156 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



the Gibu and the Zebi, and which he distinguishes from 

 the Godjeb, rendered celebrated since 1839 by Antoine 

 d'Abbadie, the missionary Krapf, and Beke. These 

 results of the travels of Beke, Krapf, Iseuberg, Russeger, 

 Biippell, Abbadie, and Werne, brought together and shewn 

 in the most comprehensive and convenient manner by 

 Zimmermann, were hailed by me on their appearance in 

 1843 with the most lively joy, as expressed in a letter to 

 Carl Bitter. "If/' I wrote to him, " a life prolonged to 

 an advanced period brings with it several inconveniences 

 to the individual, and perhaps some even to those who live 

 with him, there is a compensation in the delight of being 

 able to compare older states of knowledge with that which 

 now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge grow 

 and develope themselves under our eyes in departments 

 where all had long slumbered in inactivity, with the 

 exception, perhaps, of attempts by hypercriticism to render 

 previous acquisitions doubtful. This enjoyment has from 

 time to time fallen to our share, yours and mine, in our 

 geographical studies, and this particularly in reference to 

 those very parts of the world which formerly could only be 

 treated of with timid hesitating uncertainty. The confor- 

 mation of a continent depends in its leading traits on 

 several plastic relations which are usually among the latest 

 to be discovered and unravelled. A new and excellent 

 work of our friend Carl Zimmermann, on the upper country 

 of the Nile and the eastern parts of central Africa, has 

 again brought these considerations very vividly before me. 

 His new map shews in the clearest manner to the eye, by 



