792 report — 1884. 



which is far from being a matter of concern to them alone. They dwell with 

 emphasis on the probable consequences of the rapid progress of the religion of 

 Mahomined among the African races of the northern equatorial zone. Native 

 tribes, hitherto without moral or political cohesion, are being knit together on 

 the Western Sudan, the Upper Niger, and the Gambia, with a rapidity which 

 endangers the peaceful advance of European commerce. It is, of course, to be 

 expected that this movement will in time reach the populous basin of the Congo, 

 and we have had too recent evidence of the fanaticism it is capable of inspiring, 

 not to perceive here a moral element which may greatly affect white settlements 

 and missionary enterprise in Central Africa hereafter. Any political changes 

 which would substitute larger units of territory, and definite boundaries, and 

 permanent names, for the present fleeting landmarks and multiplied tribal designa- 

 tions which confuse our maps, w T ould in one sense be welcome. Iu the meantime 

 Central African exploration is daily revealing to us the unsuspected wealth of that 

 Dark Continent in all that can fit it for destinies more noble than it has yet been 

 called to fulfil. 



9. Although the Upper Congo from Stanley Falls to Sfanley Pool has now been 

 so often travelled that it may be regarded as pretty well known, this by no means 

 excludes the possibility of many geographical corrections. For instance, a map 

 issued as lately as July 1883 by the International Congo Association, lays down 

 its lower course between the Equator and 4° South latitude, nearly 100 miles more to 

 the west than is shown in the best modern atlas. As regards its tributaries much 

 remains to be learned. Mr. Stanley has discovered two new lakes. The labours of 

 that energetic traveller, M. de Brazza, have, to a great extent, cleared up the 

 geography of the region included between the Congo and the 0»owe from the 

 Equator southwards, and there are now said to be twenty-two trading stations in 

 this part of the country; we are not informed what commerce exists. Higher up, 

 but still to the north, Mr. Stanley has ascended the Aruwimi about 100 miles, with- 

 out having solved a question of no little interest, namely, whether it is identical 

 with the AVelle, and takes its rise in the same watershed which feeds the 'White Nile, 

 or whether we have not, beyond its sources, a drainage system as yet untraced, but 

 which may connect together a number of rivers whose relations to one another 

 and whose final outlet are alike unknown. Lupton Bey reported nearly two years 

 ago that a very large lake had been visited by one of his native subordinates west 

 of the Aruwimi, and it is, in his opinion, probable that the Welle Hows into it. 



The southern basin of the Congo has been crossed from Loanda to Nyangwe 

 through a new country by the late Dr. Poggeand Lieutenant Wissmann, the latter 

 of whom has inscribed his name en the roll of great African travellers by continuing 

 his journey across the continent by way of Tabora, or Unyanyembe, to Zanzibar. 

 It is worthy of note that he brings" confirmation of the often reported existence of 

 a dwarfish race, the "Watwa, on the upper waters of the Sankuru, not a new fact 

 in African ethnography, because we have long been familiar with the diminutive 

 Bushmen of the Cape* of Good Hope ; but interesting, like the fair-complexioned 

 natives seen by Stanley and Johnston, as evidence of the diversities of origin, charac- 

 ter, and capabilities, which better acquaintance with the African people is likely tot 

 disclose, and which has at all times been a potent factor in human progress. It is 

 scarcely necessary to refer here to the laborious work of Mr. (Just on the Modern Lan- 

 guages of Africa as a treasury of information. It may be said in military phrase that 

 the east and west of Africa are in touch. Stanley was able to despatch letters in 

 December last, via Nyangwe, to Karema from his most easterly station on the 

 island of Wana-Rusmii, Stanley Falls. "We can better appreciate the teeming 

 life of these Equatorial regions, when we read that his little expedition of three 

 steam launches encountered, on November 24 last, a flotilla of over a thousand 

 canoes (plus de mille canots), which had just before devastated the village 

 of Mawembe, murdering all the men, and carrying off the women and 

 children into slavery. They did not molest him, and all up this great river the 

 natives, with few exceptions, were found on this last occasion eager to contract 

 alliances (ratified by the exchange of blood), desirous of his protection, and craving 

 a white resident to instruct them. 



