Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/562

54:8 N'YANZA where its width contracts from 200 to about 50 yards, and its waters rush furiously through a rocky gorge and descend at one leap a distance of 120 ft., in a cataract of snowy whiteness, forming the greatest waterfall of the Nile. The river now broadens until its banks are 500 yards apart, and moves with sluggish cur- rent slowly westward until, about 20 m. from the falls, it joins the second lake. II. Albert N'yanza. On their journey N. from the Vic- toria N'yanza Speke and Grant heard of this lake under the name of Luta N'zige, but did not visit it, as they left the Somerset river near Karuma falls, and did not see the Nile un- til they reached lat. 3 32' N., about a degree below its exit from the then undiscovered body of water thus designated. On Feb. 15, 1863, near Gondokoro, they met Mr. (now Sir) Sam- uel Baker and his wife, on their way S. to dis- cover the sources of the Nile, and communica- ted to them intelligence of the existence of this second lake. Baker then left the Nile region and pushed southward into Unyoro, N. of the Victoria lake, where he learned that the proper native name for the object of his search was not Luta N'zige, but M'wootan N'zige, the waters of which he first descried and reached on March 14, 1864, in lat. 1 15' N., Ion. 30 50' E., at a small fishing village named Vacovia, on the E. shore. Thence the lake, which he called Albert N'yanza, in honor of the prince consort, spread out apparently a limitless expanse of white water toward the south and southwest, while on the opposite western shore rose blue mountains to a height of about 7,000 ft. above the lake level. The width at this point appeared to be 50 or 60 m. South of Vacovia the Albert N'yanzahas never been explored, but the natives describe it as extending directly S. beyond the 1st parallel of S. latitude, where it bends westward; no information has been obtained as to its extent any further than this. The E. coast of the N. portion, however, was carefully traced by Ba- ker, who followed it northward, in a canoe voyage of 13 days' duration, as far as the mouth of the Somerset river or Victoria Nile, at Magungo, in lat. 2 16' N. The shore trends N. N. E., and for some distance above Vacovia is fringed with precipitous cliffs 1,500 ft. high ; but these decrease in elevation toward the north, and the lake loses its character of a deep inland sea, narrowing to a width of from 15 to 20 m., while the banks become marshy and are bordered by thick beds of reeds. The mountains on the W. coast opposite Magungo appear to be about 4,000 ft. in height. From the same village the exit of the Nile proper or Bahr el-Abiad from the N. E. extremity of the lake was visible, at a distance which Baker states to be 18 m., but which is nearly 30 m. according to his map, from which it appears that the point of the river's departure must be near lat, 2 45' N., Ion. 31 30' E. The lake ex- tends toward low ground on the northwest, but how far is unknown. The corrected altitude of NYASSA its surface above the sea level, as determined by Baker at Vacovia, is 2,720 ft. His map in- dicates that the minimum distance of the lake from the Victoria N'yanza cannot much exceed 100 m., and represents the altitude of the in- tervening country of Unyoro, which extends down the E. shore to the equator, as averaging 4,200 ft. The W. coast is occupied by the mountainous kingdom of Malegga. The Al- bert N'yanza is thus situated in a vast longitu- dinal depression crossing the equator, bounded E. by highlands and W. by mountains. Its waters abound in fish, some varieties of which exceed 200 Ibs. in weight ; innumerable hippo- potami and crocodiles frequent its banks, and the adjacent regions are the abode of large herds of elephants. According to Baker, the Victoria N'yanza is the first source of the Nile, which collects its eastern affluents ; while from the Albert N'yanza, which receives those and all the other waters of the equatorial basin, the river issues at once as the great White Nile. See Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile" (1863), and Baker's "Al- bert N'yanza" (1866; new ed., 1870), and " Ismailia " (1874). (See NILE.) NYASSA, a lake in S. E. Africa, with its S. ex- tremity situated about 350 m. W. of the town of Mozambique, in lat. 14 25' S., Ion. 35 10' E., whence its waters are known to extend north- ward upward of 200 m. The width of the main body of water varies from 20 to 60 m. The southern portion consists of two arms, between which rises Cape Maclear, a lofty headland with its summit 2,000 ft. above the surface of the lake. From the S. extremity of the eastern arm flows the river Shire, which joins the Zambesi about 90 m. from the sea. This arm of the lake is about 30m. long and from 10 to 12 m. wide, while the length of the western arm is not more than half as great. According to Dr. Kirk, the elevation of Nyassa above the level of the sea is 1,522 ft. The country on both sides is moun- tainous. The lake is known to be very deep, in some places over 40 fathoms ; and its clear, blue waters are frequently lashed into waves of extraordinary magnitude by the sudden and violent storms to which it is subject. Both the E. and W. banks are populated, and the latter has been explored nearly to lat. 11 S. ; but, so far as known, the northern extremity has never been visited by any European. Nyassa was first laid down on Portuguese maps as early as 1546, but no precise information con- cerning its position was obtained until the time of Manoel Godinho (1663), who learned in In- dia from a Portuguese traveller that it com- municated with the Zambesi through a river which he called Zachaf . In 1859 it was doubly discovered : on Sept. 16 by Dr. Livingstone, who reached it through the valley of the Shire ; and on Oct. 19 by Dr. Albrecht Roscher of Hamburg, who was attacked by two of the natives on the E. shore and killed by poisoned arrows, shortly after making his way to the lake from Kilwa. Nyassa has since been ex-