"North-northeast."
"The deuce! but that's not the north?"
"No, Dick; and I'm afraid that we shall have some
trouble in getting to Gondokoro. I am sorry for it; but,
at last, we have succeeded in connecting the explorations
from the east with those from the north; and we must
not complain."
The balloon was now receding gradually from the Nile.
"One last look," said the doctor, "at this impassable
latitude, beyond which the most intrepid travellers could
not make their way. There are those intractable tribes,
of whom Petherick, Arnaud, Miuni, and the young traveller
Lejean, to whom we are indebted for the best work
on the Upper Nile, have spoken."
"Thus, then," added Kennedy, inquiringly, "our discoveries
agree with the speculations of science."
"Absolutely so. The sources of the White Nile, of
the Bahr-el-Abiad, are immersed in a lake as large as a
sea; it is there that it takes its rise. Poesy, undoubtedly,
loses something thereby. People were fond of ascribing
a celestial origin to this king of rivers. The ancients gave
it the name of an ocean, and were not far from believing
that it flowed directly from the sun; but we must come
down from these flights from time to time, and accept
what science teaches us.
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