May 23, 1859.] LIVINGSTONE OR ZAMBESI EXPEDITION. 313 



accounts we received last autumn of tlie arrival of the great 

 South African explorer in the Zambesi, of his ascent of the river in 

 the little Ma-Robert to a great distance above Tete, of his again meet- 

 ing with his old friends the Makololo, and his subsequent descent 

 of the stream — data with which the public are already well ac- 

 quainted — we have no news respecting the ulterior progress of this 

 important expedition. If no new geographical discovery should be 

 speedily communicated, let us recollect that the main object of 

 Livingstone, who is now one of Her Majesty's Consuls, is to establish 

 entrepots for trade and commerce high up the river ; and, as a pre- 

 lude to such arrangements, it was most cheering to us all to learn that 

 his stanch friends, the Makololo, had persevered in waiting for his 

 return in a tract distant from their native land. The charts and 

 maps of the river-banks, executed by my young geological friend 

 Mr. Thornton, are very creditable performances. Mr. Baines, the 

 artist, has laid before us a clear statement of the difficulties over- 

 come in navigating the river, through rocks and shoals, with little 

 depth of water, and the skill of Livingstone himself has been put 

 to the test in acting, as he terms it, the part of *' skipper" in the 

 absence of Commander Bedingfeld. Whatever may be the other 

 products derived from this region of Africa, there is a fair proba- 

 bility that its splendid hard trees of vast dimensions may afford 

 fine supplies for ship building ; and there are persons — including 

 Mr. Lyons M'Leod, lately our Consul at Mozambique — who, looking 

 to the general luxuriance of the vegetation, are of opinion that the 

 territory on the Zambesi may be made a corn- exporting country. 



The Seychelles. — In his ' Notes on the Seychelles,' we learn from 

 Mr. Lyons M'Leod that these islands, twenty-nine in number, 

 form an archipelago, which is the most considerable of the depen- 

 dencies of the island of Mauritius. Extending from 3° 33' to 5° 35' 

 south latitude, and from 55° 15' to 56° 10' east longitude, they lie 

 at a distance of 915 miles from Mauritius, 566 from Madagascar, 

 and 1470 miles from the continent of India. First discovered by 

 Vasco di Gama during his second voyage to India in„1502, they 

 were explored, in 1742, by Captain Lazare Picault, who took pos- 

 session of them in the name of the King of France, since which date 

 they have been called by their present name, after the then French 

 Marine Minister. Mahe, the principal island, is about 17 miles 

 long and 4 miles broad : it attains an elevation of 2000 feet in 

 height, and may be seen at a distance of 12 to 15 leagues. The 

 .chief mass consists of hard granitic rock, the soil varied and pro- 



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