Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/354

 ports by carefully surveyed routes comprising a total length of about 4,000 miles, It would scarcely be unfair, says an English writer, to give to this region the name of O'Neill's Land, in honour of the explorer who first laid down on our maps the true features of its mountains, lacustrine basins, and running waters. The territory thus newly acquired by science comprised a superficial area of about 140,000 square miles, with a population approximately estimated at a million souls.

Tho mountain system of the interior is connected westward with the Shire uplands and the ranges skirting the east side of Lake Nyassa. West of Mozambique

the chief eminences are the Namuli Mountains, an almost isolated mass which till recently was supposed to penetrate into the region of snows, but which in any case forms a superb group, dominating far and wide above the surrounding plains and diverging fluvial valleys. The mean level of the land above which it lowers is itself about 2,000 feet high. But the hills are much more elevated and precipitous on the southern slope, where the outer escarpments attain an altitude of from 2,300 to 2,600 feet above the neighbouring plains. Here rise the loftiest summits, among others the twin-peaked Namuli, whence the whole group of highlands take their name. According to the explorer, Last, the Namuli,