GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 



EXPLORATIONS IX CENTRAL AFRICA. 



THE present age, says the New York Tribune, is emphatically the age of 

 geographical discovery. At no period since the days of Columbus and Cor- 

 tez has the thirst for exploration been more active and universal than now. 

 One by one the outposts of barbarism are stormed and carried ; advanced 

 parallels are thrown up, and the besieging lines of knowledge, which, when 

 once established, can never be retaken, are gradually closing around the yet 

 unconquered mysteries of the globe. Within the last twenty-five years all 

 the principal features of the geography of our own vast interior regions have 

 been accurately determined ; the great fields of Central Asia have been tra- 

 versed in various directions, from Bokhara and the Oxus to the Chinese Wall; 

 the half-known river-systems of South America have been explored and sur- 

 veyed ; the icy continent around the Southern Pole has been discovered ; the 

 North- western Passage the ignus-fatuus of nearly two centuries is at last 

 found ; the Dead Sea is stripped of its fabulous terrors, the course of the 

 Niger is no longer a myth, and the sublime secret of the Nile is almost 

 wrested from his keeping. The Mountains of the Moon, sought for through 

 two thousand years, have been beheld by a Caucasian eye ; an English 

 steamer has ascended the Chadda to the frontiers of the great Kingdom of 

 Bornou ; Leichardt and Sturt have penetrated the wilderness of Australia ; 

 the Russians have descended from Irkoutsk to the mouth of the Amoor ; the 

 antiquated walls of Chinese prejudice have been cracked and are fast tum- 

 bling down, and the canvas screens which surround Japan have been cut by 

 the sharp edge of American enterprise. Such are the principal results of 

 modern exploration. What quarter of a century, since the form of the earth 

 and the boundaries of its land and water were known, can exhibit such a list 

 of achievements? 



Of all the more recent schemes of exploration none approaches in interest 

 and importance the expedition to Central Africa, which has now been carried 

 on for nearly six years under the combined patronage of the English and 

 Prussian governments. Notices of the progress of this expedition have from 

 time to time been given to the public. Piece by piece, with long inter- 

 vals between, the story of its difficulties, its dangers, its defeats, and successes 

 lias been transmitted across the Sahara, from whose further bourn so few 



