660 LIFE OF DA YID LI YINGSTONE, LL.D. 



will be found that lie well deserves the cordial greetings which have hailed 

 his return from the silences of the mysterious continent. We may claim, 

 perhaps, an especial right to criticise the young officer's achievement, because 

 in an honourable and friendly sense he has performed his task in a sort of 

 necessary rivalry with Mr. Stanley, to whom we have hastened to despatch 

 all the particulars of the discoveries and travels of Mr. Cameron, with the 

 certainty that no one would rejoice more in his safety than the indomitable 

 explorer who is at this moment perhaps completing the map of Central 

 Africa where it still remains blank. It was among the instructions of Mr 

 Stanley to turn aside and aid Lieutenant Cameron, if any intelligence should 

 be brought of his proximity ; and, during the long lapse of time when no 

 news arrived, the letters of ' The Daily Telegraph ' and ' New York Herald ' 

 Commissioner were eagerly scanned for any word of tidings which might 

 reassure the friends of the missing officer. 



" The paths of the two travellers, however, lay far apart ; for, while 

 Stanley was pushing northward for the Victoria Nyanza, which he has since 

 all but completely laid down and navigated, Cameron, having finished his 

 survey of the southern end of Tanganyika, was making across the country to 

 the westward of that remarkable water, aiming to reach Nyangwe, Living- 

 stone's furthest point. Had it been possible for him to follow the Lualaba 

 from that town down towards the coast, or even so far as to the watershed 

 he afterwards reached by land, the last secret but one of the vast continent 

 would have been yielded up ; and the traveller whose melancholy honour it 

 was to have received and transmitted the body of Livingstone, would have 

 figured for ever as the executor and legatee of the Doctor's scientific fame. 

 Unfortunately, Lieutenant Cameron was obliged to quit the sure clue of that 

 prodigious stream which Livingstone revealed to us, and to strike southwards 

 wide of the Lualaba. He traversed, nevertheless, twelve hundred miles of 

 a district absolutely unknown before to geography, and, crossing the water- 

 parting of the Zambesi and the Congo, saw the streams which drain into the 

 latter river. Finally he emerged, after a weary transit on foot in company 

 with a trade caravan, into the western regions and the Benguela coast-line, 

 thereby accomplishing a feat which has no equal except in the great record 

 of Livingstone, and the adventurous journey of the Pombeiros. It is a new 

 tribute to British pluck and patience that the young officer thus tramped 

 nearly three thousand miles from coast to coast, and that he brought his 

 Expedition through with but one unfortunate collision with the natives, 

 although, of course, the latter part of his progress was materially aided in 

 the way of passage, and sadly hampered in the geographical sense, by the 

 Portuguese trader with whom he was obliged to link his fortunes. 



"The scientific results of his bold journey are such as well deserve the 

 first great honour which can hardly fail to await them — namely, the gold 



