The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860. Various
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Still rocks piled on rocks faced my wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm, in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty, still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,—the Unfathomable Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the Nile.
For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,—through the land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, —through the land where the African princes watched from afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,—past Meroë, Thebes, Cairo; bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing tumult of thousands of years of life,—ever flowing, ever ebbing, with the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined figures, each to its simple apex,—one little point containing the essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful Beginnings,—to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,—had had such an ineffable vision,—and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I sank on my knees, lost in GOD.
After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view, till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night, especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing, transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival.
"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction of manner, "what have you seen?"
"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply.
Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to one,—the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods literatim, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing the discovery,—not because I did not feel the force of it, but because my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, they are literally de-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent congratulations.
"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your fortune's made,—you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude. Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!"
I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,—I who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous notoriety mean?
"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all! that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"—
"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?"
He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as such,—but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had finished,—
"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the mountain,—something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount Washington, you know,—hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as they say in Cairo, the thing would take!"
I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge in the world,—not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let him take the whole affair into his own hands,—cost, profit, and all. I wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for that, and still talked and argued,—giving his most visionary plans a definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver. I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly, that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice, at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah! little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)—what