THIS

HIS vast continent, thougn associated from the dawn | of civilisation with traditions and mysteries of the most stimulating kind. has remained until recently one of the least known. and, both commercially and politically, one of the least important of the great divisions of the globe. The knowledge of Africa possessed by the ancients was very limited, owing principally to its physical construction: The great desert, which in a broad belt stretches quite across the continent, forbade every attempt to pass it until the introduction of the camel by the Arabs. The want of any known great river, except the Nile, that might conduct into the interior, contributed to confine the Greek and Roman colonists to the habitable belt along the northern coast. The Phoenicians are known to have formed establishments on the northern coast of Africa at a very early period of history, probably not less than 3000 years ago; and the conquest of Egypt by. Cambyses dates as far back as the year B.C. 525. We may consider, therefore, the coasts of Egypt, of the Red Sea, and of the Mediterranean, to have been settled and well known to the ancient Asiatics, who were constantly passing the narrow isthmus which divided their country from Africa and led them immediately from parched deserts into a fertile valley, watered by a magnificent river. But whether they were much or little acquainted with the western coast, which bounds the Atlantic, and the eastern coast, washed by the Indian Ocean, is a question that has exercised the research and ingenuity of the ablest scholars and geographers, and has not yet been satisfactorily answered.

This question being one of curiosity rather than utility, we shall only state the case, and the results of the several inquiries, without entering into the merits of the arguments advanced by the different parties. We are told by Herodotus, that Necho, king of Egypt, sent out an expedition under the command of certain Phoenician seamen, for the purpose of circumnavigating Africa; and that, on their return, they asserted that they had accomplished this undertaking. Few of the ancient writers give credit to the story; but, among the moderns, the Abbé Paris and Montesquieu have contended that this voyage was actually performed. Isaac Vossius and D'Anville have strong doubts; and Dr Vincent and M. Gosselin maintain that such an expedition, at such a period, exceeds all the means and resources of navigation, then in its infancy. Last of all comes Major Rennel, who, in his elucidation of the geography of Herodotus, has done more than all the rest in clearing away the doubts of history; and he argues the possibility of such a voyage, from the construction of their ships, with flat bottoms and low masts, enabling them to keep close to the land, and to discover and enter into all the creeks and harbours which any part of the coast might present. At all events, one thing is evident: if such an expedition ever circuranavigated the African continent, the fruits of it have uearly, if not entirely, perished.

About half a century after this supposed expedition, the account of another voyage, down the western coast, is contained in the Periplus of Hanno, which has also called forth many learned and elaborate discussions among modern geographers, some of whom would carry Hanno to the Bight of Benin, others only to Sherbro Sound or the river Nun in lat. 28° N.

The extent to which ancient discovery proceeded along the eastern coast of Africa, has divided the opinion of the learned nearly as much as its progress on the western coast. Delisle, Huet, and Bochart, made the discovery of the coast to extend as far south as Mozambique and Madagascar.

Egypt, under the Ptolemies, the great patrons of science and promoters of discovery, possessing the advantage of the only great river which falls from the African continent into the Mediterranean, made no progress beyond its ancient boundaries; and though the Romans, who subsequently possessed Egypt, penetrated beyond the limits of their own dependencies, they extended their discoveries no further than Fezzan in one direction, and, at a later period, beyond Nubia as far as Abyssinia. and the regions of the Upper Nile. We know nothing of the progress made by the Carthaginians in the discovery of Interior Africa; but although it has been asserted that their merchants had reached the banks of the interior river, which we call the Kawara or Niger, they have left nothing on record that will warrant such a supposition. The story told by Herodotus, of some Nasamonians crossing the desert, and arriving at a large river, can only be applicable to some western arm of the Nile. The people from whom we derive the first information concerning the interior of Northern Africa are the Arabs, who, by means of the camel, were able to penetrate across the great desert to the very centre of the continent, and along the two coasts as far as the Senegal and the Gambia on the west, and to Sofala on the east. On this latter coast they not only explored to an extent far beyond any supposed limits of ancient discovery, but planted colonies at Sofala, Mombas, Melinda, and at various other places.

The 15th century produced a new era in maritime discovery. The voyages of the Portuguese were the first to give anything like an accurate outline of the two coasts,

and to complete the circumnavigation of Africa. The discovery of America and the West India islands gave rise to that horrid traffic in African negroes, which has since been suppressed; but this traffic has been the means of acquiring a more extended and accurate knowledge of that part of the coast which lies between the rivers Senegal and the Cameroons, as well as of the manners and character of the people who inhabit this extended line of coast. With the English and French settlements in Africa began a systematic survey of the coast, and portions of the interior.

The uncertainty and confusion that prevailed in the geography of the interior of Africa induced a few learned and scientific individuals to form themselves into an association for promoting the exploration of Inner Africa. This society was formed in London in 1788, and under its auspices important additions were made to the geography of Africa by Houghton, Mungo Park, Hornemann, and Burckhardt. Repeated failures, however, at length discouraged the association from engaging other missionaries, and it subsequently merged in the Royal Geographical Society in 1831. During the last sixty years more has been done to make us acquainted with the geography of Africa than during the whole of the 1700 previous years, since Ptolemy, taken together. With Mungo Park, strictly speaking, commences the era of unceasing endeavours to explore the interior.

Mungo Park proceeded in 1795 from the river Gambia on the west coast, to the Joliba (commonly called Niger), traced this river as far as the town of Silla, explored the intervening countries, determined the southern confines of the Sahara, and returned in 1797. In 1805 this adventurous traveller embarked on a second journey in the same regions, for the purpose of descending down the river Joliba to its mouth. This journey added little to the discoveries already made, and cost the traveller his life. He is ascertained to have passed Timbuktu, and to have reached Boussa, where he was killed by the natives. In 1798 Dr Lacerda, a scientific Portuguese traveller, who had already acquired fame through his journeys in Brazil, made the first great journey in South-Eastern Africa, inland from Mozambique, and reached the capital of the African king, known as the Cazembe, in whose country he died.

Hornemann, in 1796-98, penetrated from Cairo to Murzuk, and transmitted from that place valuable information respecting the countries to the south, especially Bornu. He then proceeded in that direction, but it is supposed that he soon afterwards perished, as no accounts of his further progress have ever reached Europe. The first actual crossing of the continent that has been recorded was accomplished between the years 1802 and 1806, by two Pombeiros or mercantile traders in the employment of the Portuguese, who passed from Angola eastward through the territories of the Muata Hianvo and the Cazembe, to the possessions on the Zambeze. In 1816 an expedition was sent out by the English Government, under the command of Captain Tuckey, to the river Congo, which was at that time believed to be the lower course of the Joliba. This was a disastrous undertaking, and the geographical additions were but slight, the river having been ascended a distance of only 280 miles.

In 1819 Lyon and Ritchie penetrated from Tripoli to Murzuk, and a little distance beyond that place.

In 1822 Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney set forth from Tripoli in the same direction, crossed the Great Desert, and reached, on the 4th February 1823, the great lake Tsad or Chad. The surrounding countries were explored as far as Sakatu in the west, and Mandara in the south. This journey was altogether one of the most successful and important into the interior. Oudney died in Bornu, but Clapperton undertook a second journey from the coast of Guinea, crossed the Kawara, and arrived at Sakatu, at which place he

also died. His servant, Richard Lander, returned to England, after having explored a part of the adjoining regions, Major Laing succeeded in reaching Timbuktu from Tripoli, but was murdered on his return in the desert.

In 1827 and 1828 Caillié set out from the Rio Nunez on the western coast, reached Timbuktu, and returned from that place through the Great Desert to Marocco. A second Portuguese journey was undertaken in 1830 from Mozambique to the Cazembe's dominions, and Major Monteiro, the leader of the expedition, more fortunate than his predecessor Dr Lacerda, was enabled to complete a map of the country traversed, and to bring back a complete account of this portion of the interior.

The termination of the Joliba, Kawara, or Niger, remained in obscurity till 1830, when it was ascertained by Lander and his brother, who succeeded in tracing the river from Yaouri down to its mouth. They embarked on a second expedition, which sailed in 1832, for the purpose of ascending the Kawara as far as Timbuktu. But only Rabba was reached, and the general results of the expedition were most disastrous.

The great Niger expedition, similar to the foregoing, consisted of three steam-vessels, and was despatched by the Government in 1841, under Captain Trotter. It proved a failure, and resulted in a melancholy loss of life.

In the region between the Kawara and the coast, Mr Duncan, one of the survivors of the Niger expedition, inade some additions to our geographical knowledge by his journey to Adafoodia, in 1845-46. This enterprising traveller met with an untimely death in a second attempt in the same region for the purpose of reaching Timbuktu.

The preceding journeys were confined chiefly to the northern and western portions of the continent. A much greater number of travellers explored the regions drained by the Nile, the salubrity of which, particularly of Abyssinia, is so infinitely greater than that of Western Africa, that among the many explorers of the former, a very small proportion have died as compared with the immense loss of life in Western Africa. Among the most distinguished of the earlier East African travellers are Bruce (1768-73), Browne (1793), who reached Darfur, Burckhardt (1814), Cailliaud (1819), and more recently Rüppel (1824-25), Russegger (1837), D'Abbadie (183844), Beke (1840-44), D'Arnaud and Werne on the White Nile (1840-42), and Brun Rollet (1845).

Though the Dutch settlement in South Africa was founded as early as 1650, not much information of the interior of that portion of the continent was gained till the end of the 18th century, when a series of journeys was commenced by Sparrmann, and followed up by Vaillant, Barrow, Trotter, Somerville, Lichtenstein, Burchell (1812), Campbell, Thomson, Smith, Alexander (1836-37), and Harris. A station of the Church Missionary Society was established near Mombas, in about 4° S. lat. on the east coast of Africa, in 1845, and the zealous missionaries in charge of it began to make exploring journeys into the interior. Thus, early in 1849, the Rev. Mr Rebmann discovered the great snow-clad mountain of Kilima-njaro, rising on the edge of the inland plateau; and his companion, Dr Krapf, taking a more northerly route, came in sight of a second huge mountain named Kenia, also snow-clad, though directly beneath the equator. Frequent reports reached these missionaries of vast lakes in the interior beyond the mountains they had discovered, and their information awakened & great interest in this region at home.

About this time an embassy, for the purpose of concluding commercial treaties with the chiefs of Northern Africa, as far as Lake Chad, by which the legitimate trade of these countries should be extended and the system of slavery abolished, was originated by Mr James Richardson, who

left England for this purpose in 1849, accompanied by Drs | Barth and Overweg. The expedition had already almost reached the scene of its labours when Richardson died; Overweg also fell a victim to his exertions, but Dr Barth continued his explorations till 1856. During this time he traversed in many directions almost the whole of the northern Soudan, completing a series of journeys which must always remain most conspicuous in North African travel, and upon which we are still dependent for the greater part of our knowledge of the central negro states.

In the summer of 1849, Dr Livingstone, who, as an agent of the London Missionary Society, had laboured and travelled in the countries immediately north of the Cape Colony since 1840, began those remarkable journeys in the interior of Southern Africa, which have continued until the present time, and have given to him the first place among African discoverers. The finding of Lake Ngami, the central point of the continental drainage of South Africa, was the great discovery of the first year.

Two journeys from the west coast now claim attention. In 1846 a Portuguese trader named Graça succeeded in again reaching the country of the South African potentate, named the Muata Yanvo, from Angola; he was followed by a Hungarian named Ladislaus Magyar, who explored the central country in various directions from 1847 to 1851. Between 1851 and 1853 Livingstone made two journeys northward from his station in the land of the Bechuanas, and was the first European to embark upon the upper course of the Zambeze. From the Makololo country, in the central part of the river basin, he now led a party of natives westwards up-stream to the water-parting of the continent at the little Lake Dilolo, and thence to the western slope, reaching the Portuguese coast at Loanda in 1854. During 1851 Galton explored a part of the south-western country inhabited by the Damaras and Ovampo, from Walfisch Bay to a point in lat. 17° 58′ S., and long. 21° E., determining accurately a number of positions in this region. On the south-east, also, Gassiot made an interesting journey from Port Natal north-westward through the mountains to the river Limpopo.

Two most remarkable journeys across the whole continent now follow in order; the one, made by Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader, who leaving Benguela in 1853, took an eastward route, parallel to but considerably northward of the Zambeze, over perfectly unknown country. He then rounded the southern end of the Lake Nyassa (afterwards explored by Livingstone), and made his way across the east coast-land to the mouth of the Rovuma river, having spent a year and two months in his tedious march. The other was executed by Livingstone, who in returning (1855-56) by a somewhat more northerly route than that travelled over in going westward to Loanda, descended the Zambeze to its mouth at Quilimane, discovering the wonderful Victoria Falls of the river on his way.

In 1856 an important addition was made to the more exact geography of Africa, in a survey of the greater part of the course of the Orange river, by Mr Moffat, a son of the veteran South African missionary.

The following year was one of great activity in African exploration. Damara Land, in the south-west, was traversed by Messrs Hahn and Rath as far as the southern limit of the Portuguese territory at the Cunene river; Dr Bastian was exploring the interior of Congo and Angola, and Du Chaillu had begun his first journey in the forest country of the Fan tribes on the equatorial west coast. Under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, Captains Burton and Speke, already distinguished by their perilous journey to Harar, a trading centre in the Somali and Galla country of the east African promontory, set out from Zanzibar, to ascertain the truth about the great inland

lakes which had been reported by the Mombas missionaries. Their most successful journey (1857-59) resulted in the discovery of Lake Tanganyika, in a deep basin, between 3° and 8° S. lat., and of the southern portion of a perhaps greater lake northward, supposed by Speke, its discoverer, to be the head reservoir of the Nile.

In a new journey in the Zambeze region in 1859, Dr Livingstone, accompanied by Dr Kirk, traced the Shire river, a northern tributary of the Zambeze, to its outflow from the Nyassa, the,most southerly of the great African chain of fresh lakes.

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About this time also several travellers (Petherick (1858), Lejean, Miani, the Poncets, Antinori, Debono, Peney) were adding much to the existing knowledge of the Upper White Nile from the Egyptian side; and in the north the Algerian Sahara was being explored by the French scientific traveller Duveyrier.

In 1860 Captain Speke, anxious to extend knowledge of the great inland reservoirs which had been discovered in his former journey, and to connect them with the known countries to northward, accompanied by Captain Grant, again left Zanzibar. Reaching a point on the north-western shores of the great lake which he had previously made known, and which he now named the Victoria Nyanza, the traveller thence traced the outflowing river to the White Nile at Gondokoro, thus completing a great link in the chain of African discoveries, which binds the country known from the east coast to that explored from the side of Egypt.

Meanwhile Dr Livingstone had endeavoured to find a way to his newly-discovered Lake Nyassa from the mouth of the Rovuma, a large river which flows to the Indian Ocean near Cape Delgado, and which was also reported to take its rise in this lake, but the river proved to be unnavigable beyond a point not far from the sea. He returned then (in 1861) to the Shire river; and, carrying a boat past its rapids, launched out to explore the whole length of Lake Nyassa.

A series of important journeys by Gerhard Rohlfs had now (1861) begun in Marocco and in the Maroccan Sahara; and on the equatorial east coast region, Baron von der Decken had extended Rebmann's information in the region of the snowy mountain, Kilima-njaro.

In the south the artist Baines had crossed the Kalahari

Desert from Damara Land to the falls of the Zambeze. In 1862 Petherick made an important journey of exploration in the Nile region west of Gondokoro.

The year 1864 was marked by the discovery of a second great reservoir lake of the Nile, near the latitude of the Victoria Nyanza, by Baker, pushing southward from Gondokoro. This lake the discoverer named the Albert Nyanza, During this year also, Rohlfs extended his travels from Marocco to the oasis of Tuat, thence making his way to Ghadames and Tripoli; in Western Africa, the officers of the French marine stationed at the Gaboon explored the delta region of the great Ogowai river; and Du Chaillu, in a second journey (1864–65), entered the gorilla country of Ashango, south of this river; whilst, on the east coast, Baron von der Decken attempted the navigation of the Juba, but was destined to fall a martyr to the jealousies of the Galla and Somali tribes, whose territories the river divides.

After a short stay at Tripoli, the traveller Rohlfs again turned southward, and in a journey which lasted from 1865 to 1867, crossed the whole northern continent-first reaching Lake Chad by almost the same route as that formerly taken by Barth, and thence striking south-westward by a new path to the Bight of Benin.

In 1866 some progress was made in discovery in the west, by the navigation of the Ogowai river by Walker, for 200 miles from its mouth, Hahn and Rath also extended