gation. The river was ascended for five days, when the water began to shallow, the navigation became intricate and unsafe, and the expedition was obliged to return to avoid the risk of being cut off from communication with the sea. The valley of the Rovuma seems to resemble that of the Zambesi, but is on a smaller scale. The result of the exploration was that the river was found to be unfit for navigation during four months in the year, but that like the Zambesi it might be available for commerce for the other eight months. This river possesses little interest in its lower course, where it is a mile wide and from five to six fathoms in depth. Higher up, the scenery is described by Bishop Mackenzie as extremely beautiful, consisting of finely-wooded hills two or three hundred feet in height within a short distance of the river. The natives asserted that the Rovuma issued from Lake Nyassa, but none had ascended the stream high enough to prove it. The hopes founded on the appearance of the mouth of the Rovuma, which is without a bar, were thus disappointed.

And after four years of laborious exploration, attended with many unforeseen difficulties, the expedition was withdrawn by the Government in 1862, orders having been transmitted to Dr. Livingstone to return to England. The disappointment experienced in the capabilities both of the Zambesi and the Rovuma for commerce, the prevalence of the slave-trade, the lamentable failure of the Universities' Mission, and the generally unsettled and dangerous state of the country, all contributed to influence the decision of the Government. The expedition, however, has made known a district of boundless capabilities, together with the causes which operate to shut it out from intercourse with the civilised world. We should be glad to avoid adverting to a subject which seriously compromises the character of a Christian Power. Dr. Livingstone accuses the Portuguese Government of a gross neglect of its duty in omitting to put in force the laws which have been enacted for the suppression of the slave-trade in its African possessions, if not of direct complicity with its colonial officers in the iniquitous traffic. It is carried on, he says, in connexion with the trade in ivory, and from fifteen to twenty canoes have been seen on the Upper Zambesi freighted with slaves for the Portuguese settlements. Dr. Livingstone asserts that he was not only the first to see slavery in its origin in this part of Africa, but to trace it through all its revolting phases. He had not only seen tribe arrayed against tribe for the capture of slaves, but he had been in places where family was arrayed against family and every house was protected by a stockade. Tribes the highest in intelligence were found morally the most degraded,

the

the men freely selling their own wives and grown-up daughters. On the shores of Lake Nyassa the slave-merchants were at the time of his visit paying two yards of calico, worth one shilling, for a boy, and four yards for a good-looking girl. Barbarism must be the inevitable condition of a land where such practices exist. If the statements which Dr. Livingstone has made in the face of the world are incapable, as we fear they are, of being denied, a heavy responsibility rests upon the Portuguese Government if it should fail to interpose in the most summary manner, call its officers to a strict account, and put an end for ever in Eastern Africa to a system which is a disgrace to the Portuguese name. These decayed settlements on the remote shores of the Indian Ocean—the melancholy relics of a dominion which was once exercised for nobler purposes than the traffic in human flesh and blood-seem now to be kept up only for the maintenance of a few military pensioners. The terrible lesson which the last few years have taught the world has not failed to impress the most impassive of Powers. Spain, the most inveterate of European offenders, has taken the lesson to heart, and resolved to abandon for ever the abominable traffic in man; and Portugal is now alone branded with the stigma of this atrocious crime. We entertain no doubt, that the development of legitimate trade with the regions in which its African settlements are situated, would prove of far greater benefit in a material sense than any that can possibly result to it from the slave-trade. The capacity of the eastern coast of Africa for large and lucrative trade is unquestionable, and it has, notwithstanding many discouragements, made considerable progress within the last thirty years. In 1834 the island of Zanzibar possessed little or no trade; in 1860 the exports of ivory, gum copal, and cloves, had risen to the value of 239,5007., and the total exports and imports amounted to 1,000,5777., employing 25,340 tons of shipping, and this under the rule of a petty Arabian Prince. Although it may be long before the natives can be induced to cultivate extensively cotton and sugar for exportation, there are many valuable natural products the preparation of which for the European market requires but little industry and no skill. The hard woods which grow on the banks of the Zambesi and the Shire are especially valuable; they may be obtained in any quantity at the mere cost of cutting, and they can be transported to the coast at all seasons without difficulty. The lignum vitæ attains a larger size on the banks of the Zambesi than anywhere else. The African ebony, although not botanically the same as the ebony of commerce, also attains immense proportions, and is of a deeper black. It abounds on the Rovuma, within eight miles of the sea,

as

as does likewise the fustic, from which is extracted a strong yellow dye.

The additions which have been made to our geographical knowledge from the two expeditions of Dr. Livingstone are important and interesting. In his latest he entered and partially explored a region the hydrography of which requires to be thoroughly known before the great mystery of the source of the Nile can be considered as solved, for it is in the district of the equatorial lakes that the head-springs of the mighty river undoubtedly exist, and the connexion of all of these great reservoirs with each other is rendered so probable by Mr. Baker's recent discovery of the magnificent lake (the Little Luta Nzigè of Speke), which he has appropriately named the Albert Nyanza, that a fresh interest has been imparted to the subject, for if the Albert Nyanza should prove to be connected with the great Tanganyika, the source of the Nile is not the Victoria Nyanza or one of its affluents, but must be sought for in a region many degrees to the south of that lake, or of any of its tributary streams. That such a connexion does exist between the Albert Nyanza and the Tanganyika there is the strongest reason to believe, for a party of Arab traders informed Captain Speke while making a voyage on the Tanganyika, that the river which flows through Egypt issues from that lake; and a respectable Arab merchant, who could have 'no conceivable motive for misrepresentation, accompanied a statement to the same effect made to Captain Burton with such circumstantial details as tend strongly to establish its probability. A large river, he said, called the Marunga, enters the lake at its southern extremity, but on a visit to its northern end he saw a river which certainly flowed out of it, for he approached so near its termination that he distinctly saw and felt the influence of an outward current. This statement derives considerable support from information received by Dr. Livingstone from Arabs well acquainted with the Tanganyika, and who told him that a river flowed out of its northern end, and they drew on the sand the Nyassa discharging its waters to the south, but the Tanganyika to the north. He was also told, in the course of his first missionary travels, by an Arab who declared that he knew the Tanganyika well, that it was connected with another lake still further north called Garague (Kazaguè), and King Kamrasi and the natives inhabiting its banks assured Mr. Baker that the Albert Nyanza was known to extend far to the west of Karagwè. We are thus in possession of evidence from four distinct and independent

*

This

sources that the Tanganyika has its effluent in the north, and is therefore connected with the Albert Nyanza. Nor can we regard the alleged difference of altitude (226 feet) between the two lakes as an objection to this supposition; for when we know that 1° Fahr. represents an altitude of 533 feet, a difference of level which is indicated by the fractional part of a degree may well be attributed either to some imperfection in the instrument or to defective observation.* Dr. Livingstone suggested ten years ago that the parting of the watershed between the Zambesi and the Nile might be somewhere between the latitudes 6° and 12° south, that the two rivers rose in the same region, and that their sources would probably be found at no considerable distance from each other. Should this conception be realised, a remarkable resemblance will exist between the two great rivers of Western Europe and the Zambesi and the Nile. The Danube and the Rhine have their sources very near to each other, but the streams diverge, the one, like the Zambesi, to the east, the other, like the Nile, to the north, both traversing a vast extent of country before they pour their waters into the sea. most interesting problem is now, perhaps, nearer its solution than it has ever been, for Dr. Livingstone's instructions for his new journey of exploration are to reach the Tanganyika, and to direct his particular attention to its effluent; and as the distance between the two lakes Tanganyika and Albert Nyanza cannot be considerable, it is to be hoped that he will be able to test the correctness of the information which he formerly received, as well as that given to Captains Burton and Speke. The question afterwards to be determined will be, whether the Albert Nyanza is connected with the Nile, and if so, how connected. The river which flows from the Victoria Nyanza was traced by Captain Speke for only fifty miles, but Mr. Baker has established by personal observation the fact that it flows into the Albert Nyanza, having ascended its banks to the point where Captain Speke left it, namely, the Karuma Falls. Mr. Baker asserts that he saw, or imagined he saw, a river at a distance of twenty miles from the furthest northerly point which he reached on the Albert Nyanza, issuing from the lake and traversing the plain beyond; but nothing can be reasonably affirmed inferred from such distant observation.

The

Albert Nyanza may be connected with the Nile by some great but hitherto undiscovered stream communicating with the Bahr el Ghazal (the Nile of Herodotus), and this supposition

The observation is recorded by Captain Speke; and it may be observed that his eye-sight had become greatly impaired in his first expedition.

+ Missionary Travels,' p. 477.

is rendered highly probable when taken in connexion with the information which Mr. Baker received from the people residing on the shores of the Albert Nyanza, that the lake extends to the north-west for about forty miles, when it suddenly turns to the west, contracting gradually, and that its extent is unknown. That the Bahr el Ghazal may ultimately prove to be the true Nile is thus rendered extremely probable, nor does its mere-like character, so far as it has been explored, militate against such a supposition. The characteristic of the Nile below Khartúm, for a considerable part of its course, and for a large portion of the year, is that of a very sluggish stream with gigantic reeds springing out of the stagnant water on each side. In descending the stream from Gondokoro, on passing the Bahr el Ghazal, it is a custom, Captain Grant tells us, for all boats to fire a gun as a salute, possibly a traditionary honour paid to the great source of Egypt's fertility. The river, which flows from Gondokoro at its junction with the Bahr el Ghazal, is only eighty or a hundred yards across, while the Bahr el Ghazal is half a mile in width, and after the junction of the two streams Captain Grant admits that there is an evident increase in breadth and width, that the water thenceforward becomes purer, losing much of its turbid appearance, and that the current is considerably increased. The river which flows past Gondokoro, and which Captain Speke, in his map, traces from the Victoria Nyanza, is, Dr. Beke informs us, known there not as the Bahr el Abyad, or White Nile, but as the Bahr el Djebel, or mountain river.

Should it be eventually found that the Tanganyika is connected with the Albert Nyanza, and the latter by its westerly or any other effluent with the Bahr el Ghazal, it will necessarily follow that the Tanganyika, or rather the river Marunga, which enters that lake at its southern extremity, will form the true head water of the Nile, and the course of the mighty river will then be proved to extend through forty degrees of latitude, and the great lakes Tanganyika and Albert Nyanza, will be but the expansion of a majestic river the course of which from its fountain head to its embouchure, will exceed four thousand miles.

We have, in a former number of the Quarterly Review,' expressed our doubts whether the result of Captain Speke's travels could be accepted by geographers as a final solution of the great problem which has perplexed the scientific and the curious of all ages, and the important discovery by Mr. Baker of the

*See p. 380 of Captain Grant's 'Walk across Africa,'—a remarkable record of courageous endurance and a most amusing picture of African manners and character.

great