a [April, 
7. GEOGRAPHY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.) 
Wuust attention is most earnestly directed to Africa, the Nile is 
not the source of this engrossing speculation. Dr. Livingstone is, 
as far as we know, progressing in a northerly direction for Nyassa, 
and solving the problems left by his predecessors in the neigh- 
bourhood of the great lakes. ‘The information received that, some 
year or more back, he was alive and well, will be found in the 
latter part of this Chronicle, amid the Proceedings of the Royal 
Geographical Society. The main object of consideration at present 
is the small strip of land on the western shore of the southern part 
of the Red Sea, which forms the eastern slope of the highlands 
of Abyssinia. Here a small British force are doing work at the 
expense of the nation, which it usually falls to the share of the 
unpaid contributors to the Royal Geographical Society to perform. 
New passes have been discovered, and the whole of the water 
system of the district carefully surveyed. In the meantime the 
present state of our knowledge and our ignorance is accurately 
laid down in a cheap Blue Book, in which is collected almost every- 
thing known about this country previous to the landing of the 
expedition. The most valuable addition to our knowledge since 
that period is the report of Mr. Clements Markham, an abstract of 
which will be found at the end of this article. 
The captives, from time to time, send letters, in which they 
approve of what is being done for their release. In the mean- 
while the doubt still remains whether any Europeans are detained 
in the Somali country. An opportunity has offered of obtaining 
information on this point, but we do not know that the Govern- 
ment have availed themselves of the assemblage at Berbera, at the 
annual fair, of all the principal people from the whole of this 
eastern peninsula of Africa. It has been suggested that rewards 
for information, and greater ransoms for living men, would soon 
bring every European detained up the country to some point on 
the coast easily accessible from Aden. 
The result of the appeal in aid of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund was the collection of a large sum, which will enable the work 
to be carried on for some considerable time, and it is to be hoped 
that many discoveries will be made, for undoubtedly much remains 
to be laid bare. Many ancient buildings must be simply covered 
with the accumulated rubbish of ages; and whatever may have been 
the will of conquerors for the destruction of the city, a great deal 
must be only hidden, to be brought to light, it is to be hoped, by 
the engineers now at work. At all events, the various levels of 
