May 28, I860.] DISCOVERIES OF BURTON AND SPEKE. 177 



The distribution of races throughout Eastern Africa is a subject 

 on which- Captain Burton has given us a large mass of material. 

 The time is however hardly ripe for a full examination of this 

 subject. Other expeditions are in progress, to which we shall 

 shortly refer, from whose joint results, together with what is now 

 before us, we may hope soon to learn with tolerable accuracy the 

 broad features of the ethnography of Africa. Whether, for instance, 

 the South African races are or are not separated by a sharp line of 

 demarcation from those of North Africa ; and again the number 

 and direction of the chief lines of ancient migration. Captain 

 Burton shows some cause to connect the appearance of the Caffre 

 races in South Africa with the pressure exerted in the interior by 

 the first spread of the great kingdom (now utterly broken up) of 

 the Wanyamesi, 



Most of what we positively know of the physical features of the 

 land in question is to be seen at a glance in the map. We there 

 trace the route of the expedition, its sectional elevation, and a part 

 of the shores of the two lakes Tanganyika and Nyanza, the former 

 of which was partly navigated, the latter onl}^ reached by the 

 expedition. We do not know from the certain evidence of the 

 oyo -witness of our travellers what the affluents of the former lake 

 really are, nor whether it has any outlet. Neither of the two ends 

 of the Tanganyika were visited owing to the want of proper boats 

 and the obstruction of the natives. We have in consequence no 

 better authority than that of native testimony for the tributaries 

 represented as entering the lake at its northern and southern extre- 

 mities. The configuration of the country to the northward gives 

 us excellent reason to believe that the northern tributary is correctly 

 described ; but whether the river mentioned as entering the lake at 

 the south does not really run out of it is a fair matter for discussion. 



It is indeed a strange hydrological puzzle if 'a lake, situated in 

 the damp regions of the equator, subject to a rainy season that lasts 

 eight out of the twelve months of the year, and supplied by con- 

 siderable rivers, one of which is stated to be saline, should have no 

 outlet whatever, and yet retain its elevation unchanged, its evapo- 

 rating area invariable, and also the sweetness of its waters uncom- 

 promised. We may speak to much the same effect of the lake 

 Shirwa, lately visited, but not yet thoroughly explored by Dr. 

 Livingstone. To make the matter more strange, we find the 

 Nyassa lake closely adjacent to the Shirwa, and not far distant from 

 the Tanganyika, and of approximately the same elevation, gives 

 oxit to a sploiulid river, the Sliire, which Livingstone describes ns 



