The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-28 00:00:00

;4 Let us now cast a rapid glance over the pro-
gress of discovery in distant lands, and particularly
where our countrymen have signalised themselves.
In this wide field, wherein our knowledge has been
extraordinarily increased within the last few years,
I will limit my remarks to three or four regions;
the more so as I have recently addressed the Royal
Geographical Society at large on many collateral
topics in a discourse which is now in circulation.
Australia, scarcely known to the civilized world till
after Cook's voyages (1770-75), has of late been so
rapidly colonized by Britain, that before long she
will be no mean rival to those vast regions of North
America which were first occupied by subjects of
the British Crown. At former meetings of this
Association we have dwelt on the early discoveries
of new lands in the interior of Australia, in which
the names of Mitchell, Eyre, Stuart, Leichhardt,
and others have been always mentioned with
honour and respect. The later journeys of the
brothers Augustus and Frank Gregory have earned
for these good surveyors the highest honours of the
Royal Geographical Society, for their extensive re-
searches and determinations of longitude and lati-
tude in northern, eastern, and western Australia.
While more recently the bold expedition of Burke
and Wills cost these noble fellows their lives, the
latest researches of their successors stand out as in-
deed most singularly successful. M'Douall Stuart,
after various previous triumphs, in one of which he
reached the watershed of North Australia, has
actually passed from Adelaide, in South Aus-
tralia, to Van Diemen Bay, on the north coast,
in latitude 15 deg. S. Contemporaneously with
this last expedition, M'Kinlay, proceeding
also from Adelaide, reached the Gulf of Carpen-
taria, and thence travelled to the eastern shore ; and
Lsndsborough, realising all the value of the dis-
coveries of Burke and Wills, and penetrating from
the Gulf of Carpentaria, traversed the continent
southward until he regained the noble colony of
Victoria, in which the expedition was organised.
As I have recently dwelt at some length on these
bold adventurers in an anniversary address, refer-
ring also to some geographical determinations by
Mr. Walker, of Queensland, I will now simply
direct your attention to the huge map of Australia
which hangs upon the wall, and on which all the
routes of these explorers are laid down. The rapid
rifle of the different colonies in Australia is truly
marvellous ; and, while we have successfully occu-
pied all the available ports and lands along the
eastern, southern, and western sides of this great
continent, we are, I rejoice to say, now beginning
to extend our settlements to the north coast, the
yocecaurr,
otniopnopolitical
of
tiwhl asic
which have advocated for many a
well as on commercial and colo-
nial grounds. A few years only of practical re-
searches have dispelled our ignorance respecting the
interior of this vast mass of land, in which, though
there are wild desert tracts, there are also many
rich and well-watered oases of fine pasture-grounds,
through which the colonist may open out communi-
cations across the continent from the 'south and east
to the northern shores. A short time only, I ven-
ture to predict, will elapse before towns arise at the
head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as at the
mouth of the Victoria River of the north, whence,
as well as from the new settlement of Cape York,
Australians will have a-direct communication with
our great Indian empire. In speaking of the pro-
gress of these remarkable colonies, it may be con-
sidered invidious to seem to select any one for espe-
cial notice, where all of them have such high claims
to our notice. I may, however, in
passing men-
tion the last-formed of these wonderful separate
Governments—that of Queensland, possessing a
surface six times greater than that of the
United Kingdom, and the very grazing grounds
of which (according to its accomplished Go-
vernor, Sir G. Bowen) aro about twice as large as
the British Isles,--to say nothing of large tracts
peculiarly adapted to the growth of cotton. The
progress which our enterprising Austrian colonists
have made not only in
wealth and material pros-
perity, but in all that can dignify a people, was
strikingly manifested at the last Great International
Exhibition. In it we saw collocated not merely
the gold and copper, with
admirablech natural
potor
al o
views t s
ofhich even enabled us to
r ir uc
imagine that wo had visited the mines of our anti-
podes, but we also had before us solid proofs, in the
publication of excellent maps and the catalogues of
the valuable libraries of Sydney and Melbourne,
that there is scarcely any branch of knowledge or
of industry which is not cultivittAal in Australia with
<a. zeel rivolling that of the mother country. I:e -
lying on the conversations which it was my pri-
vilege to hold with the distinguished men who re-
presented the several Australian colonies on that
occasion, as well as with many personal friends who
have long resided there, I feel assured that there is
no part of the British doinittions where the people
are mote attached to the Sovereign and the Btitish
Constitution than Australia. It has always, there-
fore, been a source of pain to mu when some ',cr.
sons have spoken or written of the coming of the
day when these great colonies are to be separated

Irom us. Seeing no cause for such separation, and
believing that our Government and Legislature are
much too enlightened to commit the error into which
our ancestors fell when Britain lost her North
American settlements, we arc, I rest satisfied, never
likely to estrange our Australian colenist by simile r
treatment. It has been well said by a late Govel nor
of South Australia that the loyalty of Australia is
an homage to the enlightened rule of Englar d, of
which her statesmen may be proud. On my own
part, I am indeed persuaded that if judiciously and
considerately treated, Australia, which affords by
far the finest possible field for the emigration of
our superabundant population, will long continue
to be a source of wealth and strength to the
mother country, and will, I trust, for ages bold
out a proof that the people which lives under
a constitutional monarchy enjoys much truer
freedom in its best sense than those which have
formed part of any democracy, ancient or modern.
And now let me say. a few words on the last grand
geographical feat—the discovery of the sources of
the Nile. The first act in this portentous operation
was the discovery, by Captain Speke alone (when
he left his leader, Captain Burton), of the large
African lake which, in the year 1858, he named the
Victoria Nyanza. Iu his late expedition, when ac-
companied by Capt. Grant, be has proved (as he
said he would before he started) that this great bed
of fresh water is the main source of the White Nile,
and in this exploit we have one of the greatest geo-
graphical triumphs of all history. For age after age
had rolled on—traveller after traveller, from the
days of the 'Egyptian priests and of the Roman
Emperors, down to modern periods, had endea-
voured to ascend the Nile to its sources, and all had
failed! By reversing the line of research followed
by all former travellers, and by proceeding from the
east coast of Africa, near Zanzibar, to the central,
lofty, and flat plateau-land forming in that meri-
dian the watershed between North and South
Africa, these gallant Indian captains reached the
true reservoir from whence the Nile flows. Thence
they traced the mighty stream northwards into
Egypt, and demonstrated that while the White
Nile, which they followed, is the Great Nile, the
so-called Blue River, joining the parent stream at
Khartum on the frontiers of Egypt, is, like the
Atbara and other waters, a mere tributary. As the
outlines of the long walk of Speke and Grant across
those vast interior and equitorial regions of Africa
have been given to the public, first in my address
to the Royal Geographical Society, and subse-
quently in various periodicals, it would be out of
place to say more on the subject until their own
full account, which they are preparing with many
illustrative sketches, shall have been published. In
the mean time it is gratifying to know that our gra-
cious Queen has shown by her own kind expressions
how truly she is proud that two of her own gallant
officers should have succeeded in performing what
the people of many a European nation have failed to
accomplish. We may therefore be sure that the
British people will rejoice with all geographers, if
the travellers should receive due honours and re-
wards for such glorious services. Among foreign
Sovereigns the King of Italy has taken the lead in
the desire to commemorate the great event, by or-
dering two gold medals to be struck on the occa-
sion. The first, which immediately after its com-
pletion was presented to the leader on the Royal
Geographical Society's anniversary, had on its re-
verse the words, so well known to Englishmen as
the motto of Nelson, " Honor a Nilo." The second,
which the Italian Minister, the Marquis d'Azeglio,
since put into my hands, and which has been de-
livered by me to Capt. Grant, has on it those preg-
nant words, "Al Capitano Grant, divine col Capitano
Speke gloria e pericoli." Thus do these medals re-
mind us that, through the enterprise of her sons,
England has won glory through many a danger at
the sources, as at the mouth of the Nile. Among
the geographical communications which have been
already sent in to be road at this meeting, and of
which I have any acquaintance, I will now allude
to four only. Referring still to Africa, we hope to
be favoured by Dr. Barth with a translation from
the German of the ascent of the lofty snow-clad
mountain of Kilimandjaro, in tropical Eastern
Africa, as carried out by that energetic Hanoverian
traveller, Baron C. von der Deck en. In relation to
China, you will, I doubt not, be much gratified
with the memoir of Mr. R. Swinhoe, a practised
Chinese scholar, and formerly a British vice-consul,
on the large, but little known, island of Formosa,
and the numerous islets between it and the main-
land. tiV hile the publications of the last few years,
including the "Narrative of the North China Cam-
paign of 1860," by Mr. Swinhoe himself, have ren-
dered us well acquainted with large portions of the
interior of China—and whilst Capt. Blakiston has
laid down on a beautiful chart the course of that
mighty stream the Yang-tsze-Kiang to a distance of
nearly 1,000 miles above the highest point previ-
ously reached by our countrymen--the great island
of Formosa, off the eastern coast of the Chinese
mainland, has remained comparatively unknown.
Since the days when parts of its west coast were
surveyed, the outline of those shores has, it appears,
undergone a great change by the rapid increment of
silt and sand washed down from the mountainous
interior ; so that a new survey is imperiously called
for, to render some of the ports accessible to com-
merce. Near the north end of the island, indeed, the
port of Tarn Sui ifrnot liable to these dangers, and is
indicated by Mr. Swinhoe as being best suited for
commercial dealings ; and this part of the coast was
so well surveyed by Captain (now Admiral) Collin-
son, that his charts thercot may be entirely depended
on. In short, now that Lord Elgin's Treaty of
Pekin has thrown open to British enterprise all the
ports of China, it is to be hoped that by the comple-
tion of accurate surveys of the south-western coast
of Formosa, its present unapproachable harbours will
soon be frequented by British vessels. We learn from
Mr. Swinhoe that these extensive lands are very rich
in natural productions; and he will interest you much
by a description of his personal adventures, and of
the habits, costumes, and peculiarities of the Chinese
occupants. The aborigines—a Malayan race—still
occupy all the mountainous districts, or eastern side
I of the island, and live among the great forests that
yield so much camphor. The subject of Formosa is so
novel that this communication will prove very attrac-
tive ; while you will, I doubt not, be struck by the
coloured drawings which the author has made of the
Chinese inhabitants of this great island, and after
whom, Particularly the women, the Portuguese may
well be supposed to have named it "Formosa." If,
as I have been led to believe, my accomplished friend
Sir Harry Parkes should join our Section on this
occasion, it is certain that he will give us a lively
and accurate description of the Chinese people, as
well as a solid and trustworthy account of our poli-
tical and commercial relations both with China and
Japan. Turning to Central America, you will
have a very interesting memoir by Mr. Osbert
Salvin on the physical geography of Guatemala, in
which the author will particularly notice the geo-
graphical distribution of the various zoological pro-
ductions of that country. He will also give us
accounts of its virgin forests, volcanoes, and lakes,
as well as of the Indian remains and buildinga
which
he has traced in it. Another American subject to
be brought before us will doubtless bring to our
halls many persons interested in the triumph of
mechanical skill when practically applied to the
o‘ creaming of greqt difficulties presented be physic°.
geogrwideat features. Mr. te whe#-lwright has
commenced the eereeation of a most important en-
gineering work, called the (ilreat Central Argentine
Railroad, to which he formerly called the attention
of the Royal Geographical Society, which is des-
tined to connect the great port of Buenos Ayres, on
the Atlantic, with the city of Copiapo and the port
of Celdera, on the Pacific. Stertieg from the town
of Rosaria, on the right bank of the great navig-
ea above the
ablo waters of the Parana, about 23G m
city of Buenos Ayres, the first section traversed is
tin* 247 milg,
to the important city of Cudoya,