The Sources of the Nile ^*

Abstract

THE main point of interest in the latest travels of Livingstone, and that which gives to them a distinctive importance over the great accomplishments of his former journeys, is, that in these, Livingstone has undoubtedly visited and beheld the long-sought-for sources of the Nile. It is true that there still remains considerable doubt as to which of the basins that he has explored will ultimately be acknowledged as the cradle of the Nile, but this at least is certain, that the real head streams have been seen by him, and the vexed question has by these explorations resolved itself into a choice between two or perhaps three streams. Livingstone himself has apparently no bias in favour of one or other, so that the discussion is a perfectly open one. The three rival head streams are, first, the feeders of Lake Liemba, and second the Chambeze River and its lake chain, both of which rise near the eastern edge of the great longitudinal plateau of the side of Africa next the Indian Ocean; the third is the source recently claimed for the Nile by Dr. Beke, in his solution of the Nile Problem, the great^* Casai, or Kassabi River, which rises nearer the Atlantic side of the continent.