418 GEOGRAPHIC CONQUESTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



powers of Europe, while the possession of India and the Americas 

 cost thousands and tons of thousands of lives lost in ])attle. 



The hist(jry of the exploration of Africa centers in the discovery of 

 the sources of the four great rivers of the continent, the Nig-er, the 

 Zambezi, the Nile, and the Kongo. 



In a mighty torrent they swept into the Atlantic and Indian oceans 

 on the west and east and into the Mediterranean on tlie north, but of 

 the four, the Nile only was known for any coiisid('ra])h' distance. 

 Bruce, in the last half of the eighteenth century, had penetrated from 

 the Red Sea to the head waters of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia and had 

 followed tin- hitter to its junction with the Nile near Ber})er, and then 



down the Nile to Cairo; but 

 he had not solved the secret 

 of that evei'liowing stream 

 whose waters had for thou- 

 sands and thousands of years 

 made the valley of Egyi)t 

 the granary and garden of 

 the world. 



To-day the Nile has ]»een 

 scientitically <'xplored for its 

 entire length of 8,400 miles; 

 the Niger, with the excep- 

 tion of a small portion of 

 its middle course, for 2,H00 

 miles; the Zambezi, foi- 1,500 

 miles; and the Kongo, which 

 in volume is exceeded onl}^ 

 by the Aniazon, for nearly 

 8,0UO miles. 



The course of the Niger 

 was determined earl}- in the 

 nineteenth century and is the record of one man's work and life. 

 Mungo Park, a Scottish surgeon, then but 24 years of age, but aln^ady 

 well-known for his discovery of several new tishes in Sumatra, in LT05 

 undertook to determine for the African Association of London the 

 course of the Niger. Starting from Gambia in December, he reached 

 Segu on the Niger in the summer of 1796, and sm^ceeded in ascending 

 it for several hundred miles as far as Bamaku. Ten years later, lso.5, 

 he returned to Bamaku, resolved this time to follow the river w^hich 

 he had been the first to reach, till it entered the sea. For nearly 2,000 

 miles he hugged its bank in a canoe with four companions and had all 

 but reached its outlet, when his canoe was upset in an attack b}' the 

 natives at Bussa and he was drowned. 



Fig. 1.— Africa as known in 1800. The darkened portions 

 in this and succeeding maps show the unexijlored areas. 



