Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/270

Rh 248 AFRICA [PROGRESSIVE kefield New. ich. . ssmiau edi- wein- h.
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ptian edi- i. ke mba). kes ero and igweolo) anyue- ). alaba). their exploration of Damara Laud. On the eastern side Messrs Wakefield and New, the successors of Krapf and Rebmann in the Mombas Mission, made numerous short journeys in the Galla country, and the former collected very valuable native information respecting the countries lying between this coast-land and the great lakes of the Nile basin. In this year also Dr Livingstone had again entered the Rovuma river, beginning that greatest of all his journeys from which he has not yet (1873) returned, and the outline of which we shall notice further on. Still farther south, in 1866-67, the discovery of gold in the mountains between the Zambeze and Limpopo rivers, by the pioneer Mauch, gave great impetus to exploration in this part of the continent. The years 1867-68 brought the memorable Abyssinian campaign, and the accurate re cords kept of the line of march on the high land from Massowah to Magdala formed a most valuable contribution to African geography. Most important in the following years (1869-71) were the researches of the botanist, Dr Schweinfurth, in the region of the complicated network of tributaries received by the White Nile west of Gondokoro, during which he passed the water-parting of the Nile basin in this direction, and came into a new area of drainage, possibly belonging to the system of Lake Chad ; and the outsetting of a great Egyptian military expedition (1869) by Sir Samuel Baker, for the purpose of exploration of the Upper Nile and of the extermination of slave traffic on the river, and to plant Egyptian military posts in the regions visited. The letters received from time to time in this country from Dr Livingstone enable us to trace roughly his move ments from 1866 to the present time as follows : Arriving from Bombay, on the East African coast, near the mouth of the Rovuma, he passed up the course of this river to the confluence of its main tributary branches, one coming from the north-west, the other from south-west. Following the latter arm, the traveller appears to have gone round the southern end of the Lake Nyassa, and, marching then in a north-westerly direction, he crossed the head waters of the Aruangoa tributary of the Zambeze, near the track of Lacerda, in the previous century ; ascending a high hud, he came iipon a portion of the Chambeze river, belonging to a different basin, and continuing in a north westerly direction, discovered Lake Liemba, a southern extension of Lake Tanganyika, in April 1867. Thence he turned to the Cazembe s town, and in journeys northward and southward from this point, made known the two great lakes, Moero (Sept. 1867), and Bangweolo or Bemba (July 1868), which form part of a new system, connected by the Chambeze (also named the Luapula and Lualaba) river in a basin south and west of that of the Tanganyika. In 1869 Livingstone had made his way to Ujiji, Burton s halting- place, on the eastern shore of the Tanganyika. Hence, crossing the lake, he penetrated the dense tropical forests and swarnps of Manyuema country, in the heart of the southern portion of the continent, and during 1870-71 traced the vast river (Lualaba) flowing out of the Lake Moero, in its north and westerly course, to a second, and then a third great expansion- Lake Kamalondo the one, and the other a still uuvisited body of water lying in about 3 S. lat., and 25 or 26 E. long; also learning, by native report, that the Lualaba (which is in all probability the upper course of the mighty Congo river) received a great tributary from south-westward. This south-western arm also expands into a vast lake, which Livingstone has named, in anticipation, Lake Lincoln. Though the untruth of a report of Livingstone s death, near the Nyassa, had been proved by an expedition sent out on his track by the Geographical Society of London in 1867, yet, at the time of his Manyuema journey, the pro bable fate of the great traveller, from whom no news had come out of Africa for more than two years, became a mat ter of the greatest anxiety among all classes in Europe and America. This led to a special mission for Dr Livingstone s aid, generously fitted out at the cost of the proprietor of ail American newspaper. Stanley, the leader of this expedi- Stanley. tion, made a bold march from Zanzibar to Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, and was fortunate in meeting the great travel ler there, returning from Manyuema, broken down by tho severity of the task which he had accomplished, and in need of everything. A boat voyage round the northern end of Tanganyika, undertaken in the latter part of 1871 by Livingstone and Stanley together, proved that this great lake has no apparent outlet in a northerly direction, and leaves the question of its drainage in considerable doubt. Recruited in health, and supplied with stores and fol lowers, Livingstone is believed to have started afresh from Unyanyembe, a point midway in the route from Zanzibar to Ujiji, where he parted with Stanley, in autumn of 1872, to carry out a projected journey, in which he will clear up all doubts respecting the ultimate direction of the great Lualaba river. Of the expeditions which have been progressing in Africa contemporaneously with these later journeys of Dr Living stone, that of Sir Samuel Baker is perhaps the most im portant, though its story has until now been one of almost continuous hardship and disaster. Up to the middle of the year 1870, at which time the expedition, consisting of up wards of 1500 men, with numerous vessels, had safely Baker, reached a point on the Nile in 9 26 N. lat., all appears to have gone well ; but beyond this the passages of the river had become choked with overgrowth of vegetation, and each yard of advance had to be cut through this living bar rier ; disease broke out among the troops, and the expedi tion was reduced to the greatest straits. In the end, how ever, it appears to have been completely successful, and before Sir Samuel Baker s return to Egypt in 1873, the whole country, as far south as the equator, had been taken possession of in the name of Egypt, and several garrisons had been planted to maintain the hold. Knowledge of the rich country between the Transvaal Republic and the Zambeze has extended with wonderful rapidity, through the exertions of the pioneers Mauch, Mohr, Recent Baines, Elton, and St Vincent Erskine, so that this region South has now almost passed out of the category of lands in which Afrlca ! geographical discoveries can be made. A point of great interest in the progress of the exploration of this country was the discovery by Mauch, in 1871, of the ruins of an ancient city or fortress, named Zimbaoe, certainly not of African construction, about 200 miles due west from Sofala, in lat. 20 15 S., long. 30 45 E., through which it has been sought to identify this region with the Ophir of Scripture. The finding, in 1869, of rich diamond fields in the upper valley of the Orange river, and in that of its tributary the Vaal, caused a rush of emigration to these districts, and tended still further to develop this portion of Africa. North African exploration is also vigorously progressing. In the west, during 1869, Winwood Reade made a journey Winwood from Sierra Leone to the head of the Niger, and from 1867 Reade. onwards M. Munzingcr, consul at Massowa, has greatly Munzingc extended our knowledge of Northern Abyssinia. A notable journey of exploration in the Sahara remains to be men tioned. In 1869 Dr Nachtigal was appointed to carry Dr Nach- presents from the King of Prussia to the Sultan of Bornu, tigal. on Lake Chad, in acknowledgment of that potentate s aid to former travellers. Besides accomplishing this mission, this explorer has added very considerably to our knowledge of the Eastern Sahara by investigating the central mountainous country of Tibesti, hitherto only known by report; and in