Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/236

 GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS.

Paul Fau»jub bas returned to Paris from a scien- UBc mission to Sumatra, with mucb valuable infar- malion touching the people of the country of Siaks and the kingdom of Atcheen. In the course of the journey he obtained precise information in regard to the causes and incidents of the death of Messrs. Wallon and Giiitlaume, assasainated by the natives on the river Tenom in 1830, aa well as on the miner- alogy and natural hlatorj of this great Island, Nu' merous photographs of the country and people were secured.

Francois Delonclc, accompanied by an English and a French civil engineer and a Siamese commissioner, bu been engaged in an inquiry as to the possibility of cutting the isthmus joining the peninsula of Ma- lacca to the mainland, in north latitude 1° 14'. Here they discovered a little independent state called Snmsam, formerly the resort of pirates, and now semi-independent of Slam. The inhabitants are a milU of Malay and Siamese blood. Here deep Inlets penetrate the coast, joining an Inland sea, which was now first seen hy Europeans. It Is about twenty feet deep, and forty-&ve miles long, having a grcittest width of twelve miles. II presented a very singular appearance, being plentifully strewn with small islands of compact limestone covered with swallow's nests. This sea is fresh during the north-east, and salt during the south-west monsoons, and separates the Island oE Tantalam from the peninsula hy a mul- titude of passages not represented on any chart. The section of the peninsula was made at Talung; and specimens brought hacit show the presence of auriferous quarti, tin, and iron. The report of the expedition will contain important anthropological as well OS geographical documents. Returning, De- loncle also examined Adam's Bridge, between Ceylon and India, and will report that the establishment there of a maritime passage is entirely practicable.

Sorokin taaa recently published an account of his journey in the central range of the Thian-Shan, where, among other discoveries, he found the so- called ruins of Cyclopean buildings to be due to nat- ural causes acting on rock in iltu. Dr, Kegel bas returned to Tashkent with bis collections from Hlssar and Karategln.

£h miiutioni calhuUquex, published at Lyons, con- tains In almost every number rich contributions to geography or ethnology, as well as to the history of missions. Among others, it bas recently contained the Itinerary and map of a journey across Kwangsi and Kong Cheo, by Father Oioiizy, and a journey on the Niger, by the missionaries of the church in Airlca. The abbd Desgodins, in the same review, announces his establishment in a new English out- post in Thibet, at Pedong, forty-five miles north- north-east from Darjiling, where he will continue meteorological observations, as previously at Ba- Ihang, his former station.

GIraiid, to whose critical situation, abandoned by his caravan, recent reference was made in this jour- nal, bas arrived safely at the mouth of the Zambezi.

��It appears, that, after leaving Earema, he endeaxond to penetrai« westward. In spile of disquielinjE rumor* and symptoms of mutiny in liis caravan. He sao- ceedeil In crossing the lake In native cano«a, and la a month had reached the Belgian station of M'pala. Here, unsettled by rumors of difllculty on their pro- posed route, bis party revolted, and proceeded to pillage villages where he had previously been received with kindness. He was therefore compelled to re- turn. With a small party gathered on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, be reached the north coaat of Lak« Nyassa, descended in a little boat t^ Shirf, endan- gered hy the hostilities between the Portuguese and the natives, bat succeeded in reaching the Zambeii and Kwillimand in safety, in good health, with dv> merciuB notes and collections, and. at last acconnt^ was on the point of returning to Europe.

From the Mitsionary Aeralil for March we learn that Mr. Kichards of the Eastrcentral African mission made a journey in October, 1881, from Inbambane to the Limpopo River. He went through an unex- plored country in search of a tribe whose chief settle- ment was reported to be Balenl on the Limpopo, and who spoke a, language akin to Zulu. Betwt^en thirty and forty miles westward from the coast he crossed a river called the Bombom, which may be the Lulii of some charts on which it is represented some three times the distance from the coast. No other Im- portant river was noticed until the Limpopo was reached. The country is almost wholly marshy, and covered with brush or low palms, with ponds bereand there. The thermometer ranged hetweenSOOandW F. The Amakwakwa tribe, encountered forty miles from the coast, had been subject«d to chronic pillage by Umzila's fighting men, and had abandoned agricul- ture in consequence. They were idle, living on the wild fruit which is abundant, and getting very drunk on the native wine afforded by the scrub palm, wbicb produces a rapidly fermenting sweet sap at the of a pint a day per tree. Many kraals were de»«i and a tract of country seventy-five miles square nearly desolate. About a hundred and fifty mllw from the coast, the Amagwasa people were encoun- tered, who gave the travellers a cordial reception as soon as It was found they were not Portuguese. They are subject to UmiillA, whose capital kraal Is far to the north, hut most of whose people live south of the Sabl River. Balenl was said to be on the Limpopo three days south from the point where Mr. Richards reached it. Time did not suffice to visit it. The return was made through a rather opi^nly wooded country, where the trees bore long wreaths of a gray tree-moss, and beautiful birds were abundant. Ele- phants abound In this district. In three days the ridge between the Limpopo and the sea was reached, where live an industrious kindly people, with sheep, cattle, and large gardens. By the pe<lometer the cr«at was fifty-seven miles from the sea, and seventy-eight from the river. The people of the rcRion appear to have been originally of Tonga race; but, conquered by the Zulus and Portuguese, their language bas been modified by the superior nationality In Its reipecUre districts. "

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