J. A. Grant, partially explored the N.W. shore, leaving the lake at the Nile outlet. Great differences of opinion existed as to its size until its circumnavigation in 1874 by H. M. Stanley, which proved it to be of vast extent. The invitation sent by King Mtesa of Uganda through Stanley to the Christian missionaries led to the despatch from England in 1876 of the Rev. C. T. Wilson, to whom we owe our first detailed knowledge of the nyanza. Mr Wilson and Lieut. Shergold Smith, R.N., made, in 1877, the first voyage across the nyanza. Lieut. Smith and a Mr O'Neill, both members of the Church Missionary Society, were in the same year murdered on Ukerewe Island. In 1889 Stanley further explored the lake, discovering Emin Pasha Gulf, the entrance to which is masked by several islands. In 1890 the ownership of the lake was divided by Great Britain and Germany, the first

degree of south latitude being taken as the boundary line. The southern portion, which fell to Germany, was visited and described by scientists of that nation, whose objects, however, were not primarily geographic. At the instance of the British Foreign Office a survey of the northern shores of the lake was carried out in 1899-1900 by Commander B. Whitehouse, R.N. The same officer, in 1903, undertook, in agreement with the German government, a survey of the southern shores. Commander Whitehouse's work led to considerable modification of the previously accepted maps. He discovered numerous islands and bays whose existence had previously been unknown.

Previously to 1896 navigation was confined to Arab dhows, which trade between the south end of the lake and Uganda, and to canoes. In the year named a small steamer (the “Ruwenzori”) was launched on the lake by a Zanzibar firm, while in 1900 a somewhat larger steamer (the “William Mackinnon”), built in Glasgow at the instance of Sir W. Mackinnon, and afterwards taken over by the British government, made her first trip on the lake. In 1903, the year in which the railway from Mombasa to the lake was completed, a steamer of 600 tons burden was launched at Port Florence. Since that date trade has considerably increased.

(W. E. G.; F. R. C.)

 VICTORINUS, GAIUS MARIUS (4th century ), Roman grammarian, rhetorician and neo-Platonic philosopher, an African by birth (whence his surname Afer), lived during the reign of Constantius II. He taught rhetoric at Rome (one of his pupils being Jerome), and in his old age became a convert to Christianity. His conversion is said to have greatly influenced that of Augustine. When Julian published an edict forbidding Christians to lecture on polite literature, Victorinus closed his school. A statue was erected in his honour as a teacher in the Forum Trajanum.

 VICTOR-PERRIN, CLAUDE, (1764-1841), marshal of France, was born at La Marche (Vosges) on the 7th of December 1764. In 1781 he entered the army as a private soldier, and after ten years' service he received his discharge and settled at Valence. Soon afterwards he joined the local volunteers, and distinguishing himself in the war on the Alpine frontier, in less than a year he had risen to the