GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



305 



said to have afforded some data that will be of 

 use in perfecting the map of that region. Ro- 

 becchi entered at night the old necropolis of 

 Siwah, and carried away a number of skulls 

 and skeletons. The people of Siwah are fierce- 

 ly hostile toward Europeans. 



A great part of the western Sahara has 

 passed under the Spanish protectorate, and by 

 a government order in the spring that strip of 

 territory along the coast from near Cape Blan- 

 co to Cape Bojador, that is, from 20 51' north 

 latitude and io 56' east longitude to 26 8' 

 north latitude and 8 11' east longitude, is 

 placed under the general government of the 

 Canary Islands. The governor will have his 

 capital at Rio del Oro. 



A French explorer, C. Douls, gives an ac- 

 count of a remarkable journey made by him in 

 the western Sahara. Disguised as a Mussul- 

 man, he landed in a Canary Island fishing-boat 

 at a point on the coast between Cape Bojador 

 and the Rio del Oro. He was suspected and 

 taken prisoner by the first Moors he met, but 

 after some time succeeded in gaining their con- 

 fidence, and was admitted into their tribe as a 

 " brother." They proved to be a noted rob- 

 ber-band of the Sahara called the TJlad Delim. 

 M. Douls wandered with them five months, going 

 as far as the border of the Desert of Uarau 

 and Djuf, the great depression of the Sahara, 

 making some important observations with his 

 barometer, which, with his compass, had been 

 given back to him by the Moors. Turning to the 

 north he passed near the sebka of Zeuimur, de- 

 termining its exact position and surveying the 

 course of the Saguiat-al-Hamra, which had not 

 before been ascended. At the end of March he 

 was in Tendiif, the great slave-market. Since 

 Dr. Lenz was there in 1880, the oasis, according 

 to this account, has greatly increased in size. 

 Returning, he crossed the plains of the Ketaua 

 and the Takua. Between Tarfaya and Uad 

 Nun the level surface of the desert becomes 

 broken and hilly, and the beds of rivers that 

 have been destroyed by upheavals can be traced. 

 At Glimin he parted from his companions, they 

 passing on south along the steppes, and he 

 north along the Atlas range. Passing the 

 country of the Berbers, and crossing the Atlas, 

 he reached Morocco. Here the sultan, enraged 

 at having his country entered from the south 

 by a European, threw him into a dungeon. But 

 the English embassy, as it happened, reached 

 the city the same day, and upon the represen- 

 tations of Sir Kirby Green the traveler was re- 

 leased. M. Douls has thus traversed a tract of 

 country new to Europeans, and reports that he 

 has brought away important geographical and 

 ethnological information. 



Lieut.-Col. Gallieni has sent to Paris a sketch 

 of the work of the French expeditions to the 

 interior of Senegal. The two military columns 

 moved against the marabout Mahmadu Lamine 

 at Diana, who was threatening the forts on the 

 Senegal, and put him speedily to flight. They 

 made surveys of the valley of the Nieriko, the 

 VOL. xxvn. 20 A 



upper Gambia, and the hitherto unexplored 

 parts of the Faleme. Two companies of offi- 

 cers had quitted Diana ; one had surveyed the 

 country between the Faleme and the Tankesso, 

 the other had crossed the Gambia at Badu and 

 the Faleme at Erimina, and had penetrated to 

 Dinguiray, which has never before been visited 

 by a European. The whole region has been 

 placed under the protectorate of France. A 

 most advantageous treaty has been made with 

 the Prophet Samory, who founded an extended 

 empire, Wassulu, in the upper regions of the 

 Niger, from the ruins of Sego and other con- 

 quered territory. By the treaty the Niger and 

 the Tankesso from their sources constitute the 

 boundary between the French Soudan and the 

 territory of Samory, who also agreed to place 

 all his possessions on the right bank of the 

 Niger under French protection. This extends 

 the French influence on the right bank of the 

 Niger from Sego to Sierra Leone and the re- 

 public of Liberia. 



G. A. Kmuse returned in September from 

 Salaga to the coast after encountering many 

 hardships on the route, the greater part of 

 which has never before been traveled by a 

 European. In going from S6gede to the slave 

 coast, he turned to the south and went to Atak- 

 pame by way of Beletd or Anguinga, the 

 center of the salt trade in that region, passing 

 twice by boat over the Mono, called the Njele in 

 the north, and fording its western tributary, 

 Angai or Anai, three times. In Beletfi and in 

 Gbeschi opposition was made to his farther 

 progress, and though he saved himself both 

 times by escaping during the night, he was 

 obliged to leave behind at Beleta his baggage 

 and his collections, the latter consisting of 

 from 600 to 800 plants and seeds of various 

 kinds, a number of beetles, butterflies, and 

 other insects, and a few articles from prehis- 

 toric settlements between Mosi and Timbuctoo. 

 He discovered in the land of the Gurunsi a 

 remedy for fever which proved efficacious in 

 the thirteen attacks that he suffered after leav- 

 ing Salaga. He arrived at Accra September 

 23, having traveled on foot from Little Popo 

 along the strand. 



One important result of his journey is the 

 discovery that the "Volta rises far inland, 

 northeast of Waga-Dugu, the capital of Mosi. 

 He found also that Timbuctoo had acknowl- 

 edged the sovereignty of the Sheik Tidshani, 

 although the troops of El Bakai are still in the 

 field against him. Following is a translation 

 of a part of one of Herr Krause's letters : " I 

 left Salaga July 7, 1886, to go to Mosi. The 

 route led by way of the Dagamba city of Kan- 

 kanga to Wala-Wala, near which we crossed 

 the Volta and entered the eastern part of the 

 country of the tribes called the Gurunsi. After 

 crossing a large tributary of the eastern Volta 

 we entered the land of the Busanga, and then 

 Mosi, where we spent a month in Beri before 

 we went on to Waga-Dugu, the capital. Leav- 

 ing that place October 26, and passing through 



