1380 a REPORT—1863. 
Sir Henry Barkly, whose final Address to the Royal Society of Victoria is one of 
which the President of any Scientific Society in Europe might well be proud. 
The progress which our enterprising Australian Colonists have made, not only 
in wealth and material prosperity, but in all that can figuiye people, was striking] 
manifested at the last Great International Exhibition. it we saw collocated, 
not merely the rich natural products of gold and Cones with admirable pictorial 
views which eyen enabled us to imagine that we had visited the mines of our 
antipodes, but we also had before us solid pret in the publication of excellent 
Maps and the Catalogues of the valuable Libraries of Sydney and Melbourne, that 
there is scarcely sip lee of knowledge or of industry which is not cultivated in 
Australia with a zeal rivalling that of the mother-country. 
Relying on the conversations which it was my privilege to hold with the dis- 
tinguished men who represented the several Australian Colonies on that occasion, 
as well as with many personal friends who have long resided there, I feel assured 
that there is no part of the British dominions where the people are more attached 
to the Sovereign and the British Constitution than Australia. It has always, 
therefore, been a source of pain to me, when some persons have spoken or written 
of the coming of the day when these great Colonies are to be separated from us, 
Seeing no cause for such separation, and believing that our Government and Legisla- 
ture are much too enlightened to commit the error into which our Government fell 
when Britain lost her North American settlements, we are, I rest satisfied, never 
likely to estrange our Australian Colonies by similar treatment. It has been well said 
by a late Governor of South Australia that the loyalty of Australia is an homage to 
the enlightened rule of England, of which her statesmen may be proud*. On m 
own part, I am indeed persuaded that, if judiciously and considerately treate 
Australia, which affords SS far the finest possible field for the emigration of our 
superabundant population, will long continue to be a source of wealth and strength 
to the mother-country ; and will, I trust, for ages hold out a proof that the people 
who liye under a constitutional monarchy enjoy much truer freedom, in its best 
sense, than those who have formed part of any democracy, ancient or modern, 
And now let me say a few words on the last grand geographical feat—the dis- 
covery of the water-basin which supplies the Nile. 
The first act in this portentous operation was the discovery, by Captain Speke 
(when he left his leader, Captain Burton), of the large African lake which, 
in the year 1858, he named Victoria Nyanza, In his late expedition, when 
accompanied by Captain Grant, he has proved (as he said he would before he 
started) that this great body of fresh water is the main source of the White Nile; 
and in this exploit we have one of the greatest geographical triumphs of all history. 
For age after age had rolled on—traveller after traveller, from the days of the 
Egyptian priests and of the Roman emperors down to modern periods, had endea- 
youred to ascend the Nile to its sources, and all had failed! By reversing the line 
of research followed by all former travellers, and by proceeding from the east coast 
of Africa, near Zanzibar, to the central, lofty, and ak plateau-land forming in that 
meridian the watershed between North and South Africa, these gallant Indian 
Captains reached the great reservoir from whence the Nile flows. Thence they 
traced the mighty stream northwards into Egypt, and demonstrated that, whilst the 
White Nile, which they followed, is the Great Nile; the so-called Blue River, 
joining the parent stream at Khartum on the frontiers of Egypt, is, like the Atbara 
and other waters, a tributary only. 
As the outlines of the long walk of Speke and Grant across those vast interior 
and equatorial regions of Africa have been given to the public, first in my Address 
to the Royal Geographical Society, and subsequently in various periodicals, it 
would be out of place to say more on the subject until their own full account, 
be ey are preparing with many illustrative sketches, shall haye been 
published, 
In the mean time it is gratifying to know that our gracious Queen has shown by 
her own kind expressions how truly she is proud that two of her own gallant 
Officers should have succeeded in performing what the people of many a European 
* See the Lecture, “Australia: what it is and what it may be,” by Sir Richard G. 
MacDonnell, C.B. Dublin, 1863. - 
