166 REPORT— 1870. 



XJjiji on the Lake Tanganyika, to -which place supplies have been sent to him, he 

 will at once proceed to determine that problem, and will not think of a return to 

 England until the grand desideratum is carried out. 



Judging, indeed, from his own original observations respecting the coui'se of 

 those rivers which take their rise in 8° to 9° S. lat., and believing as he did that 

 most of them flow by the western side of Lake Tanganyika and do not enter that 

 lake, it seems to follow that, in pursuing a N.N.-westerly direction, several of these 

 waters must feed the Congo and so issue on the west coast. If such should prove 

 to be the fact, why then this great traveller will have been the first to determine 

 the true sources of both the Nile and the Congo. 



And here I would ask why any one who knows what Livingstone has undergone 

 should despair of his life simply because we have had no news from hiin during 

 the last fifteen months ? Did not much more than that period elapse whilst he was 

 in the heart of Africa without our receiving a word of comfort respecting him ? 

 By the last accounts he was hospitably received by Arabs who are friendly to the 

 Sultan of Zanzibar, who is Livingstone's patron and also a protector of the Negroes. 



I had written thus far, and all was in tj'pe, when I received a letter from Dr. 

 Kirk at Zanzibar, dated 29th June, 1870, which has comforted me exceedingly; 

 for, sanguine as I have been as to the safety and success of Livingstone, I am now 

 better supported than ever in my anticipation of his ultimate triumph. Dr. Kirk 

 thus writes : — 



" News has reached me, by natives from the interior, that the road is now clear, 

 and that the cholera did not pass the town of Unyanyembe. Livingstone is there- 

 fore out of danger, and I hope the stores sent have now reached him. The rainy 

 season being at an end, Unyamwezi caravans are daily expected, and will no doubt 

 bring, if not letters from the Doctor himself, at least news of hiiu from the Arab 

 Governor of Unj-anyembe. The coast near Zanzibar is now healthy." 



Looking then, as I do, to the astonishing and enduring resolution of my friend, 

 and his thoroughly acclimatized constitution, remembering that he has already 

 gone successfully through privations imder which even his attached negro youths 

 all succumbed, I still hold stoutly to the opinion that, by reaching the Albert 

 Nyanza, he will determine the great problem of the watershed of South Africa, and 

 then return to embrace his children, to whom he is devotedly attached, and receive 

 the plaudits, not only of his admiring countrymen, but of all civilized men. 



Should this happy finale be brought about, he will have the great additional 

 delight of finding here his venerable father-in-law, the Eev. Eobert Mofi'at, who, 

 after half a century of successful missionary labours, is present at this Meeting 

 of the British Association. 



In conclusion, I have the honest satisfaction of knowing that, as President of the 

 Royal GeogTaphical Society, and as the sincere friend of Livingstone, I have, with 

 the warm aid of my deeply lamented friend the Earl of Clarendon, been successful 

 in urging om- Government to relieve the great traveller who was gazetted as Her 

 Majesty's Consul to all the kings and chiefs of the interior of Africa. 



I have only to add that if diplomatists are recompensed according to the energy 

 and capacity with which they execute their duties, I confidently anticipate that, 

 on his retm-n to Britain, this uudaimted Envoy to unknown lands — this sound 

 geographer and zealous Chiistian missionary — will not only receive a becoming 

 pension, but will also be honoured by some distinction of the Crown, which 

 assuredly our beloved Queen will gladly confer upon him. 



Letter from the Wliite Nile. By Sir Samuel Baker, F.R.G.S. 



In this letter, addressed to Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir Samuel Baker described 

 the proceedings of his expedition up to the 15th Jime last, and gave an interesting 

 account of the present condition of the White Nile. Previous to his departm-e from 

 Khartum, he had been assured that the Great White Nile had ceased to be a navi- 

 gable river. It appeared that the floating rafts of marsh vegetation, which, in 

 1865, caused an obstruction in the river between the mouths of the Ghazal and 

 Giraffe tributaries, having been neglected by the Khartum authorities, had in- 

 creased so much as to form now an impenetrable barrier. The vast masses of 



