Dec. 24, 1874] 



NA TURE 



»45 



was to be an almost daily witness of its inconceivable 

 cruelties, and to feel himself powerless to help. Even in 

 this matter, however, we believe his words and example 

 will have had a good moral eifect on many of the native 

 chiefs, if not on the degraded dealers ; for the people 

 are so demoralised by the latter, that they hunt and sell 

 each other. This Arab slave-hunting was a great hin- 

 drance to Livingstone's progress, as the dealers had so 

 terrified the people as to make them suspicious of every 

 stranger, and, with one or two creditable exceptions, did 

 all in their power to poison the native mind against the 

 white man, for they knew that he regarded their doings 

 with unmitigated disgust. No good can come to Africa, 

 and no exploration of her rich interior can be carried 

 out with complete success, until this cruel traffic is 

 abolished ; and in the interests of science as well as 

 humanity, we hope that the British Government will 

 never cease to use its powerful influence until it is stamped 

 out. We only wish that the Sultan of Zanzibar, whose 

 subjects the halt-caste traders nearly all are, could be 

 induced to follow the example of the Khedive of Egypt, 

 and depute some man of determination and vigour to 

 sweep the interior of the entire horde of slave-hunters. 



And here we cannot help saying that we almost wish 

 that Livingstone had possessed some of Pasha Baker's 

 wholesome sternness and disregard to the trivial scruples 

 of his men and of petty village chiefs. It would have 

 saved him many annoyances, and might in the end have 

 been the means of saving his hfe. But he was so full of 

 the great object of his mission that he did not care to 

 waste the time and energy required to bring his low- 

 minded sepoys and Johanna men under discipline ; and 

 his conscience was so tender, his humanity so strong, 

 and his desire to live at peace with all men so much of a 

 religion, that he would rather stay weeks at a village to 

 suit the caprice of its childish chief than break away at 

 the risk of giving offence or provoking hostility. His 

 genuine tenderness of heart peeps out unconsciously every 

 now and then, his charity was wonderfully wide, and his 

 forbearance often almost annoying. 



Lake Nyassa was reached on August 8, and passing 

 down its east and round its south side, Livingstone struck 

 out in a generally N.N.W. direction for the south end of 

 Lake Tanganyika. We need scarcely say that this part 

 of the journal, recording a journey through a country 

 much of which had not hitherto been explored, is full of 

 valuable notes on geology, botany, zoology, geography, 

 topography, and the manners and customs and connec- 

 tions of the people. Here, as in almost every other part 

 of his journey, the number of streams met with flowing 

 into the great lines of drainage is astonishing ; a dozen 

 would sometimes have to be crossed in a day's march. 

 After rounding the south end of Nyassa, however, he 

 first met with those bogs, or earthen sponges, which abound 

 also around Lake Bangweolo, and in the midst of which, 

 and no doubt partly through their malarious influence, he 

 died. 



" The bogs, or earthen sponges, of the country," he says, 

 " occupy a most important part in its physical geography, 

 and probably explain the annual inundation of the 

 rivers. Wherever a plain sloping towards a nairow 

 openmg in hills or higher grounds exists, there we have 

 the conditions requisite for the formation of an African 

 sponge. The vegetation not being of a healthy and peat- 



forming kind, falls down, rots, and then forms thick dark 

 loam. In many cases a mass of this loam, two or three 

 feet thick, rests on a bed of pure river-sand, which is 

 revealed by crabs and other aquatic animals bringing it 

 to the surface. At present, in the dry season, the black 

 loam cracked in all directions, and the cracks are often as 

 much as three inches wide, and very deep. The whole sur- 

 face has now faUen down, and rests on the sand ; but when 

 the rains come, the first supply is nearly all absorbed in the 

 sand. The black loamTorms soft slush, and floats on the 

 sand. The narrow opening prevents it from moving off 

 in a landslip, but an oozing spring rises at that spot. All 

 the pools in the lower portion of this spring-course are 

 filled by the first rains, which happen south of the equator, 

 when the sun goes vertically over any spot. The 

 second, or greater rains, happen in his course north again, 

 when, all the bogs and river-courses being wet, the supply 

 runs off, and fotms the inundation : this was certainly the 

 case as observed on the Zambesi and Shir(5, and, taking 

 the different times for the sun's passage north of the 

 equator, it explains the inundation of the Nile." 



This is an ' important observation with regard to the 

 Nile, though it may very well turn out that Livingstone 

 himself was mistaken with regard to its source or sources. 

 He found, as we have said, the same phenomenon in a 

 much higher degree on the east and south sides of Lake 

 Bangweolo, and believed it to be " the Nile, apparently 

 enacting its inundations, even at its sources." 



We w:sh v/e could linger with the traveller and speak 

 in detail of some of the multitude of interesting observa- 

 tions he made as he sauntered along. The people them- 

 selves between Nyassa and Tanganyika are full of 

 interest to the ethnologist, the sociologist, and the student 

 of the ways of men. Their physique and intelligence are 

 of a high order, and they have scarcely any of the negro 

 characteristics. They are by no means savages, and 

 in almost every village Livingstone was well and kindly 

 treated by the chief and his people. There is no such 

 thing as a national bond of union here, each village being 

 a separate community, presided over by its chief. The 

 region here, as everywhere else in Livingstone's journey, is 

 thickly populated. The people are polite, industrious, and 

 on the whole peaceful, the great disturbers of their peace 

 being the Mazitu, a people to the north of Nyassa, who 

 rove far and wide in search of slaves, leaving death and 

 desolation in their track. The great industry here, and over 

 a great part of the region visited by Livingstone, is the 

 smelting and manufacture of iron, which is obtained in 

 abundance from various ores. In this industry the 

 people display considerable skill and ingenuity, and 

 manufacture the metal into a great variety of imple- 

 ments, utensils, and weapons. Each tribe has its separate 

 tattoo badge. The country itself, hilly, and well wooded, 

 is of the most fertile kind, and abounds in buflaloes, 

 elands, haartebeest, and other large animals, and evi- 

 dently with not a few birds that are new to the zoologist. 

 ( To be continued.) 



INDIAN METEOROLOGY 



Report of the Meteorolor^ical Reporter to the Govern- 

 ment of Bengal for 1S73. By Henry F. Blanford, 

 Meteorological Reporter. 



MR. HENRY F. BLANFORD'S annual Meteoro- 

 logical Reports for Bengal, of which this is the 

 seventh, have come to be looked forward to with much 



