I offer to the world my narrative of many years of hardships and
difficulties, happily not vainly spent in this great enterprise: should
some un-ambitious spirits reflect, that the results are hardly worth the
sacrifice of the best years of life thus devoted to exile and suffering,
let them remember that "we are placed on earth for a certain period, to
fulfil, according to our several conditions and degrees of mind, those
duties by which the earth's history is carried on." (E. L. Bulwer's
"Life, Literature, and Manners.")
THE ALBERT N'YANZA.
CHAPTER I.
THE EXPEDITION
In March, 1861, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the
Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains
Speke and Grant, that had been sent by the English Government from the
South via Zanzibar, for that object. I had not the presumption to
publish my intention, as the sources of the Nile had hitherto defied all
explorers, but I had inwardly determined to accomplish this difficult
task or to die in the attempt. From my youth I had been inured to
hardships and endurance in wild sports in tropical climates, and when I
gazed upon the map of Africa I had a wild hope, mingled with humility,
that, even as the insignificant worm bores through the hardest oak, I
might by perseverance reach the heart of Africa.
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