Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/564

 those regions which promise one day to acquire the greatest economic importance as forming lands of transition between the Nile and Congo systems. In an ethnological sense it also forms a connecting link with the Negroes and Bantus, the inhabitants of the waterparting showing affinities to both races in their social usages, while still constituting a distinct family.

When Schweinfurth penetrated for the first time into this region he had good reason to cal] it the "Heart of Africa," for here lies the point of intersection for the diagonal continental lines drawn from the mouth of the Congo to the Nile delta, and from the Gulf of Guinea to that of Aden. Yet this divide between the two great fluvial systems is still but little known. After Schweinfurth's

memorable expedition, the subsequent journeys of Bohndorff, Lupton, Potagos, and Casati added details of a secondary interest only to the rich and varied information supplied by that pioneer. But it is otherwise with Junker's journeys, the publication of which must certainly be regarded as a geographical event of primary importance for our knowledge of this part of the continent. Of equal if not greater importance are the data supplied by the expedition undertaken in 1887 by Stanley, to force the passage from the Congo to the Upper Nile for the purpose of relieving Emin Bey's Egyptian forces, stationed at Wadelai, and cut off from the northern route by the revolt in Eastern Sudan.

The Welle of the Niam-Niams, the Nomayo of the Monbuttus, the Bahr-el-Makua of the Arabs, rises under the name of Kibali in the uplands skirting the