156 REPORT — 1869. 



out revealing, as far as I am aware, a single new fact which would throw light on 

 the fate of Livingstone. The additional information we have received since last 

 the Association met, is purely negative, and adds literally nothing to what was 

 then laid before you in the masterly sketch of Livingstone's ascertained progress, 

 contained in Capt. Richards's address. We still only know that up to December 

 14th, 1867, he was alive and well and in good spirits, at a place south-west of 

 Lake Tanganyika. Further than this all is coniecture. Whether we may hear of 

 him in the Nile Basin from Sir Samuel Baker's expedition, or on the west coast, 

 must for the present be pure subject of speculation. Most fervently do I join in 

 Sir ^ Roderick JNlurcLison's hopes that we may yet welcome him back among us 

 during the course of the coming year. It was my privilege to see much of him in 

 Bombay after he had taken leave of his friends in England, and before he arrived 

 at Zanzibar, at the outset of his last expedition, and on this, as on former occasions, 

 I was at a loss which to admire most, his unconquerable courage and perseverance, 

 his patience and forbearance, or the grand simplicity of his character. I never me{- 

 a man of such lofty aims and of such genuine humility ; but what is more to tht 

 purpose, as a ground of our present hopes, I never met a man of such sagacity and 

 unfailing resources in overcoming diiRculties of every kind ; and if his health is 

 spared him, I feel every coniidence that he will vanquish every obstacle, and ulti- 

 mately succeed in whatever he may have undertaken. 



There can be little doubt that great results may be looked for from the Egyptian 

 expedition up the Nile, under Sir Samuel Baker, which is so totally unlike in its 

 conception and objects anything of modern days, and for any parallel to which in 

 its difficulties and in the important results it may produce, we must go back to the 

 days of our earliest English, Spanish, and Portuguese discoverers. 



I am assured that Sir Samuel's hopes point to passing next Christmas on Lake 

 Albert Nyanza, and if he does that he will have achieved more than, with such a 

 great expedition, could be expected even from his skill, energy, and enterprise. 



Mr. Blanford, who remained in Abyssinia after Lord Napier's expedition left, 

 writes to me that he will be present, if his brief time in England permits, and he 

 will doubtless have much of mterest to tell us regarding the geography as well as 

 the geology and natural history of those regions which he has made his special study. 

 Further south we may hear something of Mr. Ersldne's explorations on the 

 Lower Limpopo, and in other parts of the regions adjoining the Natal colony, to 

 which recent rumours of gold and diamond mines discovered have attracted so 

 much attention. Whatever the value of these gold-fields, it is certain that geo- 

 graphical discovery is likely to benefit by the search ; and if, in the course of their 

 wanderings, the explorers should find coal-seams such as Dr. Livingstone found on 

 the Zambesi, the discovery may be more important to the future of that part of 

 Africa than if they rediscovered the Ophir of Solomon. 



In West Africa Mr. W^inwood Reade, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, and Mr. A. Swanzy, one of those liberal merchants to whom geographical 

 discovery on that coast owes so much, is on his way to the sources of the Niger. 



Mr. Stirling will give you an account of his visit to the holy city of Faz, which 

 has been long kept so sacred from the foot of any but Mahomedans, that 1 believe 

 few European travellers in modern days, except Lord St. Maur, have visited it. 



We cannot turn from Africa without a passing tribute to the great French engi- 

 neer who has reversed the geological revolutions of ages before the birth of history, 

 and restored Africa to that insular position which the vast continent probably 

 occupied in the geography of times preceding the early dawn of authentic history. 

 It is difficult to speak without exaggeration of a work which is destined to have 

 such important results on the commerce and intercourse of the East and West, and 

 M. Lesseps's great work itself may seem to belong of right to another Section of 

 this Association. But geographers must recollect how much of our geographical 

 discovery is due to the closing of this ancient route to the East. Had the action of 

 the Moslem powers not interfered with tJie Genoese and Venetian trade with the 

 East, the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco de Gama and Magellan, and even 

 those of Hudson, Baffin, and Frobisher, might have been delayed for generations ; 

 and now, such are the insatiable demands of commerce, no sooner has the genius 

 and energy of M. Lesseps removed one great barrier to this ancient trade-route, 



