GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS IN 1890. 



357 



representative of the Wahuma, who disdains the use 

 of the hoe, and despises the planter and the sower and 

 will not intermarry with the negro and commit the 

 awful crime of miscegenation any more than the 

 proudest Virginian in America. They came from 

 Abyssinia a long time ago. They resemble the 

 Abyssinian Somalia and Gallas. You may call them 

 if you will Abyssinian or Ethiopia, but the compre- 

 hensive philosophic term would be Indo-Atrican. 



A fifth race is represented by the Semitic Africans, 

 who are to be found principally among the Mahdists 

 to-day at Darfour, Kordofan, and 0ongola ; and a 

 sixth race is found among the Berberines, as repre- 

 sented by the Tuaregs and Bedawy of Northwest 

 Africa. 



We must be satisfied for the present with conclud- 

 ing that the pygmies and the negroes are the primi- 

 tive races of Africa ; that Ethiopia in prehistoric 

 times was invaded by various migrants from the great 

 Aryan race ; that as they multiplied they scattered 

 southward and mixed with the negro tribes, and pro- 

 duced that composite race represented by the Zulus. - 

 Caffres, Bechuanas, Matabeles, Mafitte, Watuta, and 

 Wanyamwezi. A later movement conveyed tribes 

 having peculiar customs, who, finding the intra-lake 

 region best adapted for their cattle, clung to the land 

 and its rich pasture, indifferent to the fate of the tribes 

 or natives employed in tilling the ground, and their 

 clannish descendants are the Indo- African Wahuma. 



Asia. The Russian expedition to central 

 Asia, first led by Gen. Prjevalsky, has been con- 

 tinued since his death under the leadership of 

 Col. Pievtsoff. After wintering in 1889-'90 at 

 Nia, in Turkestan, he started in April to push 

 forward into Tibet through _the pass Idjelik- 

 Khanum, intending to pass the summer on the 

 plateau and descending in September to travel 

 by way of the Cherchen river to Lob- Nor. An- 

 other "expedition in the same region is that of 

 Capt. Grombchevsky. He began a journey in 

 the Kuen-Lun ranges in July, 1889, intending 

 to cross the Hindu-Kush and enter Kanjut and 

 Kafiristan. In this attempt he was frustrated 

 by Afghan troops. In October he was in the 

 valley of the Dangnan-bash or Taghdumbash- 

 Pamir, and passed along the valley of the Uprang 

 to the Muz, a river not before known ; it rises 

 among the glaciers of Mustagh, flows northwest, 

 then northeast, and into the Raskem-daria, not 

 far from Chun-takai. In the valley of the lat- 

 ter river, which has been kept desolate for eighty 

 or ninety years by the inroads of the Kanjuti, he 

 went up to Kara-Dshar-Karaul, making an ex- 

 cursion along the tributary Surkowat. On the 

 southern declivity of the pass Aghil-dawan he 

 reached one of the sources of the Uprang. Here 

 his route fell in with that of Lieut. Younghus- 

 band, in 1887. Passing northward he crossed 

 the Raskem mountains and located the water 

 divide between the Raskem-daria, the Khotan- 

 daria, and the Tisuaf, the last a hitherto un- 

 known stream. Continuing the route, he crossed 

 the Raskem mountains for the third time at the 

 end of November. Reaching the Karakash, the 

 upper course of the Khotan-daria, and following 

 it up. he again crossed the mountains at the Ka- 

 wak Pass, and reached the source of the Raskem- 

 daria with the thermometer at 35 C. But a 

 single day's journey from the Karakortim Pass, 

 he was obliged to turn back for fear of losing 

 his whole caravan by the extreme cold. Turn- 

 ing to the southeast and following the Kara- 

 kash, he reached the high, sandy table-land and 

 the mountains dividing it from the head-waters 



of the Yurang-kash. The ridges are more than 

 16,500 feet in height, the cold was intense, and 

 the violence of the winds extreme. After losing 

 25 of his 33 horses, Grombchevsky was obliged 

 to quit the table-land without visiting the mines 

 once worked by the Chinese in the immediate 

 vicinity, and he therefore set out for Nia to join 

 the Pievtsoff expedition in its winter quarters. 

 At Surkhan he found 3,000 Chinese working for 

 gold. 



He says the Kanjuti, who are indefatigable 

 and merciless brigands, have laid waste the 

 whole valley of the Raskem-daria; traces of 

 habitations prove that the region was formerly 

 well populated. The mountains are destitute of 

 vegetation in consequence of the extreme dry- 

 ness of the air, but in some parts of the valley 

 there are oases covered with dense brushwood, 

 impenetrable even with axe in hand. In order to 

 cross these districts the few Kirghises who vent- 

 ured across from the Taghdumbash-Pamir to 

 Shahidulla set fire to the vegetation, forcing the 

 wolves, foxes, wild asses, and other animals to 

 retreat before them. Capt Grombchevsky says 

 that a small band of the brigands were in hiding 

 to waylay Lieut. Younghusband's caravan, but 

 were afraid to take the risks of an attack. He 

 made a topographical survey of his journey of 

 about 700 miles, and determined several latitudes 

 in the valley of the Raskem-daria and on the 

 rivers Muz, Karakash, and Yurang-kash. 



One of the most noteworthy journeys in Tibet 

 is that of Prince Henry of Orleans and his com- 

 panion, M. Bonvarbt. They set out more than 

 a year ago from Russia and passed through Si- 

 beria and China. But their most important ex- 

 periences were in Tibet. 



While looking toward Batang [says M. Bonvalot] 

 I cast secret glances at Lhassa and especially at the 

 lofty unexplored table-lands of Tibet. Prjevalsky, 

 the Russian, and Carey, the Englishman, were the first 

 and the last since the day of Fathers Hue and Gabet 

 who have attempted to visit these unknown regions. 

 A perusal of their narratives had convinced ine that 

 the difficulties they had had to surmount were noth- 

 ing new or uncommon to me. Upon one occasion 

 Frjevalsky had to turn back for want of money ; up- 

 on another because he was attacked ; upon a third for 

 want of a guide ; and then, again, because of threats 

 addressed to him from Lhassa. Except upon the 

 shore of the "lake which never freezes," he had fol- 

 lowed the caravan routes and that taken by Fathers 

 Hue and Gabet, making toward the Mouroussou 

 or upper Yangtse. Carey had followed for several 

 days a fresh route leading from Tcharkalik (at the 

 further end of the Lob-Nor)toward Bogalik and the 

 Tsaidam. Various reasons had led him to retrace his 

 steps toward the north, but, as he says in his narra- 

 tive, u I had not recognized that it was impossible to 

 advance in a southerly direction." I was firmly re- 

 solved to avoid the errors into which these two trav- 

 elers fell. Both had run short, at a given moment, of 

 provisions, guides and prudence. So we had to carry 

 with us ample provisions for man and beast, and then 

 forget the dictates of prudence. So we left the Lob-Nor 

 with about six months' provisions of food, and ready 

 to run any sort of risk. It is said that to venture is 

 to succeed ; we have ventured, and we have suc- 

 ceeded. 



The travelers made their way, on the vast 

 plateaus of Tibet, across a thousand miles of 

 desert, at an altitude varying from 13,000 feet to 

 19.000 feet, and reached the south of Lake Ten- 

 gri-Nor, which is only a day's journey on horse- 



