GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS. 



263 



ence. On Nov. 26 the valley of Lake Stefanie was 

 entered, and here the expedition endured much 

 hardship by the burning of the camp and the 

 shortness of water, for the water of the lake was 

 found to be undrinkable. Lake Rudolf was 

 reached on Dec. 10. The formerly rich tribe of 

 Rusia was found no longer to exist, and no human 

 beings were seen until the river Nianam was 

 reached. Between the Nianam and the Nile there 

 was not only a completely different set of birds, 

 but scarcely any of the mammalia were the same 

 that had been found in the eastern section of the 

 journey. On Jan. 3 the Omo river was left be- 

 hind. After leaving the highlands and crossing 

 at right angles the line of march of the late Capt. 

 Wellby, the Magois were encountered. These 

 were quite different in appearance and customs 

 from any tribe previously met with. They had 

 the heavy build and large features of the Sudan- 

 ese, and the lines of raised tattooing which are so 

 characteristic of the people about the Nile. They 

 seemed to care principally for small red beads, 

 which they wore worked in gorgeous patterns. 

 They were the only people, too, whom Dr. Smith 

 had seen wearing a zebra's tail suspended from 

 the elbow. Contrary to the advice of these na- 

 tives the expedition set out into the plain west- 

 ward, and here they suffered considerably from 

 the difficult ground and the scarcity of water, 

 and many transport animals and much valuable 

 baggage were lost. After searching for a better 

 route for many days, a branch of the Magois 

 calling themselves Katua were encountered, and 

 Dr. Smith was surprised to find them cow-wor- 

 shipers. On reaching the most northern extension 

 of the Uganda highlands on Feb. 15 the Akara 

 were met with. Many of these natives were agri- 

 culturists as well as stock-raisers, and had sub- 

 stantial wooden dwellings. Villages were passed 

 which might easily have contained 1,500 inhabit- 

 ants. Dr. Smith secured at this stage of the jour- 

 ney the only specimens ever obtained of the 

 spotted bush-buck. Fort Berkeley was reached on 

 March 14. On May 5 a gunboat arrived, and Dr. 

 Smith and his collections were carried down to 

 Cairo." 



Other travelers in this region whose explora- 

 tions promise to supplement the work of Dr. 

 Smith and the Italian explorers are the Baron 

 v. Erlanger and Oscar Neumann, who have visited 

 some unknown territory near the watershed be- 

 tween Juba and Sidama, and Hugues Le Roux, 

 who has traced a part of the unexplored course 

 of the Blue Nile, from the point where it leaves 

 the province of God jam to the mouth of the 

 Didesa. 



A little steamer, the Scotia, has been placed 

 upon Lake Mweru, and the outlines of the lake 

 can now be determined, although the swampy 

 shores, especially those in the southwest, will offer 

 some difficulty. Navigation for any great dis- 

 tance on the rivers is prevented by falls above 

 and below the lake. 



The upper Nile has been opened by the cutting 

 away of the barriers of sudd by a force under 

 Major Peake. This route when opened will save 

 months in the time of transporting supplies to 

 northern Uganda. The sudd consists of thick 

 masses of weeds packed and matted together. 



In May, 1900, came the report that Mr. J. E. S. 

 Moore had arrived at Mombasa with the Tangan- 

 yika expedition, which had carried out the scien- 

 tific investigations with which it was entrusted 

 throughout the entire length of the great Rift val- 

 ley, from the south of Lake Nyassa to the Albert 

 Nyanxa. It was found that the old marine fauna 

 of Tanganyika did not extend to any of the 



lakes northward, though there was ^colo^ical evi- 

 dence pointing to some former extension of Lake 

 Tanganyika westward along the (,'ougo valley. 

 The same evidence confirms the view t!,;it the 

 lake once covered a much larger area, since il> pe- 

 culiar fauna were found at considerai-i in Splits 

 north and south of it. Among other pieces' of 

 geographical exploration accomplished was the 

 successful ascent of one of the highest snow peaks 

 of Ruwenzori, where observations and photo- 

 graphs were obtained. 



The upper Zambesi, with its eastern and west- 

 ern tributaries and the lands lying between, has 

 been minutely explored by Major A. St. Hill Gib- 

 bons and his companions, Capt. F. C. Quiche, 

 Capt. Stevenson-Hamilton, and Mr. Weller. The 

 regions west of the upper Zambesi as far as Ce- 

 cito and Okavango are now described for the first 

 time. 



The French explorers MM. Huot and Bernard 

 undertook a journey in October, 1900, of which 

 the results have not apparently been yet pub- 

 lished, to determine the watershed between the 

 Congo and the Shari. 



M. Foureau returned to France in September, 

 1900, having traversed Africa with his expedition 

 from Algiers across the Sahara and Sudan to 

 the Chad and the Shari, and by way of the 

 Ubangi and the Congo to the Atlantic. The parts 

 of the journey new- for geography were those 

 through the Hagar mountains from Ain-el-Had- 

 jadj to the oasis of Air, where Earth's route was 

 reached, and the course around the northeastern 

 shore of Lake Chad to the Shari delta at Gulfei. 

 His companion, Major Lamy, fell in a conflict on 

 the Shari against Rabeh, the usurper of Bornu. 

 Of the 314 men in the expedition, 32 fell in battle 

 and 20 died of disease in the two years. 



Other travelers who have been exploring re- 

 cently in Africa are Dr. Kandt, M. Pierre Prins, 

 MM. Hostains and D'Ollone, M. D6cie, Major Co- 

 lin Harding, A. H. Sharp and E. S. Grogan, Mr. 

 Poulett Weatherly, M. Rue, Lieut. Lencaire, 

 Count Leontieff, M. Flamand, M. Bailland, Mr. 

 Silva White, Mr. Percy Reid, Baron Griinan, Capt. 

 Ashburnham, Capt. Jobit, M. Blanchet. 



Oceanica. In a lecture on British New Guinea, 

 Prof. A. C. Haddon described the structure of that 

 island and the geographical distribution of the 

 population, who belong to the Melanesian or 

 dark-skinned, black, frizzly-haired people of the 

 western Pacific. There was no trace whatever 

 of Malay physical character, culture, or language 

 in the island, and he did not seek outside of New 

 Guinea for the ancestral stock of its Papuan in- 

 habitants. Dr. Meyer, in his great monograph 

 on the Negritos of the Philippine Islands, had ex- 

 pressed the opinion that the question whether the 

 Papuanj^vere a mixed race was not yet ripe for 

 decision. 'The lecturer expressed the opinion that 

 there was a truly indigenous race who were the 

 real Papuans, and that there had been several dis- 

 tinct waves of immigrants from the Melanesian; 

 archipelago who had saddled themselves on the 1 

 preexisting population. 



The Ocean. The exploration of the sea is a 

 work in which geographers are taking great in- 

 terest. A second international conference took 

 place at Christiania in May, 1901, and the plan 

 drafted in Stockholm in 1899 was completed. 

 The original program has been revised to meet 

 the wishes of the participating governments. The 

 governments of all the countries bordering on the 

 North Sea and the Baltic were represented at the 

 conference, except France, whose geographical 

 position gives her less practical interest in the 

 area of research namely, the North Atlantic, the 



