GRAPHICAL F.XPLORATIONS AND Disn >VK1:IE3 IN 1867. 359 



Nil.- t<> .<i!nt Louis, in Senegambia; of M. 



ami S<t hit l.ntiix ; and of 

 (iilhert, l>a-tuu'u.', .-iiid Keauniicr in .!/< 

 which, though iui|)ort:iiit, arc Ie-s so than llmx- 

 in tin- newer di-tricts. I'r. Livingstone's recent 

 are not yet laid before the public, 

 and the speculative or theoretical articles on 

 the climate, antiquities, history, a-tronomy. mid 

 civili/ation of the ancient people of Africa be- 

 long rather to kindred branches of science than 



-raphy. Four sections of the continent, 



fully explored within the past, two or 

 three years than ever before, demand our at- 

 tention, and we take them in their order, both 

 of time and location. Lieutenant Eugene 

 Mage, of tlio French Navy, and ])r. Quintin, 



;eh savaii, also connected with the navy, 

 both men of hardy constitution, and large pre- 

 vious ideographical experience, undertook, at 

 the instance of Colonel Faidherbe, the gov- 

 ernor of the French colony on the Senegal, to 

 a-cend the Senegal Kiv.r, and penetrate thence 

 to the upper Niger, through a region traversed 

 by no whito man since the death of Mungo 

 Park, more than sixty years ago. They left 

 Saint Louis in October, 1863, and, ascending 

 the river Senegal pa ed the French post of 

 Medina, the highest French settlement, and 



! a few days at the fortified city of Kouu- 

 dian. Hero they quitted the valley of the 



d, and turned east, toward the country 



'a, which is not more than eight or ten 

 day.-' march from the Niger. But an insurrec- 

 tion had closed their route, and the caravan to 

 which they had joined themselves was obliged 

 to turn to the north and go nearly 450 miles 

 out of its course. Crossing the eastern branch 

 of the Uakhoy I liver, Lieutenant Mage entered 

 into Karata, and, traversing the country of the 

 Malinkes, passed into the territory of the Bam- 

 baras. These two powerful tribes, though 

 having a common origin and a common lan- 

 guage, are and have been for many years in 

 deadly hostility to each other. They both be- 

 long to the vigorous and intelligent Foulah or 

 Mandingo race, the most advanced of all the 

 black races on the continent ; but the Bambaras 

 are Mohammedans, the subjects of the Hadji 

 Omar, and, imbibing the spirit of their leader, 

 a- the Wahabees did in Arabia, they are funati- 



iiel. and bloodthirsty. The Hadji Omar 

 and his family have created a vast empire in 

 this region, but one based on force, and likely 

 to be of but brief duration. The Malinke's, on 

 the other hand, are pagans, and refuse to em- 

 brace the Mussulman faith, and time and a;rain 

 have driven back the armies of Iladji Omar, 

 setting limits to his progress westward. But 

 more than once the tide of Mussulman fanati- 

 cism has swept over their country, and deso- 

 lated fields and ruined towns have marked the 

 progress of the invading armies. Messrs. Mage 

 and Quintin traversed successively the states 

 or chieftaincies of Diangonnt6, Lambalake, and 

 J-'aduu'u, and on the -J-Jd of February, 1864, 

 four months after their departure from Saint 



Louis, arrived at Yamina, on the banks of the 

 Kvvarra or I'pper Niger. A few day- la!. 

 readied Scroll, the capital of Iladji <i 

 empire, and were received courteously by the 

 KiiiLT Ahmedu, the MHI of Iladji Omar, but 

 retained in that capital and its vicinity 

 for a period of twenty-seven months. 



War is in this part of Africa the normal con- 

 dition ; and such war! The successful | 

 whichever it may be, regards it as a duty to 

 butcher its prisoners in cold blood, except 

 where it is more profitable to make slaves of 

 them. The young French explorers were com- 



Eelled, of course, always at the peril of their 

 ves, to take part in these gigantic raids, for 

 really they were nothing more, and to witness 

 most painful scenes. Aside from this they 

 were in a hot and sickly climate, unable to 

 procure any intelligence from their families or 

 their native country, and their lives were really 

 at the mercy of a tyrant and despot. But, 

 amid all these hardships and privations, they 

 never forgot the interests of science. Moving 

 about as far as they were permitted, they sur- 

 veyed and mapped the course of the Niger from 

 Koolikoro to Sansandig, a distance of more 

 than 150 miles, and ascertained the character 

 of the country and soil for wide distances along 

 its banks and toward the interior ; studied its 

 geology and natural history, the customs, 

 manners, origin, and languages of its inhabi- 

 tants, and have thus made the finest contribu- 

 tion to geographical science of any African 

 explorers except Dr. Livingstone. They main- 

 tained, too, their own self-respect, and impr 

 the despotic Ahmedu with such ideas of the 

 power and intelligence of the French nation 

 that he treated them with great courtesy. At 

 length, in June, 1866, Ahmedu granted them 

 an escort, and, they quitted Segou with 400 

 horsemen, and, passing still farther to the north, 

 traversed the borders of the desert of Sahara, 

 and reached Medina in the early autumn of 1866. 

 Rev. Christian Hornberger, a missionary of 

 the North-German Missionary Society, on the 

 Slave Coast of Africa, has communicated to 

 Petermann's MittJieilnngen a very full and in- 

 teresting account of the Ew6, or, as perhaps it 

 should be called, the Ava country, in which lie 

 is laboring. Tins district lies between the 

 Volta River and the kingdom of Dahomey, 

 and extends from the coast of the Gulf of 

 Guinea to the mountains of Kong. The people 

 are of one of the negro races, but are quiet and 

 industrious, and on the coast are engaged 

 largely in the fisheries, and in the interior in 

 the production of palm-oil, the cultivation of 

 rice, sugar, maize, and other grains, ground- 

 nuts, tiger-nuts, cotton, plantains, and bana- 

 Their language differs materially from 

 that of the other tribes of the vicinity, except 

 that of the people of Dahomey. With the lan- 

 guage of the Aku, Kposo, and Afatimu, tribes 

 of the same coast, it has no affinities, not half a 

 dozen words even among the numerals bearing 

 the slightest similarity. 



