to Loango Bay . 
7 
changed but little, Europe has, and we can hardly 
envy the German nation its eminence and unex¬ 
pected triumphs in war when we see the energy 
and persistency with which they are applying 
themselves to the arts of peace—especially of ex¬ 
ploration. And nowhere have they been more 
active than in this part of the world, where their 
old rivals, the English, are apparently contented to 
sit at home in ease, working their factories and 
counting out their money. 
To begin with the beginning. The year 1872 
found the Berlin Geographical Society intent upon 
“ planting a lance in Africa,” and upon extending 
and connecting the discoveries of Livingstone, Du 
Chaillu, Schweinfurth, and other travellers. Dele¬ 
gates from the various associations of Germany 
met in congress, and organized (April 19, 1873) 
the Germanic “ Afrikanische Gesellschaft.” Ex- 
President Dr. Adolf Bastian, a well-known tra¬ 
veller in Siam, Cambodia, China, and the Indian 
Archipelago, and who, moreover, had visited Am- 
bassi or Salvador do Congo, the old missionary 
capital, in 1857, was at once sent out as pioneer 
and vanguard to prospect the coast for a suitable 
station and a point de depart into the interior—a 
scientific step dictated by trained and organized 
common sense. The choice of leader fell upon Dr. 
Gtissfeldt, Herr von Hattorf being his second in 
