^nm r 



TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



7D3 



Proceedinfr southward to tlie rep:ion claimed especially as? their own by Portu- 

 jTucse travellers, Messrs. Britto Capello niid Iveiis, who successfully reached 

 ilie Upper (Juaugo iu 1878, returned Inst Jaimary to Loanda with the intention, it 

 i; said, of endeavouring to descend one of tlie great tributaries, of wliich tlicre aro 

 four whose sources have been crossed at a great elevation by Cameron and other.'-, 

 kt whose course for about 1,000 miles has never been followed: they arw 

 ;;,,w on the Kunene. An Englisli sportsman, Mr. Ilemmings, starting from 

 W'nlfisch Bay, has quite rec(>ntly, in company with a Dutch hunter, found his 

 v,av partly through the Portuguese territories, partly through native states beyond 

 ibe'ir Ixiundaries, to the Congo, which he struck at \'ivi. Cnmeron, it will bo 

 vmemhered, was astonished by a cold of SS° F. on the watershed between the 

 Zambesi and the Kassab(5 in about 12° South latitude. Dr. Poggt^ compares the 

 iliinate of Mussumba on tlie 8th parallel, in the montli of December, to that ot 

 North Germany, and the fact illustrates what we learn from so many othei- 

 (luarters, that much of the interior of Africa belongs, by reason of its elevation 

 sbove the sea, to a far more temp- ite zone, and is better suited to the Euro- 

 pean constitution than its geograph position promises. The terrible prevalence 

 lif fever wliich has cost so many lix.s will probably be mitigated in time and by 

 improve<l accommodation. The hills are comparatively free from it. Having alluded 

 •0 Dr. Paul Pogge, whose death at Loanda in March last deprives geography o? 

 an adventurous explorer, I may add that the account of his journey in iHTo td 

 Mu?juuiba, the capital of the powerful negro kingdom of the iMuata Yanvo, or 

 Mntianvo of Livingstone, published in 1880, remains to be translated. That great 

 traveller failed to reach it. Cameron crossini the territory, but a long way to the- 

 south of it, and no previous scientilic traveller, that I am aware of, has described 

 it. Ur. Pogge resided there four or five months, and we learn many interesting 

 particulars from him, and from Dr. ^lax l^iichner, a subsequent traveller. The 

 people, although I'Vtisli woiship]ier.-:, practise the rite of circumcision: they are 

 a tine, warlike race, uiihajipily addicted to slave-hunting, but far in advance of 

 their cannibal neighbours of Kauanda. Their institutions are of a feudal character. 

 Miiata Yanvo is an hereditary title. Among many peculiar customs is one 

 wliich invests one of the king's half-.sisters, under the designation of the Luko- 

 keslia, with the second authority in the kingdom. She is forbidden to many, but 

 permitted a sort of morganatic alliance with a slave, any ofl'spring being ruth- 

 lt'.v«ly de.stroyed, and on tlie death of the king she has tlie principal voice in 

 determining his successor, who, however, nui.«t Ije selected from among the sons of 

 the late king. Since Dr. Pogge's visit the Muata Yanvo h,is been depo.sed and 

 poisoned by his Lukokesha. Tlie extraordinary custom prevails here that a man'.'^ 

 (hildren do not belong to him, but to the eldest brother of their mother, and 

 "liould a child die the father must make coni]>ensation. Surely I have now 

 justified the remark I made above on human per\ersities. 



10. As many of my hearers may not be fully aware of the rapid extension of 

 white occupation, lianliy a- }et to be called settlement, in Central .\fiica, and of 

 the early fruit borne by the hcidic life and death of Liviiigstruie, and other .'scarcely 

 li'ss devoted travellers and jihihmthropi.-its, and us many of the jilaces are not to be 

 I'Und in any ordinary atlas, 1 give at the end a tabic as complete as I have been 

 iihleto make it, of actual centres t)i' communication or trade, or niissionaiy instruc- 

 tion now establi.'-lied then'. Lake Xyn.'-.sa, we are told, is becoming a bu.<y inland 

 ■'••'a. There are two steamers iqion it, and one on the ISiverShin'. Upon Tanganyika 

 three. .Many years cannot elapse before the ju'imitive and costly practice of carry- 

 ing poods by an army of jiorters will he a thing of the past, when ]»ack animals, 

 perhaps wheeled vehich s, will have replaced them. Donkeys have been already 

 introduced, with good pnuni.-e, by the Vniversitie.s' mLssiionaries and the African 

 hakes Conipahy, although they have not been a success on the Congo. That first 

 iieceRsity of civilisation, a road of some .sort, will connect the petty capitals, 

 find link in fiiendly communication tribes which know one another now 

 'hiefly by hostilities "and reprisals. The African Lakes (,'ompany, of Glasgow, 

 I'iis ten .small depots between (4>uillimane and !Malawanda on Lake Xyassa, and! 

 friim this place a practicable road of -'-'0 miles has been carried to Pambete, on 



llfi 





i'lii 



nf* 



