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.