February 22, 1906] 



NA TV RE 



39i 



THE NILE QUEST. 1 



'THE story of the search for the sources of the 

 *■ Nile is the longest and most interesting in the 

 annals of geographical exploration. It dates from 

 the earliest days of geography; it has ever presented 

 new problems ; and the quarrel over the boundary 

 between the Congo Free Stair and British East 

 Africa, in the Upper Nile basin, is the latest example 

 of political muddles due to geographical ignorance. 

 The sources of the Nile roused speculation in the 

 earliest days of Egyptian geography, owing to the 

 mysterious rising of the Nile at the driest and hottesl 

 time of the year. The view that the river rises owing 

 to the melting of equatorial snows was for long 

 accepted; but it is now known to be the 

 effect of the rainy season on the 

 Abyssinian Mountains, as the contribu- 

 tion from the equatorial snowfields is 

 insignificant, and even the great reser- 

 voir, the Victoria Nyanza, gives only 

 a minor addition to the Egyptian 

 floods. The story of the Nile is of 

 especial interest to British students of 

 geography, as (he larger share to the 

 solution of its problems has been con- 

 tributed by British explorers, and prac- 

 tically the whole of the Nile basin, with 

 the exception of Abyssinia, is now under 

 British administration. 



The story of the exploration of the 

 Nile is here well and interestingly told. 

 Sir Harry Johnston is know^n for his 

 literary skill, and for the artistic sense 

 which leads him to denounce (p. 161) 

 " the unspeakable barbarism of the 

 British Administration " in cutting down 

 the fine trees that once grew- beside the 

 Ripon Falls ; and his distinguished 

 success in the administration of Uganda 

 has given him an especial personal 

 interest in the sources of the Nile, and 

 full access to the latest information. 

 His volume is worthy of a place anions' 

 the excellent geographical handbooks in 

 Dr. Scott Keltic's " Stories of Explor- 

 ation." Sir Harry Johnston begins his 

 narrative in the times when, as he tells 

 us (p. 18), 2500 years ago, Phoenicians 

 or Sabaeans worked the goldfields of 

 Rhodesia, and with the story of 

 Diogenes, told to Marinus of Tyre in 

 the first century, and preserved to us by 

 the record of Ptolemy in the second 

 century. He continues the history to 

 recent surveys made under the British 

 and Anglo-Egyptian administrations. 

 The story is so long and so full that in FlG T 



3 iS pages the author is able to give only 

 brief sketches of the various expeditions. 

 But he gives an exceptionally complete list of 

 them, and his short, critical sketches are a mosi 

 useful introduction to the original literature. The most 

 valuable part of the book is its account of the minor 

 expeditions, and especially of those carried on from 

 Khartoum from 1840 to i860. The author writes with 

 wide sympathy for the explorers of all races and all 

 nations, and he gives foreign workers their full share 

 of praise, including Mademoiselle Tinne, " the 

 gracious demi-goddess " of the Egyptian Soudan, and 



1 "The Nile Quest, a Record of the Exploration of the Nile and its 

 Basin." By Sir Harry Johnston, G.C.M.U., K.C.B., in "The Story 

 of Exploration," edited by Dr. J. Scott Keltic Pp. 365 (London: 

 Alstcn Rivers, Ltd.) 



Georg Schweinfurth, " one of the greatest of African 

 explorers." He defends d'Abbadie against the unjust 

 attacks of Beke, and reminds us that Paez and 

 Lobo were predecessors of Bruce. He describes the 

 journey of Marchand (p. 245) as " one of the most 

 splendid feats in African exploration." The author 

 perhaps somewhat underrates the early contributions 

 of the Portuguese; but he reprints a copy of Dapper's 

 map of 1686 ; so he enables the reader to judge for 

 himself as to the extent of the facts then known 

 about tropical Africa, and as to the nature of the 

 mistakes made by European cartographers in their 

 interpretation of the verbal reports of the untrained 

 Portuguese travellers. D'Anville's map, which is much 

 praised by the author, is less accurate in regard to the 



-A Hima of Mpororo, 



Karagu 



"The Nile Que 



NO. 1895, VOL. 73] 



Upper Nile and the Victoria Nyanza than Dapper's, 

 though issued nearly a century later, and nearly a 

 century and a half later than some of the authorities 

 whom Dapper copied. The Portuguese mistake 

 of giving several outlets from Tanganyika, which 

 Sir Harry Johnston says shows that the Portuguese 

 were " ignorant of the simplest principles of hydro- 

 graphy," was a similar mistake to that made by his 

 own hero, Speke, in giving too many outlets from 

 the Victoria Nyanza. The author quotes with praise 

 Scott-Elliot's " very neat and truthful little map of 

 the eastern and southern flanks of Ruwenzori, a map 

 which until quite recently has been somewhat over- 

 looked by those who have compiled charts of this 



