GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



293 



forests of Kaarta, gaining the Niger at Gamina, 

 about 2,500 kilometres from its mouth. From 

 this place he journeyed to Segou in a boat, and 

 there turned about and retraced his course to 

 St. Louis. This traveler reports, as products 

 of the country explored, rice, millet, indigo, 

 tobacco, and cotton. The Karite Bannia Par- 

 kii, the tree which yields the vegetable butter 

 of Africa, abounds in the forests. The inhab- 

 itants crush the fruit and boil it to obtain the 

 fat. This has been employed in Europe in 

 the manufacture of soaps and candles. Coffee 

 grows wild in the Fouta Diallon Mountains. 

 The caoutchouc-tree (Ficus elastica) is also 

 found. Iron is an abundant mineral, and gold 

 is also present. Soleillet started out a second 

 time to reach Timbuctoo, in connection with 

 the exploration of the route for a Saharan rail- 

 way. 



Dr. Oscar Lenz has succeeded in reaching 

 Timbuctoo from Morocco, being the first trav- 

 eler who ever penetrated to that place from the 

 north. He was kept from proceeding for a 

 long time by the Moorish authorities, who gave 

 him a guard across the Atlas to Terodant, but 

 declined to protect him farther, or to author- 

 ize his advance, on the ground that the Sultan 

 exercised but a slight authority over the fierce 

 and fanatical Shloh tribes in the southern part 

 of his dominions. After attempting in vain to 

 join a caravan of merchants, being prevented 

 by the fanatical prejudice of the people, he in- 

 trusted his safety in the hands of some Howa- 

 ra-Kabyle robbers, who conducted him with- 

 out harm through the territory of their people. 

 Tie did not feel perfectly secure until he entered 

 Her, in the territory of Sidi Hedjam. The 

 country was everywhere well cultivated and 

 thickly populated. From Her he passed over 

 a plateau and through a river valley, to the 

 foot of a range of mountains 4,000 feet in aver- 

 age height, with summits rising to 5,000 feet, 

 which stretches from southwest to northeast. 

 This he crossed, and followed the valley, which 

 expands into a broad plain covered with palm 

 forests, amid which lies the town of Temenet. 

 The people here, as well as at Her, are chiefly 

 of Berber race. A few miles farther south, 

 the mountains open and disclose the Sahara. 

 He passed through other towns and arrived at 

 Fum el Hassan, the residence of Sheik Ali of 

 the Maribda-Kabyles. The sheik received the 

 traveler hospitably. 



Four several routes are marked out for ex- 

 amination with reference to the projected Sa- 

 hara railway: 1. Through the province of 

 Constantine, into the desert by way of War- 

 gla; 2. From Algiers, by way of El Aehuat 

 and El Golea ; 3. By way of Oran, Wad Sos- 

 fana, and Wad Messaura ; 4. By way of Tiaret, 

 El Mai'a, and El Golea. Colonel G. Flatters 

 explored the Wargla route, leaving that place 

 March 5th, at the head of a strong party. He 

 marched, by way of Am El Tai'ba, El Beyyodh, 

 Timassanin, and the Igharghar Valley, as far as 

 the lake El Menkhugh Tedjudelt in the Wady 



Tedjudjelt. On his return he came upon the 

 ancient caravan route from Wargla to the Soo- 

 dan, at In Lalen, and followed this through 

 Tin Essedj to El Beyyodh. Here the expedi- 

 tion divided into two parties, the one return- 

 ing to Wargla by the road already traveled, 

 the other proceeding eastward and taking down 

 the course of the Igharghar, passing through 

 Am El Mokganza. The expedition examined 

 a part of the El Erg. It established the prac- 

 ticability of a railroad with a firm bed from 

 Wargla as far as In Lalen. Flatters intended, 

 on his next expedition, to examine the Ahaggar 

 country, visiting Sebcha Amadghor, where the 

 celebrated fairs once took place, in which the 

 wares of Europe and Barbary were exchanged 

 for the products of the Soodan. A well-known 

 engineer, Choisy, conducted an expedition for 

 the more thorough exploration of the two routes 

 to El Golea from Biskra and El Aghuat. An- 

 other engineer, Pouyanne, conducted a recon- 

 noitering expedition from Oran to Wad Sos- 

 fana, on the Morocco frontier, which met with 

 extraordinary obstacles, yet gathered valuable 

 data concerning the country visited. 



The exploits of Major Serpa Pinto, of the 

 Portuguese Central African Expedition, who 

 crossed the continent diagonally, from Loanda 

 to the Transvaal, through the basin of the 

 Zambesi, were published to the world upon his 

 return in the beginning of 1879 (see "Annual 

 Cyclopaedia" for 1879). His associates, Brito 

 Capello and Robert Ivens, separated from him 

 when they reached the edgo of the great cen- 

 tral African plateau at Bihe, and struck out to 

 the north, through a region as little known as 

 that explored by Serpa Pinto. Between the 

 marshy, malarial coast-region of Loanda and 

 Benguela and the great plateau, whose eleva- 

 tion is 1,500 metres, lies a strip of hilly and 

 wooded country, of an average elevation of 

 900 metres, which, on account of its soil, a 

 very rich humus, and of the regularity of the 

 rainfall, is the most fruitful region on this part 

 of the continent, producing a superabundance 

 of manioc, millet, yams, and sweet-potatoes, 

 coffee, tobacco, and different legumina, and 

 bamboos, sycamores, Adansonia, and baobabs 

 of prodigious growth. The central plateau is 

 less productive, by reason of its thinner soil, 

 and, on account of its altitude, is less rich in 

 species. Coffee, the baobab, and other tropi- 

 cal plants do not grow, but leguminous plants 

 thrive well. The climate is temperate and 

 quite healthy. During the dry season a re- 

 freshing southeast breeze blows every morning 

 early. The mean temperature during this sea- 

 son is 77 Fahr., with wide variations. The 

 rainy season lasts from September to March. 

 The heavy rains of October and November re- 

 lax in December and January, and then reap- 

 pear with the same violence in February and 

 March. Bihe", once the slave metropolis, has 

 so diminished in importance that the explorers 

 would have had difficulty in finding men enough 

 to carry their stores and apparatus, even if the 



