484 NATURAL SCIENCE. sept.. 



The Exploration of Mount Milanji, Nyassa-land. 



A SET of papers full of incident and interest was laid before 

 Parliament last June. They relate to the suppression of slave- 

 raiding in Nyassa-land, and tell how Commissioner Johnston, with 

 the help of a few English officers and a handful of Indian sepoys, 

 has been able to check and, for a time, completely paralyse the slave 

 trade along one of the great routes from the interior to the coast, 

 that, namely, which passes across the southern extremity of Lake 

 Nyassa. 



Central African expeditions do not always result beneficially to 

 science. Through the Press or from the platform we get a faint idea 

 of treasures still to be found, but nothing more tangible. The story 

 is often one of aimless wanderings and perpetual fighting with 

 the native tribes. The present series of operations, however, forms a 

 pleasant exception. Mr. Alexander Whyte, who is described as a 

 Naturalist and Scientific Horticulturist, was sent out by the British 

 South Africa Company to work under Commissioner Johnston's 

 instructions and thoroughly investigate the Natural History of 

 British Central Africa, and pages 15 — 19 of the report contain an 

 account of his exploration of the mountain and district of Milanji. 

 " Milanji," he tells us, " is an isolated range of, for the most part, 

 precipitous mountains, the main mass forming a huge natural fortress 

 of weather-worn precipices, or very steep rocky ascents, sparsely 

 clothed with vegetation. Many of its gullies and ravines are well 

 wooded, and in some of them fine examples of grand African virgin 

 forest are met with." It is about one hundred miles S.S.E. of Lake 

 Nyassa and fifty miles east of the Shire River. The ascent from the 

 south-east face led at first over steep, grassy hills, down precipitous 

 gorges and across rocky streams, then, after a more difficult climb, an 

 interesting wooded gorge was reached where rocks and tree-roots 

 afforded better foothold. Here, too, the plants of the lower slope 

 gave way to more temperate forms, such as brambles and well-known 

 papilionaceous and composite types. Ferns increased in number, 

 together with selaginellas, lycopods, mosses, and lichens. What 

 seemed an endless ladder of roots and rocks was at last succeeded 

 by a dense thicket of bamboo ; next a barrier of precipitous cliffs was 

 surmounted by the aid of tufts of tussock-grass, and, finally, an hour's 

 climb up a steep, grassy glen brought the party to the crest of the 

 highest ridge. The view and the climate fully repaid the climb. 

 The air was cool and bracing. Four thousand feet below, the ther- 

 mometer had stood at 106° F. in the shade, while here they revelled 

 in a clear dry atmosphere of 60° F. " Looking westward, we saw 

 mapped out beneath us the plateau or basin of Milanji, with its 

 rolling hills of grassy sward, its clearly-defined belts of dark-green 

 forest, and its numerous ravines and rivulets, all shaping their course 

 towards the principal valley through which the Lutshenya, the 



