Discovtry of the Great Lake " NgamV of South Africa. 151 



with a grandeur in some things, and a skill in others never 

 since equalled ; yet it is now the country of all others on the 

 face of the globe concerning which we know least. In other 

 continents there are undoubtedly parts not yet visited by 

 Europeans, or worthy of being more fully explored ; but they 

 are but inconsiderable spots compared with the almost bound- 

 less spaces of Central Africa, where no foot of a white man 

 has ever yet trod, and of the greater part of which no semi- 

 fabulous native accounts even have ever reached us. So that 

 age after age the civilization of the enlightened nations of the 

 world is gradually losing the hold which it once had, at 

 least along the northern shores of this vast continent ; and 

 the land of Ham is gradually reverting to a state of primeval 

 wilderness, fenced in from all the rest of the world by tiie 

 obstructive power of ignorance and position. 



And yet to no other part of the world has so continued a 

 stream of geographical explorers been poured, and is even 

 pouring still ; but invariably either the deadly climate of the 

 more fertile parts, or the passive but all-powerful impedi- 

 ments offered by the more desert portions, as well as the ac- 

 tive opposition of natives, more savage and sanguinary than 

 in any other part of the world, have invariably, by death or 

 otherwise, put an untimely stop to the progress of the travel- 

 lers. 



Under these circumstances it must be highly encouraging 

 to all interested in the prosecutions of African geography, to 

 hear that an actual and tangible discovery, and one of the 

 most important kind for the country in which it was effected, 

 and for the prosecution of still further research, has just 

 been made, in the fact of the Rev. David Livingston, a mis- 

 sionary of the London Society, having at least reached the 

 great lake* of South Africa. 



The circumstance requires perhaps something more than 

 mere notice, and to have more names mentioned in connec- 

 tion with it, from its being part of a general system of co- 

 operation in which many have borne a part, and a very im- 



* This lake must not be confounded with the smaller one, supposed by the 

 Portuguese to exist on the coast of Zanzibar. 



