'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎99] (120/458)

MR. SMITH’S SOURCES OF THE NILE.
XC1X
expedition sent by Mahomed Ala, the late Pascha of Egypt to discover the source of the Nile
Favored by a strong North-wind, and under the guidance of a skilful pilot, Dr. Knoblicber was
enabled to ascend the great cataract which had stopped the further progress of Arnaud—much
to the astonishment of the Natives, who were greatly surprised at the sight of the vessels and
the white men. The Nile was then about 200 yards broad, and from two to three deep, and was
seen trending away in a South-westerly direction, until it vanished between two mountains,
beyond which, according to the Natives, the river came straight from the South.
We have no means of ascertaining the longitude of the extreme point to which Dr. KnobiJ-
cher thus succeeded in penetrating, which is to be regretted, as it appears that he was prevented
furnishing himself with a chronometer solely by want of means ; and what is still more painfu l
—although about to resume his researches in the same quarter, he appeared, even in Vienna, to
be still without this essential requisite, through inability to raise funds to purchase*it.
Assuming, however, the longitude to be about 31-} E, and connecting this extreme, point to
which the head of the Nile has been approached from the North*—with other points to the
South of the water shed which separates the great Mediterranean basin of Africa from that
which has its outlet in the Indian Ocean, the positions of which have been determined ap-
proximatively by Dr. Krapf and Mr. Rebmann, it would appear that the terra incognita remaining
to be explored, and within whose limits the long sought for sourc es of the Nile are to be found—
Nile pater, quanam te possum dicere causa,
Aut quibus in terris occuluisse caput,
may be roughly described by an equilateral triangle, each of whose sides is about 370 geographi
cal miles, and whose angles respectively are on the North, the extreme point reached by Dr
Knoblicher as above ; on the East, Motmt Kenia in Lat. 0° 20' S. and Long. 35° E.; and on
the West, the great lake in Uniamesi, of which the northernmost point is laid down by Mr
Rebmann (approximatively) in Lat. 1°30’ S. and Longitude 29° E.
This lake in Uniamesi—which according to Dr. Krapf and Dr. Beke (Edinburgh New Thiloso -
pkicai Journal, Oct. 1848) signifies—» u the possession of the Moon”—would appear to be fed from
the southern slopes of the same mountains, the snows on the northern sides of which, melted by
the sun when approaching and passing the Equator in March—omnia lustrans,”—form the
incipient streams of the Nile.* We have no modern information respecting Ptolemy’s Western
lake—but there is now every appearance of the correctness in the main of that celebrated
geographer’s account of the sources of the Nile, in lakes fed by the snows of the mountains of
the Moon, being ere long established, or in the prophetic words of the famous D’Anville ;
a century ago, that “ these objects” (the mountains of the Moon and the lakes of the Nile) may
yet appear in geography, although it is not deemed expedient at present to place them in the
southern hemisphere.”
Their description by Ptolemy is concise ami minute’ “ round the Barbarian Gulf (Sinus
Barbaricus—the bight of Zanzibar) dwell a tribe of Cannibal negroes (iEthiopes anthropophagi}
on the west of whose country are the Mountains of the Moon, or rather the range or chain
of the tnountains of the Moon— r f 0 o’€r]pr]$ opoS tiie snows of which are received
into the lakes of the Nile. Of these mountains,” (or rather of this range)-—“ the one extremity
The Egyptian expedition, when at the extreme point of their journey in January, found
the river then falling, and were told that it Would not begin to rise till the close of March.