Progress of Discovery in Africa. 133 ART. IV. Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours, during an Eighteen Years' Residence in Eastern Africa, together with Journeys to Jagga, Usambara, Ukambani, Shoa, Abesinnia, and Khartum; and a coasting voyage to Cape Delgado. By the Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Krapf, Secretary of the Chrishona Institute at Basel, and late Missionary in the service of the Church Missionary Society in Eastern and Equatorial Africa, &c. &c. With an Appendix respecting the snow-capped Mountains of Eastern Africa, the sources of the Nile, the Languages and Literature of Abesinnia and Eastern Africa, &c. &c., and a concise Account of Geographical Researches in Eastern Africa up to the Discovery of the Uyenyesi by Dr. Livingstone in September last. By E. G. Ravenstein, F.R.G.S. London: Trübner and Co. 1860. EOGRAPHICAL discovery has advanced very slowly in the peninsular continent of Africa, though ancient civilization had one of its earliest seats on the banks of the Nile, and the monuments of Egypt, as well as fragments of history, sacred and profane, testify to what a height of greatness the Pharaohs attained. The Phoenicians formed their settlements on the northern coast, at least thirty centuries ago, and the Persians conquered Egypt five hundred years before the Christian era. Greece and Rome penetrated across the Mediterranean, and their mariners were acquainted with the coast line from the mouths of the Nile to the pillars of Hercules. Little more, however, was known of the continent of Africa. The river of Egypt being the only one open to the ancients, and the great Sahara pressing so closely upon the strip of habitable territory along the whole northern coast, prevented further acquaintance with this large portion of the world. There is a story told by Herodotus, the credibility of which seems still to oscillate between the most learned modern critics, but which is accepted by one of the latest writers in a volume devoted to the geography of Herodotus. The story is this:-Seven centuries before the Christian era, Necho, king of Egypt, sent out an expedition under the command of certain Phoenician seamen-then the most renowned navigators of the world. They set out from the head of the Red Sea. 'When autumn came,' says the Father of history, they sowed the land at whatever part of Libya they happened to be sailing, and waited for the harvest; then having reaped the corn, they put to sea again. Two years thus passed away. At length, in the third year of their voyage, having sailed through the pillars of Hercules, they arrived in Egypt. The historian who first records this feat, throws some doubt over its performance, but the reason assigned for his incredulity is one which to modern science would prove the very opposite-the physical fact stated by the voyagers, that they had the sun on their right hand all through their adventurous way. It is curious to mark how the statement of Herodotus has been received. In ancient times it was considered incredible. Modern writers hesitated to deny the possibility, and now it is boldly asserted. Major Rennell, one of the ablest reviewers of the evidence, argues the possibility of such a voyage from the construction of their ships, with flat bottoms and low masts, enabling them to keep close to the land, and to enable them to enter into all the creeks and harbours which any part of the coast might present.' The unbroken coast, the tropical situation, the peculiar clinate, and the great desert, contributed to prevent discovery making any progress for many hundred years. The Ptolemies, who did so much for learning and conscience, added nothing to African geography. The Carthaginian merchants, adventurous beyond their time, made little way into the interior. And though Roman arms penetrated as far as Abyssinia and Fezzan, they brought back little to enrich human knowledge. It was left for the Mohammedan Arabs to make the first effort to cross the Sahara to the centre of the continent. They also reached Senegal and Gambia on the west, and even planted colonies on the east, at Sofala and Melinda. In the fifteenth century, a celebrated and successful attempt was made by the Portuguese to explore the coast of Africa. In 1406, Prince Henry, one of the sons of John I., devoted himself with great earnestness to this object, and resided for the purpose at a small town near Cape St. Vincent. Beginning in 1412, he despatched a ship annually to make discoveries. Much was added to an accurate geography of Africa by his efforts. After his death in 1463, the spirit of enterprise failed for a little, but it revived again in bold and and renowned adventures. In the year 1487, 'Bartholomew Diaz reached the most remarkable southern point of Africa, which he named Cabo Tormentoso-the stormy Cape-to commemorate his experience of the southern sea. His king changed the name into one more pleasing-the Cape of Good Hope-which, from the results of his anticipations regarding regions beyond, has been approved by posterior discovery. In the year 1497, Vasco di Gama discovered the route to India, and conducted a fleet of Portuguese vessels across that intervening sea, over which so much of the commerce of the world has since been carried. Interior discovery was long prevented from the north by the Sahara. This vast desert spreads over a region extending from the valley of the Nile to the shores of the Atlantic-a length of three thousand miles, with a breadth in some parts equal to a thou sand The Great Desert. 135 sand miles. It is not entirely a plain, but a table land rising 1,500 feet, and occasionally 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, with mountain groups 6,000 feet in height. The district of Fezzan towards the north is divided by a broad and open valley, less sterile than the general character of the desert. Towards the east onwards to the Nile, the barrenness is relieved by oases, where springs of water abound, and which give a rare verdure to a scene surrounded by an herbless waste. The Great Oasis extends north and south fully ninety miles. The western portion again, ‘though also diversified,' says a geographical writer, by some oases, is a more generally barren region than its eastern division. In some places it consists of dreary black rocks, broken into fantastic forms, and sometimes forming ridges which lie so close as hardly to leave room for caravans to pass between them. In the more open parts are vast tracts of burning sand, blown into ridges and hillocks, steep on one side, and sloping gradually on the other, and the position of which is rapidly changing. The atmosphere over these parched and arid regions often presents the appearance of a red vapour, the heat of which is augmented by a burning wind called the Samiel or Simoom. On the southern side there is a depressed region, sinking sometimes so low as 100 feet, and even at one place 167 feet below the level of the sea. This is succeeded by an extensive table land, sometimes sloping towards the sea, but also, as in Abyssinia, rising into mountains of 7,000 or 8,000 feet on the very margin of the ocean. The great desert was long deemed to be a broad belt intercepting the progress of commerce, civilization, and conquest from the shores of the Mediterranean to Central Africa.' The interior has, however, been penetrated by the enterprise of explorers. During the last three quarters of a century more has been done to enlarge our knowledge of Africa than during all previous history. In 1769, Bruce penetrated to the source of the Blue Nile, a locality visited, as he afterwards learned, by the Portuguese missionaries before him; but he left the longest arm of the mighty river of Egypt undiscovered. The African Association, formed in London in 1788, sent several travellers into the interior. Mungo Park, in 1795, went up the Gambia, and fixed on our maps the southern boundary of the desert. In 1805, he attempted to trace the Niger to its source, but he never returned: the companions of his journey, thirty-eight in number, all perished also. Great, however, was the interest given to the public by the narratives of Bruce and Park, and there has never been wanting since a succession of adventurers to follow their footsteps, and open up the African continent to science, civilization, and religion. Hornemann went in 1799 from Cairo to Murzuk, but he too perished. Captain Tuckey, in 1816, conducted a disastrous expe dition to the Congo, without adding any information. So did Lyon and Ritchie in 1819. Denham and Clapperton and Dr. Oudney entered the desert from Tripoli in 1822, and advanced as far as the Lake Tsad and Soccatoo. Dr. Oudney died at Bornoo; but Major Denham and Captain Clapperton returned laden with successful discovery. Clapperton revisited Soccatoo by the Gulf of Guinea, and passed Brussa, where Park fell a victim. also a martyr to his zeal, and died at Soccatoo in 1827. His mantle fell on the faithful servant who attended him, and who soothed his last hours-Richard Lander. Along with his brother he attempted to trace the Niger, and added considerably to a correct geography of that river. The Niger long puzzled geographers, and expeditions to obtain correct information regarding it, were sent out by the English Government at a sacrifice of human life not much less than the North-West passage itself. We have referred to Captain Tuckey's failure and disasters. He mistook the Congo for the Niger. In 1841, three steam-vessels were fitted out, as some of our readers may recollect, in order to ascend the Niger, and to promote philanthropy by obtaining treaties from native chiefs for the suppression of the slave trade. Fever prostrated almost all on board, as they entered into the country, and out of one hundred and fortyfive men, forty-eight died. The steamers returned with no information, save the sad tidings of sacrifice and disaster. The advancement of sanitary knowledge has seldom received a more decided testimony than when the next expedition was attempted in 1854. The river was ascended by the steamer Pleiad' to a distance of three hundred and sixty miles, and returned to England without the loss of a single life! Confidence was thus restored, and from that time to the present the greatest efforts have been made, and the greatest successes won in the field of African discovery. The cause of exploration was meanwhile advancing in other parts of the continent. Major Laing had again crossed the desert from Morocco, and reached Timbuctoo in 1826; but after leaving that city for the west, he was murdered by the savage natives. Rene Caillié, a French traveller, reached the same place from the Niger in 1828, and brought back, by way of Tangier, most interesting intelligence of a district, from which, though some had seen it, yet few had returned to tell their adventures. Davidson, in 1836, reached Timbuctoo, where he found a premature grave by a violent death. In 1849, Mr. Richardson proceeded to the district around Lake Tsad, in order to arrange commercial treaties with the chiefs. He was joined by Drs. Barth and Overweg in 1850. These three travellers passed over regions where no European had ever been, and they made accurate surveys of a large territory. In the second year Missionary Discoverers in South Africa. 137 year they divided their forces, and each took a separate route, to meet again at the capital of Bornoo. Alas! when within six days of the meeting-place, Mr. Richardson died. Drs. Barth and Overweg, however, continued their explorations, and travelled three hundred and fifty miles farther south. Dr. Overweg surveyed Lake Tsad in a boat. In the third year of their labours Overweg died; but Dr. Barth continued, and having received a reinforcement from England, pursued his researches. Throughout the period of six years, this accomplished traveller endured perils and privations, the heat of a burning sun, and absence from all civilized society, and returned to England in 1855. He has since been enabled to give to science and philanthropy the results of his hard-won acquirements in several volumes of very interesting adventures, full of valuable information. The south of Africa was colonized by the Dutch in 1650; but little was done to explore the territory to the north, for a considerable period after that date. Missionary zeal has done most to open up this portion of Africa. Many stations were formed there in an early period of modern missionary zeal. To no part of the world,' says the author of the History of Missions, with the exception of India, have so many missionary societies directed so much attention as to South Africa. Hither the United Brethren, the London Missionary Society, the Methodist Missionary Society, the Glasgow Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Paris Missionary Society, the Rhenish Missionary Society, the Berlin Missionary Society, the Norwegian Missionary Society, and the American Board of Foreign Missions have all sent missionaries; and the stations established by some of them have been numerous. It would be natural to conclude from this, that South Africa formed one of the fairest fields for missions which the world presents; and yet we scarcely know a single recommendation which it possesses. The population is at once small, scattered, uncivilized, unsettled, often wandering-poor, destitute, degraded. In a single town or inconsiderable district of many countries, a larger population may be found than in the whole region of South Africa which has been occupied by so many missionaries.' But missionaries have not been without their success, notwithstanding the opposition of Dutch boers, the difficulties connected with a sparse population, and the mental and moral degradation of the people. With this, however, we have not at present to do, but with the labours of these apostolic men in the field of geographical discovery. Though great credit is due to the venerated Lichtenstein, Campbell, Moffat, and others, and to the scientific men who followed in their track, such as Dr. Smith, yet by far the highest place must be assigned to Dr. Livingstone, whose adventures have created a greater interest and obtained for himself |