928 



SCIENCE 



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



search for the Lualaba in July, 1869. In 

 his journal he recorded the abundance of 

 pandanus screw pines off the west coast of 

 that lake. As he traveled through the 

 Guha and Manyuema countries he entered 

 "the land of gray parrots with red tails" 

 ["to play with gray parrots was the great 

 amusement of the Manyuema people"]. 

 The Manyuema country he describes as 

 "surprisingly beautiful, palms crowning 

 the highest heights of the mountains, and 

 climbers of cable size in great numbers 

 hanging among the gigantic trees." 

 Strange birds and monkeys were every- 

 where to be seen. The women went inno- 

 cently naked ; and the Adams of this Eden 

 wore nothing but a small piece of bark 

 cloth. Both sexes atoned for their absence 

 of clothing by having their bodies tattoed 

 with full moons, stars, crocodiles, "and 

 devices recalling Egyptian hieroglyphics." 

 Yet although their country — prior to the 

 Arab raids — ^seemed an earthly paradise, 

 small-pox came every three or four years 

 to Manyuemaland and killed many of the 

 people. 



It was in the Manyuema country that he 

 came into contact with the large chimpanzi 

 {Troglodytes schwemfurthi) of eastern 

 equatorial Africa, whose range extends 

 from the Welle-Mubangi River and Unyoro 

 to the eastern bend of the upper Congo and 

 the west coast of Tanganyika. 



The soko, as he called this large chim- 

 panzi, always tried to bite off the ends of 

 the iingers and toes of the men with whom 

 it fought, not otherwise doing them any 

 harm. It made nests, which Livingstone 

 described as poor contrivances with no 

 architectural skill. 



The Manyuema told him, however, that 

 the flesh of the soko was delicious; and 

 Livingstone thinks that through devouring 

 this ape they may have been led into can- 

 nibalism. The sokos gave tongue like fox- 



hounds ; this was their nearest approach to 

 speech. They also laughed when in play, 

 and in their relations with the natives were 

 quite as often playful as ill-tempered. The 

 lion, which seemingly existed in the Man- 

 yuema country in spite of the forest, was 

 said to attack and kill the soko, but never 

 to eat him. The sokos lived in monogam- 

 ous communities of about ten. Intruders 

 from other camps were beaten off with fists 

 and loud yells. If one tried to seize the 

 female of another, the remainder of the 

 party united to box and bite him. The 

 male often carried his child, relieving the 

 mother occasionally of her burden. 



Rhinoceroses were shot in the Manyuema 

 country. He also alludes to the pygmy 

 elephant of Congoland, "a small variety, 

 only 5 feet 8 inches high at the withers, yet 

 with tusks 6 feet 8 inches in length"; and 

 notes the killing of an elephant with three 

 tusks, one of them growing out through the 

 base of the trunk. [The pygmy elephant 

 (Elephas africanus pumiliis) of the equa- 

 torial Kamerun-Congo forests, was only re- 

 discovered in the early part of the twen- 

 tieth century.] 



Livingstone was almost an expert in 

 geology and petrology. He felt the keen- 

 est interest in the records of the rocks, and 

 fully realized the importance of paleo- 

 botany. When descending the valley of 

 the Central Zambezi in 1856 he discovered 

 fossil remains of Araucaria, or of conifers 

 now confined to South America and Au- 

 stralasia; and fully realized what his dis- 

 covery meant in regard to ancient land 

 connections between South Africa, India 

 and South America. He was much im- 

 pressed with the probable coal-bearing 

 strata of sandstone throughout the Ru- 

 vuma Valley. A great many pieces or 

 blocks of silicified wood appeared on the 

 surface of the soil at the bottom of the 

 slope up the plateaus. He wrote: 



