Lake Victoria

“ We shall follow, in a general way, the Blue Nile to Ehri, and then go almost due south to Uganda and Lake Victoria, the second largest lake of the world. We shall skirt the eastern edge of the Sudd, in which there is hardly a single safe landing place. Except in the main channels, masses of papyrus completely hide the water, and if we should come down in that treacherous region we could hardly hope to get out alive. We should be unable to walk, swim, or float in the dense tangle. ”

“ I was afraid, when I came the second time down the Murray, that I had exaggerated the number of acres in the valley, but on further examination, it appears to me that I did not do so; for as the traveller approaches Lake Victoria the flats are very extensive, but more liable to inundation than those on the higher points of the river, for being so little elevated above the level of the water, especially those covered with reeds, the smallest rise in the stream affects them. ”

“ From Lake Victoria (Sor-Kul) in the Pamirs, which was originally reckoned as the true source of the river, to Khamiab, on the edge of the Andkhui district of Afghan Turkestan, for a distance of about 680 m., the Oxus forms the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia. For another 550 m. below Khamiab it follows an open and sluggish course till it is lost in the Sea of Aral, being spanned at Charjui, 150 m. below Khamiab, by the wooden bridge which carries the Russian railway from Merv to Samarkand. The level of Lake Victoria is 13,400 ft. above sea. ”

“ We all agree that we have never seen prettier lake scenery anywhere in the world than in this famous western district of Victoria. The lakes are at various levels, the larger ones studded with islands, and the shores of the salt lakes glistening with snowy crystals. In the landscape are plains, undulating areas, and mountains. ”

“ The road from Mackay’s Mission takes a south-easterly direction in order to cross the little stream, which as it approaches the creek at the south-eastward of Lake Victoria forms a swamp about five yards wide. ”

“ Precisely on the points where the Lake Tsana scheme is weakest the schemes for utilizing one or both of the great lakes of Uganda are strongest. Precisely where it is strong they are weakest. Any works damming the exits of Lake Victoria Nyanza or Lake Albert would be wholly within British territory. They would also be in a region much more easily accessible from the sea. Lake Victoria has already railway communication with Mombasa, and the transport of material, and also of coolie labour from India would be comparatively easy. ”

“ It seems wonderful that after white men have used watercourses for canoe routes for a century or two, and when lumbermen have investigated the country, there are stretches of many miles together which are not indicated on official maps except by white spots. But this is true of over half a million square miles of British-American territory. The two lakes we traversed are called by Indian names which mean "Crosswise Lake" and "Old Man Lake." Out of the latter runs a river which falls into the Grand Lake Victoria. This lake is really an expansion of the Ottawa. ”

“ Thus the same chain of mountains that fed the Victoria on the east must have a watershed to the west and north that would flow into the Albert Lake. The general drainage of the Nile basin tending from south to north, and the Albert Lake extending much farther north than the Victoria, it receives the river from the latter lake, and thus monopolizes the entire head-waters of the Nile. The Albert is the grand reservoir, while the Victoria is the eastern source. ”

“ In dodging these storms, we must be careful not to fly so far off our course as to be forced to land in the wilds. The country here is a mile or more above sea level, and if we should fly too high in order to avoid the heat gusts, we may have trouble with our engines in the rarefied air. Below us are dense forests and rocky hillsides, and natural landing places hardly exist. As we go down the eastern shore of Lake Victoria we see new sights. These are the water-spouts, great spiral columns whirled up from the lake into the air by the eddying winds. ”

“ South of Lake Alexandrina we see a long curving coast, bounded by sandbanks enclosing a string of lagoons, the Coorong; behind it is the scrub country which we have met already in the north-west district of Victoria. Beyond this, in the south-east corner, especially around Mount Gambier, we find the same conditions as on the neighbouring coast regions of Victoria. There is considerable rainfall and there are [70] 10 even fresh-water lakes, as we see here. The soil, too, is fertile, since Mount Gambier belongs to the volcanic area of Victoria ”

“ The Victoria Lake, completed in 1884, had the utilitarian object of providing the water-supply of Rangoon. This does not render it less picturesque.
In most districts are to be found shallow meres, teeming in due season with water-fowl. ”

“ A drive past the Victoria Institute, the Government House, and the market place to the reservoir, the Botanical Garden, and to the beautiful Queen’s Park Hotel will be greatly enjoyed; and the opportunity for shopping in the excellent stores or from the natives who bring wares to the boat will be improved by some whose purses are not yet empty. On the regular steamers, there is no opportunity to visit the celebrated Pitch Lake some miles away, a lake with an area of 114 acres, on the surface of which one may walk if he moves along promptly. ”

“ Our friends made a visit to the famous lake district of Victoria, where they found some very pretty scenery, and from the summit of one hill counted no fewer than fifteen lakes, some of them of no great size, while the largest measured ninety miles in circumference. Harry made note of the fact that this largest lake was called the Dead Sea. It is said to be not as salt as the famous Dead Sea near Jerusalem, but it is a great deal salter than the ocean, and no fish of any kind lives in it. ”

“ I have been up the Victoria Nile—viz. Lake Mesanga. It is a vast lake, but of still shallow water. The river seems to lose itself entirely in it. A narrow passage, scarcely nine feet wide, joins the north end of the Victoria Nile near Mrooli; and judging from the Murchison Falls— which are rapids, not falls—I should say Victoria Lake and Victoria Nile contribute very little to the true Nile. The branch Piaggia saw is very doubtful. I could not find it, and the boatmen seem very hazy as to its existence. As for Gessi's branch north of Albert Lake, I could not find that either. ”

“ The craft in greatest favour everywhere on lake, river and bay of Ontario, is the canoe. I do not think anyone can know what an extensive cult is the “canoe” till they see it in Ontario. In season it creeps on the bosom of the lake like a leaf dropped silently from the tree. And Romance rides in more or less every canoe, so that, if anything, the Romantic may be said to be more difficult to keep up with in Ontario than any of the Provinces. The trail of the Romantic invariably leads to a tent somewhere by a stream. ”

“ Victoria on Vancouver Island. The Dolly Varden trout is very plentiful in all these rivers. Some very fine bags of large fish have been made in the Squamish River in Butte inlet. On Vancouver Island there is good fishing, easily reached from Victoria. The Cowichan River and Lake are the best known. Steel-head and rainbow can both be got on fly and minnow. The flies used are even larger than those on the Thompson. Personally, I have never fished on Vancouver Island, but from all that I have heard I should say that sport is not so good there as on the upper mainland. ”

“ Expedition to Inchrory.
September 30, 1859.
At twenty minutes past eleven we started with Helena and Louise in the sociable, Grant on the box, for Loch Bulig, passing the farms of Blairglass and of Dall Dounie, and the shooting-lodge of Corndavon, ten miles distant. Here we found our ponies (mine being “Victoria”) , and rode along the edge of the lake, up a beautiful glen by a path winding through the valley, which appeared frequently closed. We then rode along a small river or burn, of which no one knew the name; none of our party having ever been there before. ”

“ The cemetery of Bunhill Fields is the largest until Victoria Park is reached—that really necessary park which has such hard usage that there are acres of it without a blade of grass left. Here the East both apes the West and instructs it. There is one lake here on which rowing boats incessantly ply, and a motor launch used to make continual trips round an island with a Japanese temple on it for a penny a voyage; and there is another lake where thousands of little East-end boys bathe in the summer all day long. ”

“ Soon after, the country grew prettier, and the hills appeared again, partly wooded. We passed Loch Leven, and saw the castle on the lake from which poor Queen Mary escaped. There the country is rather flat, and the hills are only on one side. We changed horses next at Kinross. Soon after this, the mountains, which are rather barren, began to appear. [12] Then we passed the valley of Glen Farg; the hills are very high on each side, and completely wooded down to the bottom of the valley, where a small stream runs on one side of the road—it is really lovely. ”

“ We got into our carriage with Charles and the two children; there was a great crowd to see us off. We went by a very wild and lonely [57] road, the latter part extremely fine, with mountains and streams that reminded us of Glen Tilt. We changed horses only once, and came at length in sight of Loch Laggan. It is a beautiful lake (small in comparison to what we have seen) surrounded by very fine mountains: the road by its side is extremely pretty. We saw Lord Abercorn’s house of Ardverikie long before we came to it. At Laggan there is only a small inn, and at the end of the lake, a ferry. ”

“ I drove a little way with Lady Breadalbane, the others walking, and then got out, and each of us planted two trees, a fir and an oak. We got in again, and drove with the whole party down to the lake, where we embarked. Lady Breadalbane, the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Elizabeth went by land, but all the others went in boats. With us were Lord Breadalbane and the Duchess of Norfolk and Duchess of Buccleuch; and two pipers sat on the bow and played very often. ”

“ Suddenly the southern river bends towards the north, and, at a point some six hundred miles from the mountains, pours its volume of water into the northern channel. Then the united river rolls, in vast, majestic curves, steadily towards the north-east, turns once more towards the south, opens out into a great reed-covered marsh, sweeps on into a large cedar-lined lake, and finally, rolling over a rocky ledge, casts its waters into the northern end of the great Lake Winnipeg, fully one thousand three hundred miles from the glacier cradle where it took its birth. ”

“ There is a quiet horror about the Great Lakes which grows as one revisits them. Fresh water has no right or call to dip over the horizon, pulling down and pushing up the hulls of big steamers; no right to tread the slow, deep-sea dance-step between wrinkled cliffs; nor to roar in on weed and sand beaches between vast headlands that run out for leagues into haze and sea-fog. Lake Superior is all the same stuff as what towns pay taxes for, but it engulfs and wrecks and drives ashore, like a fully accredited ocean—a hideous thing to find in the heart of a continent. ”

“ It is the first of many we will see before we return to Victoria again, and, like most of them, it is on one of the narrow, level places between the high hills and the deep sea that happens here and there in this Alpine country; or its inhabitants would have to live in the trees on the steep hillsides, or in their canoes on the water. The large river coming in from the Vancouver Island side, some five or six miles from the entrance to the passage, is Campbell river, and is navigable for some distance inland by boats and canoes. ”

“ The land upon either side as you enter the river is bold and well defined, but from the margin of the western shore, an extensive mud and mangrove flat, not entirely above the level of high-water, and reaching to the base of a range of hills, about seventeen miles from the water's edge, seems to indicate that at one time the waters of the Victoria washed the high land on either side. ”

“ With a glad heart she quitted Khartûm, and resumed the ascent of the White Nile, passing through a succession of landscapes fair and fertile. As for the river, its quiet beauty charmed her; and she compared it to Virginia Lake, the pretty basin of water that sparkles in the leafy shades of Windsor Forest. Its banks are richly clothed with trees, chiefly gumtrees, which frequently attain the dimensions of the oak. But the graceful tamarisk is also abundant, and myriads of shrubs furnish the blue ape with a refuge and a home. The air glitters with the many-coloured wings of swarms of birds. ”

“ Each community was well acquainted with the bay before its own city, and with the route to the next, but beyond that they were ignorant, and had no desire to learn. Yet the Lake cannot really be so long and broad as it seems, for the country could not contain it. The length is increased, almost trebled, by the islands and shoals, which will not permit of navigation in a straight line. For the most part, too, they follow the southern shore of the mainland, which is protected by a fringe of islets and banks from the storms which sweep over the open waters. ”

“ Toward Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing itself in a watery sky-line. ”