5 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the frontiers of Karewega, found Lake Akengara, noted in Speke's 

 map. When last heard from, in July, he was on his way to TJnam- 

 yembi, intending to explore Lake Tanganyika, and then strike north- 

 ward to the Mwutan Nizigi. Commander Cameron's journey is claimed 

 to have settled the line of the Central African lake-sources. The chief 

 products of Central Africa are ivory and* slaves. Westward from 

 Katanga there are large copper-mines ; coal, cinnabar, and tin, were 

 found ; sugar-cane, rice, wheat, cotton, and hemp, grow well ; the 

 vegetable and mineral products would make the people of Africa in- 

 dustrious and prosperous, were they not ruined by the slave-trade. 

 The way to stop this traffic is to open up the rivers Congo and Zam- 

 besi, for there is a way across the continent by a system of water 

 navigation second to none in the world. A missionary station has 

 been established on Lake Nyassa, in memory of Livingstone, with a 

 view to the suppression of slavery, and every friend of humanity will 

 unite in wishing success to this philanthropic endeavor which Living- 

 stone had so deeply at heart. A way has been found from Zanzibar to 

 the interior highlands which is free from the fever-swamps of the old 

 route, and also from that great scourge of East Africa, the tsetse-fly, 

 a fact of great importance in opening up Central Africa. 



An Italian expedition started last February, for the exploration 

 of the country on the east coast between Shoa and Lake Ukerewe. 

 After many hardships, Liece, the capital of Shoa, has been reached, 

 which will be made the base of a scientific exploration of the lakes. 

 The expedition is to be absent four years. 



"I regret exceedingly to hear of the recent death of Mr. Rebrnan, 

 the well-known missionary, who first suggested the existence of a 

 system of lakes in Central Africa, which was verified by the dis- 

 coveries of Burton, Speke, Grant, Baker, Livingstone, Long, and 

 Stanley." 



There is little to record in regard to South Africa. The diamond- 

 fields of the Orange Free State and the gold-fields of the Transvaal 

 Republic have not only attracted the enterprising and industrious, 

 but have also excited the cupidity of their English colonial neighbors, 

 in a way which it is feared will prove anything but beneficial to the 

 rising African republics. 



During the last five years the great island of New Guinea, which 

 thirty years ago was put down as an unknown land, lias been the 

 scene of active explorations. The country has been penetrated by 

 way of Baxter and Fly Rivers for 90 and 150 miles respectively. It 

 is peopled by a mixed race, Malayan and Papuan, brave and ener- 

 getic, speaking different dialects, and at war with each other. 



The country watered by the Baxter River is low, swampy, covered 

 with forests of mango-trees and thinly populated, contrasting in this 

 respect with the Fly River, which swarms with human beings. The 

 Malayan population of the eastern shore are far above the savage, 



