ACTUAL EXPLORATION. 



43 



Royal Society of Literature, vol. viii.), supplies 

 a compendium of old cartography. 



I proceed now to the practical part of this 

 chapter, namely, the actual visits of inspection 

 to Zanzibar, and their results. Until the end of 

 the last century, our knowledge was derived 

 almost entirely from those 6 domini Orient alis 

 Africae,' the Portuguese. The few exceptions 

 were Sir James Lancaster, who opened to the 

 English the Orient seas. He wintered at the 

 island in 1591 ; Captain Alexander Hamilton 

 (new account of the East Indies, 1688 — 1723, 

 Hakluyt's Collection, viii. 258) ; and M. Saulnier 

 de Mondevit, commanding the king's Corvette, 

 La Prevoyance. The latter, who, in 1786, visited 

 the principal points of Zanzibar, published a 

 chart with 'Observations sur la cote du Zan- 

 gueibar ' (Xouvelles Annales des Voyages, vol. 

 vi.), and recommended a Erench establishment 

 at 6 Mongalo.' 



In Eebruary, 1799, Captain Bissel, R.N., com- 

 manding H. M.'s ship Orestes, with the Leopard 



ringo, as he writes it. Senex finally disconnects it with the 

 Nile, and indeed gives it no drainage at all. 



I cannot but think that Mr Hogg's learning and research 

 have considerably strengthened my position, and that the 

 so-called Nyanza Lake was, curious to say, the least known, 

 and at the same time the nearest, to European geographers. 



