aEOGRAPHY. 549 



The African travellers Juncken and Casati have arrived at Lado, an 

 Egyptian military station on the Bahr-el- Jebel. They were exploring 

 the Nyam-IsTyam district, between the tributaries of the Nile and the 

 Upper Congo, and as nothing had been heard of them for a long time, 

 it was feared the Mahdi had cut oif their retreat. 



Mr. Henry E. O'lSTeill has taken great pains to ascertain the longitude 

 of Blantyre, and his results have been accepted by the Royal Geographi- 

 cal Society, xifter careful computation, and making choice of such ob- 

 servations as from their nature were best calculated to eliminate pos- 

 sible errors of observation, the longitude of Blantyre has been fixed at 

 350 3' 34" east of Greenwich, thus difiering 7' 24" from the previously 

 iiccepted position, which was 34° 5G' 30" east. Blantyre is now reck- 

 oned as a secondary meridian. Mr. O'Neill on his journey from Quilli- 

 mane to Blantyre availed himself of the opportunity aflbrded by an en- 

 forced delay on the banks of the Zambesi to study the action of that river. 

 He is led to speculate on the probable change in the physical and po- 

 litical geography of that part of Africa which will result from a continu- 

 ation of the wearing away of the banks of the Zambesi ; for if a perma- 

 nent connection be established between the Za,mbesi and Quaqua, and a 

 large proportion of the volume of water now carried to the sea by the 

 Kongoue River and other smaller branches to the southward enters the 

 Quillimane River, the effect will undoubtedly be to block the southerly 

 channels by the precipitation nearer shore of the earth particles carried 

 down by the river. And on the other hand the Quillimaue River would 

 be deepened by the greater " scouring " force of the larger volume of 

 water carried down by it. The connection mentioned is now made in- 

 termittently over the low flat country between the Zambesi and Qua- 

 qua at high water. Mr. O'Neill draws attention to the neglected port 

 of Nakala, in Fernao Yeloso Bay, north of Mozambique. It has numer- 

 ous good anchorages, and offers magnificent conditions for the founding 

 of a colony. Nakala is a deep inlet forming a southern prolongation of 

 Fernao Veloso Bay. 



M. Coillard, accompanied by M. Middleton, has accomplished his 

 journey up the valley of the Zambesi to visit Akufuna, the King of the 

 Ba-rotse, and has been received with great kindness. The authority of 

 the King is not very great ; his minister Mataga appears to be master of 

 everything, but he has had several rebellions to put down. 



In the July portion of Petermann's 3Iittheilungen, Professor Ratzel 

 seeks to show how misleading it is to color the map of Africa with def- 

 inite political boundaries. His paper is accompanied by a double map 

 of Africa. In one part the continent is colored according to the pre- 

 vailing occupation, in the second according to the people who form 

 states. 



For the purpose of gaining information for France as to what was 

 occurring in the vicinity of her Algerine possessions, M. Charles de 

 Foucauld accomplished a most remarkable journey of exploration in 



