NATURE 



137 



THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1872 



LIVINGSTONE 



DR. LIVINGSTONE is one of those men, becoming 

 scarcer now in these nervous days of hurry and 

 excitement, who do what they put their hands to with 

 all their might. He went to Africa to discover certain 

 regions then unknown, and especially to determine the 

 extent and character of the great catchment basins on 

 the eastern side of the continent. His object was not 

 solely, or even chiefly, the advancement of geographical 

 knowledge. In his eyes geography is only a means to 

 an end. He hopes, through an extension of the know- 

 ledge of the interior of Africa, to call forth a spirit which 

 may be the means of securing the great objects of his 

 life — the extinction of the slave trade, and a permanent 

 improvement in the condition of the negro race. 



Some six years ago Dr. Livingstone landed at the 

 mouth of the Rovuma, and disappeared from the know- 

 ledge of European seekers for news. Then there came a 

 wild report of his murder, and staunch old Sir Roderick 

 sent out an expedition, under Mr. Young, to Lake Nyassa, 

 which successfully performed its mission, and gave us 

 the assurance that the report was false and that Living- 

 stone was alive. All this while the great traveller was 

 toiling steadily at his appointed task, and had completed 

 the solution of one great geographical question, namely, 

 that of the northern limits of the basin of the Zambesi 

 river. Another long period elapsed, and once more a 

 letter was received from Ujiji, on the banks of Lake Tan- 

 ganyika, announcing the progress of the work. Having 

 cleared up the problems relating to Lake Nyassa, Living- 

 stone had ascended highlands which form the water- 

 parting between the Zambesi and another great system 

 of rivers and lakes to the north. He had been in a land 

 where the vegetation was saturated with moisture — a land 

 unlike all previously-conceived ideas of this part of Africa. 

 The work was beginning to tell upon him. He described 

 himself as a mere " bag of bones." But he gave no sign 

 of faltering in his purpose. His great discovery was 

 net half achieved, and the time for rest was still distant. 

 His will was unsubdued ; his life-work must be completed 

 before he could turn aside to be refreshed ; and thus he 

 disappeared again. 



Years passed away— first one, then another and another, 

 and for a third time the anxiety of the country began to 

 increase. For Britain still cares for and watches over her 

 great sons. The indomitable yet unostentatious resolu- 

 tion of this grand old man has touched the heart of the 

 nation to its very core. Sir Roderick Murchison died in 

 the full hope and expectation of soon receiving tidings of 

 his friend. No truer nor more steadfast friend ever lived ; 

 and the news of Sir Roderick's death will be the saddest 

 words that Livingstone has heard since he lost his brave 

 wife in the wilds of the Zambesi. Then it began to be 

 felt that it would be wrong to wait longer. Our patience 

 was exh.austed ; an appeal was made to the country which 

 was warmly and munificently answered ; Lieut. Dawson 

 left this country in command of a search expedition, 

 reached Zanzibar, and proceeded without delay to make 

 preparations for his march into the interior. 



VOL. VI. 



The rest of the story must be gathered f:om the tele 

 grams which have arrived from Bombay and Aden within 

 the present week. News, it seems, came down to Zanzi- 

 bar last May that Livingstone was alive, that he hid 

 reached Kazeh, on the road between Lake Tanganyika 

 and the coast ; but that he declined to return home until 

 his work was completed. In those years of enforced 

 silence, during which his letters had been intercepted by 

 Arab slave traders, he had been working hard. He had 

 completed one more great discovery ; but still the work 

 was not all done, and he would not come home. All 

 honour to this man of iron will and unchanging purpose ! 



The second great discovery of Livingstone, since he 

 landed at the mouth of the Rovuma, is more important, 

 if possible, than thejfirst. His first discovery was the 

 north-eastern water-parting of the Zambesi. His second, 

 the tidings of which arrived by telegram last week, is the 

 limits of the great basin of Lake Tanganyika, and that a 

 vast and separate system intervened between the basins 

 of the Nile and the Zambesi. The discovery of the basin of 

 Tanganyika, extending from about 3° to 10° S. latitude, 

 and 27- to 39° E. longitude (or 700 miles long by about 

 450) is the last and not the least important of Living- 

 stone's discoveries. It would appear, from the telegram, 

 that the great explorer traced the chain of lakes and the 

 streams which flow from them, until he discovered that 

 all the waters found their outlet in the Tanganyika. He 

 then, it would appear, visited the northern end of the 

 lake, and found that the rivers still flowed into it. The 

 waters of the lake are fresh ; and it is, therefore, to be 

 inferred that the lake has an outlet. Livingstone now 

 knows the southern, western, northern, and north-eastern 

 sides of the lake. The south-eastern side alone remains 

 to be explored, and there, if anywhere, the great outlet 

 for its waters must be. That outlet must be discovered 

 and examined before Livingstone's great achievement is 

 ended ; and thither, therefore, he will now proceed. 



We already have some knowledge of the river which, as 

 it would now seem, flows from Lake Tanganyika to the 

 sea. Mr. Desborough Cooley, in 1841, gave the informa- 

 tion obtained from an intelligent Sawahili named Khamis 

 bin Othman, who came to London in 1835. This man 

 had travelled up the ravine of a river named Lufiji, from 

 its mouth due west of the island of Monfia (south of Zan- 

 zibar) to its source in the lake. Nearly half a century 

 ago, when Captain Owen was making a running survey 

 of part of the East Coast of Africa, he was off the mouths 

 of this river Lufiji, and they are shown on his chart, pub- 

 lished in 1825, though Mr. Cooley and Captain Burton 

 appear to have overlooked them. But Captain Burton, in 

 his exhaustive paper on these lake regions, has shown that 

 the Lufiji is the same river as the Rua or Ruaha, though 

 he says that the source is unknown. It will be found on ^ 

 the maps to the east of the south end of Lake Tanganyika. 

 It must not be confused with another Rua, mentioned by 

 Livingstone to the west of Lake Tanganyika, and north of 

 the Lake Moero. The sentence in Lieut. Dawson's tele- 

 gram, " LTnderground village next attracts Livingstone's 

 attention," has, perhaps, been satisfactorily explained by 

 Colonel Grant. He gathered, from the intelligence he 

 and Captain Speke obtained in the country, that the 

 waters of the Tanganyika force their way through a rent 

 in the mountains,at the south-eastern extremity of the lake. 



