154 Discovery of the Great Lake *' Ngami " of South Africa. 



into the interior, they christianize and civilize the tribes as 

 they go, and so leave the w^ay paved and open behind them ; 

 a most important condition, when it is remembered v^hat ex- 

 cessive distances a traveller is there from his resources, and 

 in what an impracticable country. 



Silently, but surely, has this operation been going on, until 

 as it were, almost by natural causes, a point has been reached, 

 within which the lake was but at a moderate distance. Start- 

 ing from Mr Moffat's advanced post of Kuruman, Mr Living- 

 ston had founded the station of Kolobeng further north ; 

 and then it only required a small advance of money to pay 

 the expense of the long contemplated journey. That sum 

 was furnished by two lay gentlemen, Messrs Murray and 

 Oswell, — and this great cynosure of South African geo- 

 graphy, fell, in the ripeness of time, an easy prize. 



But if we have this much to say for the effective lever 

 which the missionary system affords for geographical disco- 

 very, we cannot say so much as we should like in favour of 

 the manner in which it has been worked in this instance, 

 though it may be better than in the generality of cases. 



There has been of late, it must be confessed, rather a de- 

 cline of the true scientific spirit of geographical exploration ; 

 and men have too frequently been contented with filling their 

 books with accounts merely of what they shot and what they 

 eat; unable to give anymore intelligent account of the country 

 than the natives themselves. 



Hardly any better, the Rev. Mr Rebman, who is supposed 

 to have discovered in 5° S. lat., and 3 or 400 miles within the 

 eastern coast of Africa, a mountain reaching above the 

 limits of perpetual snow, and which may be the source of 

 the Nile on the one hand, and of the rivers which feed the 

 great lake Ngami on the other ; for though he has been 

 twice to the mountains, yet he has sent home such puerile 

 statements, that the fact of its being snow at all which was 

 thought to have been seen, is now contested ; and the height, 

 latitude, longitude, &c., of the mountain are quite uncertain. 



Mr Livingston has done much better than this, though 

 there is almost everything for the geographer, the botanist, 

 &c., to do ; but no fault is to be imputed to him, he had 

 a higher object in view : wc mention the case so prominently 



