350 GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



GEORGIA. 



were murdered in attempting to reach Waday, 

 before his eyes, he nevertheless set forth with 

 undaunted courage, bearing presents to Sultan 

 Omar of Bornou. He then pressed on to Fit- 

 tri, where he presented himself as a Christian 

 to the Sultan; afterward he was not known 

 in his true character, pushing forward so rap- 

 idly that he could not be recognized, and was 

 supposed by the people to be a wealthy hadji, 

 or pilgrim. He approached Abeschr, the capi- 

 tal of Waday, with many misgivings, which 

 were enhanced when his horses and fire-arms 

 were taken away at the command of the Sul- 

 tan. He met, however, with a friendly recep- 

 tion from Sultan Ali, the despotic but just and 

 liberal ruler, who, though a zealous believer of 

 the fanatical Moslem sect called the Senoosee, 

 is not so rigorous in the exclusion of non-be- 

 lievers as his predecessors. Waday is inferior 

 to Bornou in natural advantages and civiliza- 

 tion. The laws are of the severest character. 

 Theft and breaches of the peace are punish- 

 able with death ; adulterers are executed or 

 maimed ; cowardice in battle is punished in a 

 barbarous method. The inhabitants are bru- 

 tal, quarrelsome, immoral, and drunken, intoxi- 

 cating themselves daily upon a brewed drink 

 called melissa. Their dwellings are of the 

 rudest description ; their domestic vessels are 

 made out of gourd-rinds. Cattle, sheep, and 

 goats, are raised ; but milk is not used as a 

 drink. The brutal violence of the people is 

 held in check only by the stringent authority 

 of the present ruler. It is only within a couple 

 of years that the Arab merchants have dared 

 to go about freely. Dr. Nachtigal's intention 

 of starting immediately for Darfour was frus- 

 trated by the death of Hassim, the Sultan of 

 that country, which put an end to all inter- 

 communication until friendly relations were 

 reestablished by an envoy from his successor, 

 Brahim, a son of Hassim. Nachtigal could 

 learn nothing of the fate of Vogel. Beurmann 

 had been slain by the ruler of Kanem, without 

 the approval of Ali. Leaving Waday on the 

 17th of January, he traveled through a region 

 infested by the predatory Massalit tribe. He 

 found the eastern parts of Darfour as arid and 

 sandy as the western side is fruitful. All the 

 Avater contained in the broad river-beds lies 

 many feet below their sandy bottoms. In 

 Fasher he found a welcome any thing but hos- 

 pitable, though letters from the Khedive had 

 prepared the King for his coming. Journeys 

 to Kordofan or Dongola are seldom made from 

 here in the dry season. He left, fortunately, 

 a short time before the marching in of the 

 Egyptian troops ; had he remained he might 

 have fallen a victim to the vindictive rage of 

 the superstitious populace. In Dar Hamr there 

 are no wells, and.it is necessary that the water- 

 supply for three-quarters of the year be gath- 

 ered during the rainy season in ponds and 

 troughs, and stored in the trunks of the gigan- 

 tic Adansonias. On the 10th of August Dr. 

 Nachtigal arrived at Kordofan. 



Of a number of expeditions into the vast un- 

 known tract between the colonies of South 

 and West Australia, two have successfully 

 crossed the country ; and now the topography 

 of almost the entire Australian Continent may 

 be considered pretty clearly known to the 

 world. Ernest Giles made an attempt in 

 1872, and one in the following year. Gosse, 

 in 1873, succeeded in penetrating farther up 

 the country than had Giles, passing through a 

 dry, sandy region, in which were found abun- 

 dant grass, mulga scrub, and spinifex growths. 

 The first successful expedition was that of 

 Colonel Warburton, who passed overland from 

 Adelaide to Perth. Colonel P. Egerton War- 

 burton started out from Alice Springs on the 

 15th of April, 1873, with camels. The jour- 

 ney lasted nine months, while the party had 

 taken only six months' supplies : they were 

 obliged to eat the tough flesh of the camels, 

 and suffered frequently from thirst. Before 

 reaching the colony at Gray River, they were 

 also in danger of starvation, having consumed 

 all the camels except two. For the first two 

 hundred miles along the MacDougal range 

 there was pasturage and water ; but the entire 

 region beyond contained nothing save spinifex 

 grass and sandy ridges. The inhabitants are 

 exceedingly shy, and live without artificial 

 dwellings or clothing. They subsist upon the 

 flesh of the wallabee, the only animal of the 

 region, and the black, hard seeds of a variety 

 of acacia. J. Ross, an experienced bush-ranger, 

 was sent out later by the Australian Govern- 

 ment on a course more southerly than War- 

 burton's. He was obliged to put back, from 

 the failure of water. The character of the 

 country was similar to that passed through 

 by Warburton an undulating table-land, with 

 grass-plains, mulga-woods, and scattering sand- 

 hills of considerable size. 



John Forrest set out from Champion Bay in 

 April, 1874, intending to trace the Murchison 

 River to its source, and march thence for the 

 telegraph-line by an easterly course. He had in 

 his party six men with eighteen horses. They 

 crossed through the heart of the unexplored 

 part of the continent, keeping close to the 

 25th parallel, south latitude, and reached the 

 telegraph, September 1st, having traveled over 

 2,000 miles. Most of the country traversed 

 was of the poorest description; and for 600 

 miles the travelers had to force their way 

 through a spinifex desert scantily supplied 

 with water. They had several encounters with 

 the natives. This last expedition has reduced 

 to within narrow limits the still unexplored 

 portion of Australia. The direct route to Perth 

 alone remains to be traversed before the world 

 possesses a fair knowledge of the character of 

 inner West Australia. 



GEORGIA. The annual session of the Leg- 

 islature of Georgia began on the 14th of Janu- 

 ary and closed on the 26th of February. A 

 resolution was introduced on the first day, and 

 subsequently adopted, providing for a joint 



