1883. | Geography and Travels, 1147 
The Russian explorer, Konchin, has discovered that Kalitin 
was mistaken in supposing that the steppe between Charzhui and 
Uzboi was crossed by an ancient channel of the Oxus. 
A considerable part of the basin of the Upper Irtish is annexed 
to Russia by recent conventions. 
Arrica.—A journey recently undertaken by the Earl of Mayo 
from Mossamedes, on the west coast of Africa, to Ekamba on 
the River Cunéné, throws much light upon the geography and 
race movments of that part of Africa. Portuguese influence 
extends to. the Cunéné, where, at Humbé, there is a mission, 
while at Huilla, in the Sierra Chella, there is a fort and a Catholic 
college. Humpata, north of Huila, is occupied by numerous 
Boer families, who after seven years of wandering from Pretoria, 
in the Transvaal, had reached this healthy and well-watered dis- 
trict in the highlands of the western barrier of Africa’s central 
plateau, and had already, in the course of eighteen months, uilt 
comfortable stone or mud cottages with thatched roofs, and ha 
constructed irrigation canals. The country between the Sierra 
Chella and the sea is, for the most part, barren, but the valley of 
the Gambos river, an affluent of the Cunéné, abounds in game of 
every kind. The Cunéné is a smaller river than would be 
imagined from its appearance on a map. At Humbe, some 200 
miles from its mouth, it is not navigable for large boats in the dry 
season, there is a bar at its mouth which prevents the entrance of 
any vessel, and there are rapids about seventy niles from its 
mouth and large falls where it crosses the Sierra; but it is said 
to be navigable farther up its course. The curious Welwitschia 
is abundant near the coast between Mossamedes and the River 
Coroca, which is simply a sandy bed in the dry season, but a 
oon allows a small area to be farmed. 
Country east of the Sierra. They keep cattle, cultivate to some 
extent, moving their villages when the soil is worked out, and are 
ey 
they some very curious flat-headed iron instruments with which 
y Se 
oblige him to stand still, when they kill him with assegais. 
Col, Jc A. Grant, the companion of Speke, writes to the Royal 
. 76 
