146 REPORT — 1855. 



fibulse lias been found in an interment pm-ely Roman, yet intei'course may Lave 

 induced Romans occasionally to use the ornaments of foreigners, and the intercourse 

 of the Saxons with Britain you know had been pretty considerable before the Romans 

 departed. Other questions which I need not at present go into, suggest themselves. 



" I now draw your attention to the discoveries of Mr. Neville at Wilbraham on the 

 borders of Cambridgeshire and Essex. 



" Here we find skeletons with weapons, &c., undoubtedly those of Saxons, in juxta- 

 position with urns containing b)ir7it bones ; such we never find in Kent, except when 

 a Roman grave has been disturbed by a Saxon interment. 



" I think we shall have to refer most of these urns containing burnt bones to a 

 late Roman period just preceding that of the Anglo-Saxon ; and the fact of these 

 urns being found placed over the bodies of Saxons, proves, I think, not that the urns 

 were originally so located, but that the Saxons, when interring their dead upon the 

 site of an old burial-ground, found the lu'ns with burnt bones, respected them, and 

 replaced them in the newly-made graves." 



On the Ethnology of England at the Extinction of the Roman Government 

 in the Island. By Thomas Wright, F.S.A. 



On Inscriptions in Unknown Characters on Roman Pottery discovered in 

 England. By Thomas Wright, i\,»S'.^. 



Geography. 



On late Explorations in Africa. By C. J.Anderson. Despatch from George 

 Frere, Esq , H.3I.'s Commissioner at the Cape of Good Hope, relating to 

 Mr. C. J. Anderson's Journey to Lake N'gami, Conmmnicated by the 

 Earl of Clarendon. 



The following summary of the results of Mr. Anderson's explorations is from 

 the despatch : — " The country in the immediate neighbourhood of Lake N'gami 

 is inhabited by tribes under the authority of the chief Letiholetebe, who, I regret to 

 learn from Mr. Anderson, has permitted the sale of slaves to the Boers. Mr. Anderson 

 attempted to proceed from the lake up the Trionghe river to visit Liberbe, the capital 

 town of the Bavicko country, said to be about nineteen days' journey by land from 

 the lake ; but his proposal met with so little encouragement from Letiholetebe, that, 

 after ascending the river for several days, he was obliged to return. He, however, 

 learns that it was the centre of a great inland trading place, visited by the Mambari, 

 who purchase slaves, ivory, &c. for the Portuguese residents at the settlements on the 

 west coast, and also by the Ovapnngari and Ovapangama, from the country north of 

 the Ovambo, between the 17th and 18th degrees of south latitude, who formed an 

 intercourse with the tribes under Sebitoane, Letiholetebe, and others to the eastward. 

 But perhaps Mr. Anderson's success may be considered of pecuh'ar interest and im- 

 portance, as showing that this well-watered country, — the inhabitants of which have 

 proved themselves so friendly and well-disposed towards English travellers, or as 

 Messrs. Oswell and Livingstone describe it, " the great highway into a large section 

 of the continent of Africa,'' — may now be reached in from forty to sixty days from 

 Walfisch Bay, with which communication by sea from Cape Town is easy; and that 

 the traveller can reach this starting-point unmolested by the interference of the emi- 

 grant Boers, or by attacks by the plundering Griguas, and without encoiuitering the 

 perils of Kalahari Desert." 



Report of the late Expedition up the Niger and Tchadda Rivers. By 

 Dr. W. Balfour Baikie, R.N., F.R.G.S., addressed to the Lords of the 

 Admiralty. 



After detailing the preparations he had made for his expedition. Dr. Baikie, dating 

 onboard the African mail-steamer Bacchante, Sierra Leone, January 3, 1855, reports 

 as follows : — " We have explored about 250 miles of the river Tchadda beyond the 



