Next day, however, we descended into the Katonga valley, where, instead of finding a magnificent broad sheet of water, as I had been led to expect by the Arabs' account of it, I found I had to wade through a succession of rush-drains divided one from the other by islands.

It took me two hours, with my clothes tucked up under my arms, to get through them all; and many of them were so matted with weeds, that my feet sank down as though I trod in a bog.
The Waganda all said that at certain times in the year no one could ford these drains, as they all flooded; but, strangely enough, they were always lowest when most rain fell in Uganda.

No one, however, could account for this singular fact.

No one knew of a lake to supply the waters, nor where they came from.

That they flowed into the lake there was no doubt--as I could see by the trickling waters in some few places--and they lay exactly on the equator.