of Pliny the Elder, writing in 50 A.D.  The Emperor Nero, in A.D. 66, sent an expedition up the Nile, and its members journeyed as far as the modern Fashoda and perhaps even beyond the White Nile.  Their advance was impeded by the sudd, and, after writing discouraging reports, their attempt was abandoned.  Among the Greek merchants who traded on the East African coast was one named Diogenes, who had been informed by an Arab that by a twenty-five days’ journey one could gain access to a chain of great lakes, two of which were the headwaters of the White Nile.  They also said that there was a mountain range, named from its brilliant appearance the Mountains of the Moon.  He was informed that the Nile formed from the two head streams, flowed through marshes until it united with the Blue Nile, and then it flowed on until it entered into well-known regions.  Diogenes reported this to a Syrian geographer named Marinus of Tyre, who wrote of it in his Geography during the first century of the Christian era.  The writings of Marinus disappeared, it is supposed, when the Alexandrian Library was scattered, but luckily Gladius Ptolemy quoted them, and thus they have been preserved for us.  Ptolemy wrote, in 150 A.D., the first clearly intelligible account of the origin of the White Nile, the two lakes, Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and the Mountains of the Moon.  But no less than 1,740 years elapsed before justice could be done to this ancient geographer, and his account verified.  It was Sir Henry M. Stanley who discovered the Ruwanzori mountain range, corresponding to the classical Mountains of the Moon, and who thus justified Ptolemy’s view of the topography of Africa.  For many years after Ptolemy, the work of exploring the sources of the Nile was entirely discontinued, and the solution of the problem was still wrapped in impenetrable mystery.

The first modern explorer of any consequence who came from Great Britain was a Scotchman named Bruce.  In 1763 he travelled through many ports of Northern Africa and visited the Levant, and subsequently Syria and Palestine.  Wherever he went he drew sketches of antiquities, which are now preserved in the British Museum.  Landing in Africa in 1786, he went up the Nile as far as Aswan.  From there he travelled to the Red Sea and reached Jiddah, the port of Hajas.  He then returned to Africa, stopping at Massawra, and from there penetrated into the heart of Abyssinia.  The emperor received him with favour and suffered him to reach the Blue Nile, which to the mind of Bruce had always been considered as the main stream of the Nile.  Having determined the latitude and longitude, he went down the Blue Nile as far as the site of Khartum, where the waters of the White Nile join with those of the Blue Nile.  He next proceeded to Berber, and crossed the desert to Korosko, returning, after a three years’ journey, in the year 1773.  In journeying through France many learned men took a great interest in the story of his explorations,