| 18386. ] Geography and Travels 961 
precipitous, and the same rapid descent continues below the 
water, so that depths of fifteen to eighteen hundred feet are found 
‘ all around the margin. It had been previously sounded by Capt. 
G. M. Wheeler, U. S. Engineers ——M. Charnay has, during his 
last season of exploration in Yucatan, discovered the remains of 
a town called Ek Balam, or the city of the black tiger. Also, 
upon an island about eight leagues north of Campeachy, he found 
a Maya burial ground which had- never before been visited by a 
man of science. 
Arrica.—Mozambique—The Portuguese are aiding to fill up 
some of the gaps upon the map of Africa. An expedition to the 
gold mines of Marica, worked at a time of which no records have 
reached us, has resulted not only in the formation of a new town, 
Villa Gouveia, but in theexploration of the lower course of the Aru- 
angua or Pungue, which proves to be navigable for a considerable 
distance, as are also the Revue and Buzi, the conjoined streams 
of which enter the ocean slightly to the south of the Pungue. 
There appears to be a channel connecting the Pungue with the 
Inhandué, the tributary of the Zambezi upon which the new town 
_ A tolerably full description of the Comoro islands is contained 
inthe Revue Scientifique (August 7). The religion is Moham- 
medan, and the people a mixture of Arabs and Caffres, with Mad- 
agascans, etc. The largest island, Great Comoro or Angazia, has 
a superficies of 1100 kilometers. Moheli is the smallest but most 
fertile of the group; Anjouan has the best harbor and is most fre- 
quented by Europeans, and Mayotte, or Mahore, the most south- 
ern and western of the archipelago, belongs to France. 
Petermann’s Mittheilungen (July) contains an account of the Ger- 
Man expedition of 1884-85 to Angra Pequeña, or Luderitzland. 
€ immediate neighborhood of the settlement is described as a 
1 ary spot where there is scarcely any living thing but snakes 
_ and lizards. A short distance to the north are extensive dunes 
_ Teaching a height of 500 meters. The interior does not appear to 
be much better. River beds are dry even in winter. Snakes, scor- 
= Plons and beetles seem to have been the most noticeable objects. 
_ «tus and Gubub, east of 16° E. long. and about 26° 4o’ S. lat., are 
the highest points of this part of Africa, the level falling to the 
South towards Orange river. The scenery here consists entirely 
barren table-mountain, between which and the ocean extends a 
