THE ALBERT LAKE. 311 supposed that either the Albert and Tanganyika were the same lake, or that they were joined by a large river such as that seen by Livingstone.

If this had been so, Tanganyika might have been regarded as a source of the Nile.

At a later date Mr. Stanley, in the course of his travels, came upon a lake to the north of Tanganyika, which he imagined to be the Albert ; but the position he assigns to it makes this to be impossible, as it is much farther south than the extreme limit of the Albert Lake. Since then the Albert Lake has been circumnavigated on three occasions by Gessi Pasha, Mason Bey, and Dr. Emiu Bey respectively. They found that Baker had placed Yacovia too far east, that the southern end of the Lake was an ambatch forest, and that there was no large river flowing into it at its extremity. Moreover, on either side of the Lake, then.

1 are ranges of hills close at hand, so that the only rivers flowing into it are of very small dimensions ; and indeed the water lost by evaporation from the large area of the Lake's surface is greater than the amount of water supplied from these small streams.

It is for this reason that there is a current to the south-south-west, drawn in from the Nile.

Nevertheless, a lake of this size must exercise a considerable influence on the Nile, and it is that of an immense back-water. At the time of the dry season, there is much less water coming down from