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NA TURE 



\ytme 13, 1878 



Still, however, he gives it a connection Avith little Lake 

 Rivu, the supposed source of the Rusizi, the northern 

 affluent of Lake Tanganika. Here is another curious 

 riddle awaiting solution. 



Coming to the Tanganika itself, we may say that Mr. 

 Stanley has virtually completed our knowledge of its 

 configuration, having for the first time defined the outline 

 of its southern shore and proved that the Lukuga has not 

 yet become an effluent, but promises ere many years to 

 carry the waters of the lake to swell the volume of the 

 Lualaba. Mr. Stanley adduces the strongest proofs that 

 the Tanganika is rising with comparative rapidity, and it 

 is possible that further research may show that the 

 earliest Portuguese explorers, if ever they reached it, 

 found two lakes on its site, divided by a ridge nearly half- 

 way between its north and south points. Mr. Stanley, 

 before he began his work of exploration, evidently used 

 great diligence to qualify himself as an observer in 

 geology and natural history. That he is a keen observer 

 his work shows, and it is evident he has collected a mass 

 of data in geology and natural history, as well as in 

 ethnology, which will prove of the greatest interest to 

 men of science, and which we may look for in the pro- 

 mised third volume. Evidently the geological conditions 

 of the bed and shores of the Tanganika, as well as of the 

 -whole basin of the Livingstone, are unusually interesting 

 and have occupied much of the explorer's attention. 

 Until we have the whole of the data it would be pre- 

 mature to theorise. The lake Mr. Stanley makes out to 

 be 329 miles long, with an area of 9,240 square miles. 

 With 1,280 feet of cord he could find no bottom. Yet 

 though the Tanganika is rising, Mr. Stanley seems to be 

 of opinion that at one period nearly the whole of :he 

 great area drained by the Livingstone was under water, 

 and that the numerous lakes to the west and south-west of 

 Tanganika, with the river itself, are all that now remain of 

 the great inland sea, if inland it was. On the banks of the 

 Tanganika itself, high above the lake-level, he found rocks 

 bearing distinct evidence of having been worn and 

 rounded by water. Here is a splendid field for the 

 ■enterprising geologist. 



Of the great river itself, what more can we say but 

 that, in the face of the most stupendous difficulties, he 

 traced its course from Nyangwe to the sea ? It is a 

 splendid epic, this narrative of the expedition down this 

 great river, whose banks are lined with the villages of 

 hostile and cannibalistic natives, who literally hunted the 

 Jittle band for hundreds of miles. We doubt much if 

 another man could be found who could have carried such 

 an enterprise through with success. Anyone but Stanley 

 would either have turned or been eaten ere the first 

 cataracts were reached. One village street was fringed 

 on each side with rows of skulls, which he was told were 

 those of the soko — probably a species of chimpanzee. 

 One of these, brought home by Mr. Stanley, was sub- 

 Tnitted to Prof. Huxley, who has diagnosed it as that of a 

 human being. Of the dimensions of this river we have 

 already spoken, and of its basin, of nearly a million 

 square miles. Its discovery was worth all the sacrifices 

 that were made ; and, unless we are to count the pursuit 

 of knowledge as an object of no worth, it must be ad- 

 mitted that Mr. Stanley has here done a thing that entitles 

 him to rank in the first order of the pioneers of science. 

 Apart from its high value as an addition to geographical 

 knowledge, its importance as a highway to new fields of 

 commercial enterprise cannot be overrated. North and 

 south of it yet there are great white spaces to be filled 

 ^ip, but with such a magnificent base-line that should not 

 be difficult to do. 



Such is a brief outline of the principal geographical 

 -discoveries made by Mr. Stanley; but it gives the very 

 faintest idea of what the reader will find in his book. 

 Africa and African, to those who study these volumes, 

 will be no longer mere names : the genius of Mr. Stanley 



has infused into them the breath of life. Mr. Stanley's 

 strong human sympathy, aided by his knowledge of the 

 Kiswaheli, has enabled him to bring before us the natives 

 of Central Africa with a dramatic vividness never before 

 attained. Henceforth it will be inexcusable to lump 

 together the Waswaheli, the Wagoro, the Waganda, the 

 Wanyamwesi, the Wajiji, the people of Manyema, and 

 the many other tribes that people this much-watered 

 land, as mere uniformly characterless "niggers." In 

 Mr. Stanley's pages we see these various states and many 

 individuals, each Avith their distinctive characteristics. 

 The physique of the various peoples, their manners, their 

 houses, utensils, and weapons, their dress, their modes of 

 Ufe, and even their modes of thinking and speaking, their 

 legends, are pictured for us by pen and camera and 

 pencil in a manner that must impress the laziest reader. 

 The ethnologists will be able to glean many facts and 

 hints here, and still more we should think from the 



Kitete, Chief of Mpungu, near the Lualaba. 



volume that is to follow. Mr. Stanley presents us with 

 a remarkable legend from Uganda, the Kingdom of 

 Mtesa, concerning a blameless priest named Kintu and 

 his descendants, which is well worth the study of the 

 comparative mythologist. We have another strange 

 legend as to the origin of the Tanganika, and we should 

 think that in his wanderings much material of a similar 

 kind must have been collected by Mr. Stanley : if so he 

 would do science a service by publishing it. The 

 chapters devoted to Mtesa and his kingdom are of 

 special interest, and the explorer's friendship with this 

 remarkable potentate promises to be fruitful of results. 

 Further interesting details are given as of the mysterious 

 white people of Mt. Gambaragara on the east shore of 

 Muta Nzige, which must rouse the curiosity of ethnolo- 

 gists. We learn a good deal also about the wandering 

 Watuta, the terror of Central Africa, and of King 

 Mirambo, a sort of African Napoleon, whom, however, 

 Mr. Stanley speaks of in high terms as superior both in 

 character and intellect to the general run of African 

 "kings." Much new information also have we on the 



