THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



potamus, several different sorts of rhinoceros, the 

 zebra, the quagga, the giraffe ; multitudes of ante- 

 lopes, some of them of colossal dimensions ; the 

 buffalo ; the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the mandril, 

 and other baboons and monkeys; the lion, the 

 panther, the leopard ; — these are only the more 

 prominent of the quadrupeds which roam the 

 plains and woods of Africa. Thinly peopled and 

 little cultivated; a region enclosed between sixty 

 degrees of latitude, bisected by the equator, and 

 (in its widest part) between as many of longi- 

 tude; of which, perhaps, more than three-fourths 

 are only now just beginning to be penetrated by 

 the straggling foot of the European explorer and 

 missionary ; — what may we not expect of the vast, 

 the uncouth, the terrible, among the creatures 

 which lurk as yet unsuspected in the teeming 

 wilds of Central Africa? Perhaps less, however, 

 after all, than at first view appears probable. It 

 is remarkable that the explorations of the ad- 

 venturous Livingstone from the south, and of 

 Barth and others from the north — explorations 

 which have immensely diminished the extent of 

 absolutely unknown land — have contributed al- 

 most nothing to what we previously knew of the 

 natural history of the continent. The most im- 

 portant recent addition to zoology is, undoubt- 

 edly, the gorilla; but this discovery was not the 

 result of geographic extension, the animal inhabit- 

 ing the forests of a line of coast frequented for 

 centuries by European traders. The great pio- 

 neers alluded to were not strictly naturalists, it is 

 true ; and their immediate object was not to make 

 discoveries in zoology; nay, their interest would 

 lie in avoiding, so far as possible, the haunts of 

 unknown savage animals ; but, in the case of Dr. 

 Livingstone particularly, his frequent encounters 

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