Jan. 25, 1877] 



NATURE 



279 



south of Nyangwd, Cameron came to Kilemba, the head- 

 quarters of Kasongo, the chief of the extensive district of 

 Urua, and where is the principal station of the remark- 

 able Arab trader, Jumah Amerikani. This individual has 

 extensive trading connections over Central Africa, is a 

 man of considerable intelligence, and was able to give 

 Cameron much geographical information which he nad 

 gathered during his widespread journeys. Cameron was 

 compelled to remain at Kilemba for about eight months, 

 and had it not been for the ever-to-be-remembered kind.- 

 ness of this humane and generous Arab trader, his 

 life must have been intolerable, even if he had been 

 able to preserve it. The treatment of Cameron by this 

 remarkable man is beyond all praise. Cameron found at 

 Kilemba a black slave-hunter from the Portuguese settle- 

 ments, than whom probably a more barbarous blackguard 

 does not exist. The cruelties practised by this man and 



the chief Kasongo are almost incredible and painful to read 

 of. The whole country here is being rapidly devastated 

 by these slave-hunters from the west coast, and until their 

 fiendish practices are put a stop to, the country can never 

 be opened up either to exploration or legitimate traffic. 



While staying here Cameron visited an interesting 

 little lake, Mohrya, studded With houses built on high 

 piles. He also heard of a people who dwell in caves in 

 this region ; we believe that Livingstone refers to this 

 in his "Last Journals." Cameron also paid a visit 

 to a Lake Kassali, a short distance south of Kilemba, 

 and which contains many floating islands; but he was 

 not permitted to reach the shores. He has collected 

 much interesting information about the people among 

 whom he was compelled to sojourn, and collected many 

 notes from various sources concerning the geography of 

 the region. But the capricious restrictions under which 



Village in Manyuetna. 



he was placed compelled him to lead a life of comparative 

 idleness, so that when Kendele, the brutal slave-hunter, 

 whose pleasure he was compelled to await, was ready to 

 march with his ill-gotten human booty, the wearied tra- 

 veller was heartily glad. This was in June, 1875, and 

 starved and nearly dead with scurvy he reached Benguella 

 in November. 



Of the value of Commander Cameron's work we think 

 there can be but one opinion. Every page is interesting, 



and he has been able to add materially to our knowledge 

 of the hydrography, the geology, the people, and products 

 of the important part of Africa he traversed. The gene- 

 ral results he discusses in two concluding chapters, and 

 botanists will be pleased to find in an appendix an enu- 

 meration of the plants collected in the region about Lake 

 Tanganyika, drawn up by Mr. Oliver. The flora of the 

 region, Mr. Oliver states, may be taken as belonging to 

 the basin of the Congo. 



THE TROPICAL FORESTS OF HAMPSHIRE^ 

 IIL 



WE have in the series of beds, the aspect and formation 

 of which I have endeavoured to describe, a total 

 thickness of perhaps somewhere about 1,000 feet. We 



» Continued from p. 261. This concluding article is the substance of a 

 paper read by Mr. J. S. Gardmr, F. G.S , at the Geologists' Association, 

 January 5. 



read in Lyell's " Geology " and other works that river and 

 delta deposits are accumulated with comparatively great 

 rapidity, as in the case of the Rhone delta above Geneva, 

 which has advancedone-and-a-halfmiles in historical times. 

 Throughout the Bournemouth district we have in the great 

 and sudden deposits of coarse grit evidence of quick depo- 

 sition. We also find leaves folded over with half an inch 

 of sediment between the folds, and leivts sun-cracked 



