6 
Central Africa, 
"Description of the Kingdom of Congo," which is sub- 
stantially the same, in its principal features, as modern 
charts. It was constructed by a Portuguese, named Duarte 
Lopez, who, it seems, spent nine years on the continent, 
and succeeded in gaining much personal acquaintance with 
the country. At that early date the Portuguese were masters 
of much of Africa, and a native Christian Church existed in 
Congo. But the development of the slave-trade, — which 
trade was supported and sustained by the Portuguese, — gave 
rise to hatred, intertribal wars, and enmity against the white 
man, so that, in course of generations, the once well-known 
information relating to Central Africa doubtless faded into 
dim obscurity, and ultimately into oblivion. Sir George 
Grey, has, in his museum at Kawau, New Zealand, an 
ancient African History, consisting of fifteen bound vol- 
umes, written in Arabic character, but in some dialect of 
Central Africa, not known at present. This manuscript 
history was obtained in the interior, by an Arab gentleman 
of Zanzibar, and brought to Sir George, upon his adver- 
tising for it. When the dialects of Central Africa are more 
understood, then, possibly, this hitherto sealed history will 
cast much light upon the affairs of the vast continent. 
At present, beyond the narratives of explorers, our know- 
ledge is mainly confined to Egypt, the Coast Lands, the 
South African States, Abyssinia, and the Western Colonies. 
But from what we already have learned by means of these 
narratives, we find, that 5,000 miles must be traversed from 
north to south, and 2,000 from east to west; that it contains 
one-fourth of the entire land area of the earth ; that it in- 
cludes different populations amounting in the aggregate to 
about three hundred and fifty millions of souls ; that the 
languages and dialects are to be numbered by scores, and 
hundreds, not one of which has been reduced to writing ; 
