396 Discoveries in Africa, QOct. 



climate ; and also that a number of immense rivers flow out of Africa 

 into the ocean ; would it not be a problem worthy of the inquiry of 

 travellers, by a scientific reconnoisance, to determine (only in theory, 

 for theory must in this case long precede practice, and with the practice, 

 after all, me can have little or nothing to do) what would be the difficul- 

 ties attending the tapping of those enormous vessels. As also of apply- 

 ing tourniquets upon those veins and arteries, which, eternally bleeding, 

 have left a great portion of Africa destitute of vegetable life." 



We fully agree in this conception, gigantic as it is, and difficult as its 

 execution may seem. It Avould be a truly noble object of inquiry ; and 

 would be worth all the idle ramblings of our dilettanti in Egypt — that 

 fashionable lounge — to the last days of the earth. But we greatly doubt 

 the veto, that we can have but little to do with the practical part of the 

 change, if it shall take place. If it be ever done, it will be done by 

 England. It is our boast, and deservedly so, that no work of palpable 

 good ever wanted protection in our country, nor the ability to carry it 

 into execution, when once fairly undertaken : and there are some 

 curious instances which may take off our alarm at the difficulty. The 

 water of the tropics is actually conveyed through the whole length of 

 the sands of Nubia in the memorable course of the Nile ; and a little 

 sandy region in the shore of the Mediterranean is turned into the most 

 extraordinary example of fertility in the world by this simple water- 

 course. There are in Egypt itself, the very region of sand and sun- 

 beams, dykes and embankments for irrigation, on a vast scale, to which 

 the permanent fertility of the land is owing. In the Abyssinian history 

 a threat is recorded of one of the kings who had a quarrel with the 

 Divan of Cairo, to turn away the Nile, and thus " stop the cock," out 

 of which Egypt drank. There is a remarkable instance too, of a threat 

 of this kind having been partially put in force, when Lalibala the king, 

 in the year 1200, turned the course of two rivers from the Nile into the 

 Indian ocean. 



The true points in which those conceptions should be viewed, are their 

 use to Africa, their use to mankind in general, and their especial honour 

 to England. It is a matter of great importance to have a direct object 

 of acknowledged utility in our researches in a foreign country. Hitherto 

 in Africa we have had scarcely any, or the mouth of the Niger alone. Our 

 travellers have all set out on a hunt for Timbuctoo, of which nobody 

 knew what possible good could be derived from the discovery. But 

 Timbuctoo had been said by some fabling Moor to be a second Paris or 

 London, with only the addition that gold was the paving of the streets. 

 A crowd of able and active minds have been lost to their country in 

 this wild-goose-chase after an Eldorado, which after all turns out to be 

 nothing more than a collection of filthy huts, in the heart of a desert. 

 Bruce, a man of admirable powers, of great acquirement, intelligence, 

 and mental and personal activity, wasted his health, his wealth, and 

 his years, in achieving the trifling discovery, that one of the sources of 

 the Nile was a spring in a hillock, in an Abyssinian valley. But the 

 expedition to discover the means of pouring fertility into the wilderness, 

 and giving health to the tropical regions of Africa, would be among the 

 noblest that can be undertaken by the benevolent ambition of man. 

 That there are vast districts where drainage could be effected with very 

 simple means, and equally vast ones where water might be collected and 

 preserved to supply the failure of the rivers in the dry season, is well 



