924 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 964 



Let us briefly consider his achievements 

 as a geographical discover. He directly 

 inspired the search for Lake Ngami, and 

 was the main agent in carrying South 

 African exploration beyond the arid pla- 

 teaus of Bechuanaland and the Kalahari 

 desert into what is really the Zambezi 

 basin. Oswell and Murray contributed to 

 the cost of his journeys, but he by his influ- 

 ence found the guides and secured the 

 friendship or the neutrality of the native 

 chiefs. He acted as interpreter-in-chief, 

 and, thanks to the mastery he had acquired 

 over the Sechuana language, was able to 

 converse fully and freely with the natives 

 of South-Central Africa. He also picked 

 up a considerable knowledge of other dia- 

 lects. He served diligently and skilfully 

 as physician and surgeon all who were con- 

 nected with these .journeys. But his own 

 predilections were for botany, zoology and 

 the study of man. It was the impression 

 that native reports of his character had 

 made on Sebituane, the Makololo conqueror 

 of the upper Zambezi, and the resultant 

 protection afliorded, which made it so easy 

 for Living'stone and Oswell to reach the 

 Chobe River and the upper Zambezi in 

 1851. 



Between 1852 and 1856, Livingstone 

 traced the main course of the Zambezi 

 from its confluence with the Chobe north- 

 wards to near the sources of the Liba, and 

 from this point westwards he was the first 

 scientific geographer to lay down correctly 

 the position of the upper Kasai and 

 Kwango affluents of the Congo. 



Living-stone may be quoted as the discov- 

 erer of the great Kasai (perhaps the prin- 

 cipal among the Congo affluents for volume 

 and for extent of drainage area). At first 

 it would seem probable that the Pombeiros, 

 at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 must have crossed the Kasai in order to 

 reach the court of the Mwata Yanvo. But 



they appear to have deflected their route 

 southwards, after leaving the upper 

 Kwango, so that they pass round the 

 sources of the Kasai, leaving them to the 

 north. Ladislaus Magyar, the Hungarian 

 explorer and trader (who married a negress 

 of Bihe and traveled over Angola between 

 1849 and 1864), penetrated about 1851 to 

 the upper Kwango and the northwest lim- 

 its of the Zambezi basin, and may have 

 seen the infant Kasai in 1855, a few months 

 before or after Livingstone passed by. But 

 he did not communicate the information to 

 the world until after Livingstone's jour- 

 ney, and never, I think, specifically men- 

 tioned the Kasai, at any rate, before the 

 publication of Living-stone 's book. More- 

 over, he was no trained geographer or taker 

 of observations for fixing points of latitude 

 and longitude. Silva Porto, a Portuguese 

 trader of Bihe, reached the upper Zam- 

 bezi and South Congoland in the fifties and 

 sixties, but his wanderings resulted in no 

 additions to the map of Africa. 



It is, indeed, remarkable what Living- 

 stone's predecessors missed rather than 

 what they found. Dr. Lacerda reached to 

 little Lake Mofwe, an isolated lagoon about 

 20 miles south of Mweru and a short dis- 

 tance east of the Luapula. Yet apparently 

 neither he nor any member of his expedi- 

 tion, before or after his death, had the 

 curiosity to penetrate northwards one day's 

 journey and discover Lake Mweru, or visit 

 the banks of the Lviapula. Going through 

 the Bisa country they heard of a lake — 

 " Lake Chuia, " or Shuia, a short distance 

 to the westward, and knew that the Cham- 

 bezi flowed into it. This was Livingstone's 

 Bangweulu (named, as he tells us, from 

 one of its islands). But the Portuguese of 

 Lacerda 's mission, like those of the Mon- 

 teiro-Gamitto expedition of 1831-32, made 

 no effort to locate Bangwenlu and place it 

 definitely on the map. Lake Nyasa was 



