The exit of the Nile from the lake was plain enough, and if the broad channel of dead water were indeed the entrance of the Victoria Nile (Somerset), the information obtained by Speke would be remarkably confirmed. But although the chief of Magungo and all the natives assured me that the broad channel of dead water at my feet was positively the brawling river that I had crossed below the Karuma Falls, I could not understand how so fine a body of water as that had appeared could possibly enter the Albert Lake as dead water. The guide and natives laughed at my unbelief, and declared that it was dead water for a considerable distance from the junction with the lake, but that a great waterfall rushed down from a mountain, and that beyond that fall the river was merely a succession of cataracts throughout the entire distance of about six days’ march to Karuma Falls. My real wish was to descend the Nile in canoes from its exit from the lake with my own men as boatmen, and thus in a short time to reach the cataracts in the Madi country; there to forsake the canoes and all my baggage, and to march direct to Gondokoro with only our guns and ammunition. I knew from native report that the Nile was navigable as far as the Madi country to about Miani’s tree, which Speke had laid down by astronomical observation in lat. 3 “degrees” 34′. This would be only seven days’ march from Gondokoro, and by such a direct course I should be sure to arrive in time for the boats to Khartoum.