GEOGRAPHICAL PEOGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



373 



Brazza devoted to the organization of this 

 French territory, " Equatorial France," twen- 

 ty-six stations have been founded, as follow : 

 Mandschi, at Cape Lopez; Njole, Okola, Obom- 

 bi, Atschuka, Bowe, Bundschi, Madiville, Du- 

 mi, and Franceville on the Ogowe ; Diele, 

 Ngampo, Leketi, and Mbotschi, on the Ali- 

 ma ; Brazzaville, Ngantschuno, Mbe (Makoko), 

 N kerne, Bonga, and Nkundscha on the Congo 

 and its right-hand tributaries; Pointe Noire, 

 Loango, Bas Kuilu, Ngotu, Niari-Ludima, and 

 Philippeville on the coast and in the Kuilu 

 valley. The exploration of the inland region 

 has been begun by Dolisie, who is examining 

 the Nkundsche, supposed by De Brazza to be 

 identical with Grenfell's Mobangi, and by 

 Jacques de Brazza, Savorgnan's brother, who 

 discovered in September a new tributary of 

 the Congo, the Sekoli. De Brazza is enthusi- 

 astic about the resources of the region, and fa- 

 vors the building of a railroad along the cata- 

 racts of the Congo. This has been already 

 proposed ; but English capitalists, who have 

 had it under consideration, have decided not 

 to undertake it; and a committee in Brussels 

 has been appointed to decide whether to at- 

 tempt the carrying out of the project. 



Lieut. 0. Coquilhat contributes an article 

 on the upper Congo to the " Bulletin" of the 

 Antwerp Geographical Society. He begins by 

 advocating the hypothesis that the land of this 

 region is the bed of an ancient lake of enor- 

 mous extent, the western boundary of which 

 he thinks marked by the heights to the west 

 of the present course of the rivers Ubangi and 

 Kuango. This view he deduces from the con- 

 figuration of the soil that he noticed along 

 the Congo above Leopoldville, and he cites the 

 various altitudes of the surrounding country 

 in proof of it. This theory, he thinks, will ac- 

 count for the difference of the fertility of the 

 upper and lower Congo, which is very great, 

 the vegetation of the former being equaled, 

 in his opinion, by that of India alone. There 

 is, too, another great difference which also sup- 

 ports this supposition, namely, the fact that all 

 the important tributaries of the Congo belong 

 to its upper course, not one of any size being 

 found below Kwamouth. In the upper Congo, 

 too, at the Bangala station, during great floods 

 many of the neighboring localities are inun- 

 dated, so little is the land raised above the 

 river-bed. Lieut. Coquilhat concludes with an 

 account of the fauna of the Bangala country, 

 and the descent and character of the people. 

 Captain Hansen's register of the rainfall in 

 Bangala since May, 1884, is as follows : 



May, 10 days, 34 hours. Jan., 8 days, 16 hours. 



June, 9 * 27 " Feb., 6 " 9 " 



July, 6 " 28 " March,! 1 " 27 " 



Aug., 7 " 27 " April, 13 " 43 " 



Sept., 6 " 24 May, 10 " 19 " 



Oct., 8 " 25 " June, 12 " 85 " 



Nov., 8 " 24 July, 15 " 27 " 



Dec., 7 15 - 



Dr. Butner has successfully solved the prob- 

 lem of the German Kuango Expedition by fol- 

 lowing the river to its end; starting from San 



Salvador and taking a more northerly route 

 than Dr. Wolff's, he traced the river to ita 

 end at Kwamouth. 



The unsettled question as to the boundaries 

 of the European colonies on the West African 

 coast bids fair at length to be amicably ar- 

 ranged. The German Government has made 

 compacts with Great Britain and France, ac- 

 cording to which it renounces all sovereignty 

 over Koba and Kabitai, and recognizes the au- 

 thority of France over the territory between 

 the Rio Nunez and Mellacoree. The German 

 Empire also recognizes the protectorate of 

 France over Great Popo on the slave-coast, 

 and France recognizes that of Germany over 

 the Togo territory and its extension to Porto 

 Seguro and Little Popo. The boundary adopt- 

 ed between the German protectorate of Came- 

 roon and the French colony of Gaboon is the 

 course of the Campo river as far as the tenth 

 degree of longitude east from Greenwich, and 

 from that point on a parallel to its intersection 

 with the fifteenth degree. France thus gives 

 up all claims on Malimba and Great Batanga, 

 and the German Empire withdraws its claims 

 to Bata, Banoko, and Benito. This, and the 

 treaty with Great Britain settling the north- 

 ern boundary of Cameroon, confirms the sover- 

 eignty of Germany over the upper districts of 

 Cameroon. 



G. Valdau and K. Knutson are two pioneer 

 settlers on the southern slope of the Came- 

 roon mountains, having taken up their resi- 

 dence there in the beginning of 1884. In the 

 summer of 1885 they made the circuit of the 

 mountains, taking a different and more extend- 

 ed route than any heretofore followed, going 

 to Buea, then turning northward to Richards 

 Lake, and then to Elephant Lake (Balombi-ba- 

 Mbu), which they went around. Northward 

 from the Meme they took a westerly course, ar- 

 riving in the upper valley of the Mokono, ap- 

 parently a tributary of the Old Calabar. From 

 Balundu they turned southeast, recrossing the 

 Meme, and at length reaching the coast at Be- 

 tikka (Colli). Their report gives many inter- 

 esting ethnographic notes, and details regard- 

 ing the number of inhabitants at the various 

 points they touched. It is perhaps a matter of 

 some political significance that they have made 

 some progress toward the answer to the ques- 

 tion as to the existence of the Rio del Rey, which, 

 by the agreement of May 7, 1885, was made the 

 boundary between the British Niger districts 

 and the German colony of Cameroon. As they 

 found the water-shed between the Meme and 

 Old Calabar scarcely twenty miles (thirty kilo- 

 metres) distant, the supposition seems to be 

 justified that an actual Rio del Rey can hardly 

 be between them ; but that this river, so called, 

 like the Muni, Gaboon, and others, is only an 

 estuary, formed by many small streams. This 

 agrees with the report of Capt. von Schuck- 

 mann, which makes the Rio del Rey to be 

 formed by two arms of water, the one from 

 the northeast being the Meme, according to 



