NOTES ON TRAVEL IN SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA 



BY 



PERCY A. WAGNER and TUDOR Gr. TREVOR l ). 



1. INTRODUCTION. 



The amazing progress of geographical discovery and the rapid 

 extension of railways have completely altered the nature and scope 

 of exploratory work in the portion of Africa under review. 



At one time the object of every explorer was to penetrate the 

 continent to as great a depth as possible or to cross it, making an 

 accurate map of his route and incidentally gathering whatever 

 information he could in regard to the native races, the economic 

 products and the geology, botany and zoology of the regions 

 traversed. In this way the veil that had so long enshrouded the 

 Dark Continent was gradually lifted, and by the end of the nineties 

 of the last century there remained very little of the surface ot 

 Southern and Eastern Africa that was completely unexplored. This 

 era the heroic age of African exploration was followed by 

 the era of the scientific traveller whose work, also mostly of the 

 nature of hurried traverses with some definite objective, was greatly 

 facilitated by the existence of railways and roads constructed in 

 the meantime, and generally following closely the original routes 

 of the early explorers. Today a net work of railways and transport 

 routes, still imperfect but rapidly extending, covers the sub-continent, 

 and along them the settlement of Europeans has taken place at 

 intervals and is proceeding steadily, so that the white communities 

 are now firmly established in districts to which, until a few years 

 ago, no explorer had succeeded in penetrating. 



It is in the nature of things that the scientific exploration of 

 the more remote districts thus opened up should have lagged far 

 behind their settlement. Of many of the huge tracts of country 

 lying between the newer and even some of the older railways we 



1 ) With the collaboration of A. W. Rogers, A. L. Hall, Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Wood. 



