1886. ] Geography and Travels. 799 
explored. The four commissioners ascended the Ubangi, which 
seemed to start in the right direction, but found that it turned 
northward. The Ubangi and Licona-Nbunga are two perfectly 
distinct streams, instead of forming a common delta, as has been 
before stated. 
The Island of Diego Garcié.—Gilbert C. Bourne describes in 
the June issue of the Proc. Royal Geographical Society the coral 
atoll of Diego Garcia, belonging to the Chagos group. There 
are four openings into the lagoon, one of which affords a passage 
six to eight fathoms deep. The lagoon has an average depth of 
eleven fathoms, and forms a good harbor. The strip of land 
varies from about twenty yards to a mile in width, and is densely 
covered with cocoanut palms, Scevola kenigii and Tournefortia 
argentea. The interior parts of the main island have a black 
peaty mould, formed by the decayed leaves of the cocoa-palms. 
Here grow Guetturda speciosa, or “bois de feu;”’ and Cordia 
subcordata, or “ bois malgache.” A Casuarina grows on the east 
side of the island, and Hernandia pelttata and H. ovigera (bois 
blanc), as well as Pisonia tnermis, also occur. The gaiac (Afzelia 
byuga) forms a single group in the northeast. The staple pro- 
duce is cocoanut oil, and the island is in the hands of a company 
at Mauritius. The only wild animals are introduced rats ; fifteen 
Species of birds occur, only one a land bird; the Mauritian gecko 
(P. latydactylus mauritanicus) is common, and there is a mud tortoise 
at he has seen it do so. It eats the nuts that are on the ground, 
but ascends the palms for shade and protection. 
African News.—Dr. Fischer has just recovered from fever con- 
tracted at Kagehi, on the southern shore of Lake Victoria, Ny- 
anza. He was not able to reach Unyoro through Uganda on ac- 
neer of the Suez canal has informed Gen. gag Walker that (1) 
the annual mean level of the Mediterranean at Port Said is the 
Pacific at Panama. The trunk left at Brussels by Maurizio 
Buonfanti, who claimed to have made a journey across Africa, 
m the Mediterranean to the Niger and Gulf of Guinea, has 
examined. The trunk contained letters, romances, come- 
