216 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 110. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS. 



Paul Fauque has returned to Paris from a scien- 

 tific mission to Sumatra, with much valuable infor- 

 mation touching the people of the country of Siaks 

 and the kingdom of Atcheen. In the course of the 

 journey he obtained precise information in regard to 

 the causes and incidents of the death of Messrs. 

 Wallon and Guillaume, assassinated by the natives 

 on the river Tenom in 1880, as well as on the miner- 

 alogy and natural history of this great island. Nu- 

 merous photographs of the country and people were 

 secured. 



Francois Deloncle, accompanied by an English and 

 a French civil engineer and a Siamese commissioner, 

 has been engaged in an inquiry as to the possibility 

 of cutting the isthmus joining the peninsula of Ma- 

 lacca to the mainland, in north latitude 7° 14'. Here 

 they discovered a little independent state called 

 Samsara, formerly the resort of pirates, and now 

 semi-independent of Siam. The inhabitants are a 

 metis of Malay and Siamese blood. Here deep inlets 

 penetrate the coast, joining an inland sea, which was 

 now first seen by Europeans. It is about twenty feet 

 deep, and forty-five miles long, having a greatest 

 width of twelve miles. It presented a very singular 

 appearance, being plentifully strewn with small 

 islands of compact limestone covered with swallow's 

 nests. This sea is fresh during the north-east, and 

 salt during the south-west monsoons, and separates 

 the island of Tantalam from the peninsula by a mul- 

 titude of passages not represented on any chart. 

 The section of the peninsula was made at Talung; 

 and specimens brought back show the presence of 

 auriferous quartz, tin, and iron. The report of the 

 expedition will contain important anthropological as 

 well as geographical documents. Returning, De- 

 loncle also examined Adam's Bridge, between Ceylon 

 and India, and will report that the establishment 

 there of a maritime passage is entirely practicable. 



Sorokin has recently published an account of his 

 journey in the central range of the Thian-Shan, 

 where, among other discoveries, he found the so- 

 called ruins of cyclopean buildings to be due to nat- 

 ural causes acting on rock in situ. Dr. Kegel has 

 returned to Tashkent with his collections from Hissar 

 and Karategin. 



Les missions catholiques, published at Lyons, con- 

 tains in almost every number rich contributions to 

 geography or ethnology, as well as to the history of 

 missions. Among others, it has recently contained 

 the itinerary and map of a journey across Kwangsi 

 and Kong Cheo, by Father Chouzy, and a journey 

 on the Niger, by the missionaries of the church in 

 Africa. The abbe Desgodins, in the same review, 

 announces his establishment in a new English out- 

 post in Thibet, at Pedong, forty-five miles north- 

 north-east from Darjiling, where he will continue 

 meteorological observations, as previously at Ba- 

 thang, his former station. 



Giraud, to whose critical situation, abandoned by 

 his caravan, recent reference was made in this jour- 

 nal, has arrived safely at the mouth of the Zambezi. 



It appears, that, after leaving Karema, he endeavored 

 to penetrate westward, in spite of disquieting rumors 

 and symptoms of mutiny in his caravan. He suc- 

 ceeded in crossing the lake in native canoes, and in 

 a month had reached the Belgian station of M'pala. 

 Here, unsettled by rumors of difficulty on their pro- 

 posed route, his party revolted, and proceeded to 

 pillage villages where he had previously been received 

 with kindness. He was therefore compelled to re- 

 turn. With a small party gathered on the shores of 

 Lake Tanganyika, he reached the north coast of Lake 

 Nyassa, descended in a little boat to Shire, endan- 

 gered by the hostilities between the Portuguese and 

 the natives, but succeeded in reaching the Zambezi 

 and Kwillimane in safety, in good health, with nu- 

 merous notes and collections, and, at last accounts, 

 was on the point of returning to Europe. 



From the Missionary her.ald for March we learn 

 that Mr. Richards of the East-central African mission 

 made a journey in October, 1884, from Inhambane 

 to the Limpopo River. He went through an unex- 

 plored country in search of a tribe whose chief settle- 

 ment was reported to be Baleni on the Limpopo, and 

 who spoke a language akin to Zulu. Between thirty 

 and forty miles westward from the coast he crossed 

 a river called the Bombom, which may be the Luizi 

 of some charts on which it is represented some three 

 times the distance from the coast. No other im- 

 portant river was noticed until the Limpopo was 

 reached. The country is almost wholly marshy, and 

 covered with brush or low palms, with ponds here and 

 there. The thermometer ranged between 80° and 90° 

 F. The Amakwakwa tribe, encountered forty miles 

 from the coast, had been subjected to chronic pillage 

 by Umzila's fighting men, and had abandoned agricul- 

 ture in consequence. They were idle, living on the 

 wild fruit which is abundant, and getting very drunk 

 on the native wine afforded by the scrub palm, which 

 produces a rapidly fermenting sweet sap at the rate 

 of a pint a day per tree. Many kraals were deserted, 

 and a tract of country seventy-five miles square was 

 nearly desolate. About a hundred and fifty miles 

 from the coast, the Amagwaza people were encoun- 

 tered, who gave the travellers a cordial reception as 

 soon as it was found they were not Portuguese. 

 They are subject to Umzila, whose capital kraal is 

 far to the north, but most of whose people live south 

 of the Sabi River. Baleni was said to be on the 

 Limpopo three days south from the point where Mr. 

 Richards reached it. Time did not suffice to visit it. 

 The return was made through a rather openly wooded 

 country, where the trees bore long wreaths of a gray 

 tree-moss, and beautiful birds were abundant. Ele- 

 phants abound in this district. In three days the 

 ridge between the Limpopo and the sea was reached, 

 where live an industrious kindly people, with sheep, 

 cattle, and large gardens. By the pedometer the crest 

 was fifty-seven miles from the sea, and seventy-eight 

 from the river. The people of the region appear to 

 have been originally of Tonga race; but, conquered 

 by the Zulus and Portuguese, their language has been 

 modified by the superior nationality in its respective 

 districts. 



