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NA TURE 



[Feb. 14, i8;8 



fulness after the work of Mr, Stanley, who, however, was 

 unable to carry out the plan of doing for the Albert what 

 he did for the Victoria. Through one of the valleys which 

 run north and south between the mountains of this region 

 flows another tributary of the Alexandra Nyanza, and on 

 Mount Gambaragara dwell those mysterious fair-skinned 

 people that Speke heard of, but specimens of whom Mr, 

 Stanley actually saw. About the time of Mr. Stanley's 

 visit, we may remind the reader, Signor Gessi explored 

 the Albert Lake, and we believe, to judge from his narra- 

 tive, was unwittingly driven to its southern shore, about 

 1° S. lat. Quite recently, as we recorded at the time, 

 Col. Mason has sailed round the lake, and reports it to be 

 comparatively small and land-locked, with no important 

 affluent other than the Victoria Nile. 



On Lake Tanganyika Mr. Stanley completed the work 

 of his predecessors. He circumnavigated the lake, and 

 for the first time accurately plotted the outline of its 

 southern part, adding considerably to our knowledge of 

 the people and products of its shores. We have already 

 ■spoken at some length of his examination of the Lukuga, 

 which Cameron set down on the middle of the western 

 shore as the long-sought-for outlet of the lake. Stanley 

 examined the Lukuga with great care, and concludes that 

 at present it is only a creek, but that as the waters of the 

 lake are encroaching on the shore, either by the rise of 

 the former or subsidence of the latter, the Lukuga will, in 

 a very short time, actually become an outlet. What Mr. 

 Stanley has told us of the lake and the surrounding 

 region is well calculated to whet the curiosity of the 

 geologist and physical geographer. We have already 

 alluded to Mr. Stanley's theory of the past physical 

 history of the region ; but even if his knowledge of 

 geology were adequate to the formation of an acceptable 

 theory, he had scarcely time enough to collect the neces- 

 sary data. Here, at any rate, is a splendid field for the 

 geologists of the future. 



Had Mr. Stanley returned home after his exploration 

 of Tanganyika, or had the toss between himself and poor 

 Pocock been " tails to go south " and leave the problem 

 of the Lualaba unsolved, no one would have blamed him, 

 and his work in the Nyanza region would have added 

 very considerably to his previous reputation as an ex- 

 plorer. But his daring dash down the Lualaba is a coup 

 that has immortalised him ; it has done for him what the 

 publication of " Pickwick " did for Dickens, it has com- 

 pelled the world to admit that in his own line he is a 

 genius of the first rank. Indeed we cannot but regard 

 the spirit which animated Stanley at this crisis of his 

 iourney in Africa as a really heroic one. He himself 

 happily and aptly expressed it in his address at St. James's 

 Hall by quoting the words which Tennyson puts into the 

 mouth of Ulysses, and which he applied to the position of 

 himself and his followers when they were left by their 

 Arab escort on the broad bosom of the Lualaba, at the 

 very gate of the unknown region : — 



" My mariners, 

 Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me, — 



Come, my friends, 

 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 

 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 

 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

 Of all the western stars, until I die. 



It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 



It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles 



And see the great Achilles whom we knew. 



Though much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 



We are not now that strength which in old days 



Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; 



One equal temper of heroic hearts. 



Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 



To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 



The mouth of the Congo has been known since the 

 Portuguese, in the fifteenth century, began to creep down 

 the African coast, and Tuckey, in the beginning of the pre- 

 sent century, traced it about 150 miles to the lower cataracts. 

 Its origin and course was one of the few, probably the 

 greatest of remaining, mysteries in geography. Long ago 

 the Pombeiros and other travellers came across streams 

 inland from the Portuguese possessions in south-west 

 Africa, which run northwards, and latterly Livingstone 

 made known the great river Lualaba, which, however, 

 against all evidence, he believed to be connected with the 

 Nile. One of the principal streams known, at least since 

 the time of the Pombeiros, is the Casai, a considerable 

 river running northwards, and which some geographers 

 maintained must be the upper course of the Congo. 

 Others again maintained, and the reports of the natives 

 seemed to confirm it, that in the region between Nyangwd 

 on the Lualaba and the sea, was a great lake into which 

 that and other rivers flowed, while some seemed to think 

 that the Lualaba ran southwards, and probably ultimately 

 flowed into Lake Chad. Livingstone, as we have said, 

 thought the Lualaba belonged to the Nile, while Cameron 

 was convinced it was the Upper Congo, but that it flowed 

 almost straight westwards. The solution of the problem 

 was a task well calculated to fascinate a man like Stanley, 

 a task in which all his rare qualities as an explorer would 

 be developed to the utmost, but a task for which he has 

 proved himself easily equal. It is difficult, indeed, to see 

 how the work could have been accomplished for 

 generations except by a man of Stanley's cha- 

 racter, and by the method adopted by him. In 

 whatever light we regard this pait of his recent 

 work in Africa — whether as a mere exploit, or as a 

 vast addition to geographical knowledge, or in the light 

 of the great results that are likely to follow to civilisation, 

 commerce, and science — it has scarcely, if ever, been 

 surpassed in the history of geographical exploration. 

 We have in previous numbers shown the magnitude and 

 importance of this discovery. In the course of a few 

 months, by the daring genius of one man, there has been 

 thrown open to our knowledge a river of the first rank, 

 watering a region of apparently exhaustless resources 

 both for the man of science and the trader. It is about 

 3,oco miles long, has many large tributaries, themselves 

 affording many hundred miles of navigable water ; waters 

 a basin of nearly a million square miles, and pours into 

 the sea a volume estimated at 1,800,000 cubic feet per 

 second. Such a piece of work is surely enough to 

 immortalise a man. 



Such, briefly, is the work accomplished in so short a space 

 by the Commissioner of the Telegraph and the Herald, 

 a work which he set about as a mere piece of business in 

 connection with his calling of special correspondent, but 

 for which Mr. Bennett had the insight to see he was 

 unusually well adapted. A private business enterprise 

 has thus accomplished what the much-instructed and 



