CHAPTER XII. 
GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
THE Geography of the region lying between 
Mombasa, 4"" 10' S. lat./and Patte, 2'' S.lat., has 
been greatly misunderstood, and, strange as it may 
seem, by no one more so than by the geographer, Mr. 
Cooley. This gentleman, in a book ejititled Inner 
Africa laid open/' expatiates largely upon this por- 
tion of the East African coast, criticising very 
severely the information supplied by Dr. Krapf ; but 
never was displayed more completely the difficulty of 
geographers to set right in their cabinets the inaccura- 
cies of travellers. The truth is, that Mr. Cooley, with 
all his knowledge, research, and talents, did not under- 
stand — how could he ? — the subject upon which he 
wrote. His great mistake seems to have been an un- 
limited confidence in the records of the Portuguese, 
and an utter repudiation of more recent information. 
Accordingly he makes a series of blunders such as 
one could scarcely think possible unless they were 
wilfully made. As we are not aware that Mr. Cooley 
has ever been corrected, we shall presume upon an 
attempt to do so in the course of our remarks. 
The district under consideration embraces about 2*" 
