STANLEY AND THE MAP OF AFRICA.* 



]>V J. S<!OTT KeLTTE. 



It is 19 years since Sfanley first crossed the threshold of central 

 Africa. He entered it as a newspaper correspondent to find and 

 succor Livingston^, and came out burning with the fever of African 

 exploration. While with Livingstone at LTjjji, he tried his 'prentice 

 hand at a little exploring work, and between them they did something 

 to settle the geography of the north end of Lake Tanganyika. Some 

 three years and a half later he was once more on his way to Zanzibar, 

 this time with the deliberate intention of doing something to fill up the 

 great blank that still occupied the center of the continent. A glance 

 at the first of the maps which accompany this paper will afford some 

 idea of what Central Africa was like when Stanley entered it a second 

 time- The ultimate sources of the Nile had yet to be settled. The 

 contour and extent of Victoria Nyanza were of the most uncertain 

 character. Indeed, so little was known of it beyond what Spekc told 

 us, that there was some danger of its being swept olf the map alto- 

 gether, not a few geographers believing it to be not one lake, but 

 several. There was much to do in the region lying to the west of the 

 lake, even though it had been traversed by Spekeand Grant. Between 

 a line drawn from the north end of Lake Tanganyika to some distance 

 beyond the Albert Nyanza on one side, and the west coast region on 

 the other, the map was almost white, with here and there the conjec- 

 tural course of a river or two. Livingstone's latest work, it should be 

 remembered, was then almost unknown, and Cameron had not yet 

 returned. Beyond the Yellala Ea})ids there was no Congo, and Living- 

 stone believed that the Lualaba swept northwards to the Nile. He 

 had often gazed longingly at the broad river during his weary sojourn 

 at Nyangwe, and yearned to follow it, but felt himself too old and 

 exhausted for the task. Stanley was fired with the same ambition as 

 his dead master, and was young and vigorous enough to indulge it. 



What, then, did Stanley do to map out the features of this great 

 blank during the 2 years and 9 months which he spent in crossing 

 from Bagamoyo to Boma, at the mouth of the Congo ? He determined, 

 with an accuracy which has since necessitated but slight modificatiouy 



From The Coniemporary Review, January, ISHO, vol. i.vii, pp. 12()-140. 



277 



