THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM. 79 



Ujiji. Our knowledge of the physiographical features of 

 the country round Lake Kivu, the Mfumbiro Mountains, 

 the Albert Edward Nyanza, and down the course of 

 the Semliki River to the Albert Nyanza, was limited 

 to some scrappy information gleaned from the observa- 

 tions and descriptions given by two or three travellers 

 who had crossed the country from east to west. Thus, 

 beginning in the south, both Baumann and Scott Elliott 

 saw that the valley, in which Tanganyika lies, is con- 

 tinued north beyond the lake as a sort of channel among 

 the hills. Gotzen, crossing the continent about 150 miles 

 further north from east to west, along the north shore 

 of Lake Kivu, gave a very clear idea of what he saw of the 

 valley of this lake, which could be traced beyond the 

 Mfumbiro volcanoes in the direction of the Albert Edward 

 Nyanza, while Stanley, and after him Stuhlmann, had 

 examined the country which lies along the course of 

 portions of the Semliki River to the west of the Ruwenzori 

 Mountains. 



When, therefore, these observations were considered 

 together, it appeared probable, as, indeed, Suess had sup- 

 posed, that the valley of Tanganyika was continued through 

 the region of Kivu, the Albert Edward and the Albert 

 Lakes, into the region of the Upper Nile, where it became 

 confluent with the lesser eastern series of clefts in the region 

 of Lake Rudolf. The mere possibility of this made the 

 ascertainment of the character and structure of the districts 

 lying between the north end of Tanganyika and the Albert 

 Nyanza a matter of very great importance in dealing with 

 the problem presented by the marine life of Tanganyika at 

 the present day. For it might have been that an arm of 

 the sea at one time stretched into Africa alona- these 

 depressions, just in the same way as the Red Sea stretches 



