The red brown river heads for Lake Victoria

On the flight from KigalI to Entebbe we again caught sight of the River Kagera now heading for Lake Victoria at Bukoba. It was still the unmistakable red brown we had seen from the road level when driving from the Virunga Volcanoes. The stream retains its colour and shape almost to the centre of Lake Victoria.

At this point we thought we might have stumbled across a geographical discovery which could cause bones to stir in the catacombs of the Royal Geographical Society. But a few minutes with Google soon revealed that it is broadly accepted that the Kagera is the longest and most substantial of the rivers feeding Lake Victoria and therefore the most distant source of
the Nile.

But if this is widely accepted then other questions arise. If the Amazon is measured from the source of its most distant feeder stream then why not the Nile? And since the Nile is already named in sections viz the Victoria Nile and the Albert Nile north of Lake Victoria then why should the same principle not apply south of Lake Victoria?