The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-09 00:00:00

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

At the meeting of the Royal Geographical Seciety, neld
on Monday night, Sir Roderick Murchison, the President,
delivered the opening address. Referring to Dr. Living-
stone, he said: "Our illustrious Associate Livingstone,
whose life had been despaired of by the multitude, but of
whose reappearance among us, as you know, I never
doubted, will, I trust, bring us ere long the first account
of a region of Southein Africa never previously visited by
a European, and thus, by actual observation, will have set
at rest all theoretical speculations respecting the hydro-
graphy of that vast portion of Africa lying to the north
of these territories watered by the. Zambesi which he had
previously made his own. I therefore joyfully hope
that, at no very distant day, we shall hear from his
own lips the description cf his travels during the
three years which have elapsed since he entered South-
Restern Africa on his last expedition. In his expected
communications we shall doubtless be enlightened not only
respecting the true configuration of the great Lake Tan-
ganyika, first visited by Burton and Speke, but also as to
the main watershed to the south of it which he
has now traced. The facts, as communicated in one
of his last letters to Dr. Y:rk, from Lake Bangwelo,
dated July 8, 1863, will Le c xplained to you this eve-
ning, in anticipatien of more detailed accounts which have
been sent to the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs
and India, but which by some accident have not yet been
received. We now know that he had discovered a chain of
lakes connected by rivers far to the south ; but whether
these waters, after feeding or flanking the great Lake
Tanganyika, really constitute the ultimate sources
of the Nile, as Livingstone supposes, can only be
a conjecture so long as no traveller has observed
the connection between the northern end of Tanganyika
and Lake Albert Nyanza. of Baker, which is very
far distant from the southern lakes of Livingstone. But I
confidently hope that this point will be finally determined
by Livingstone himself ; as it appears from Dr. Kirk's
information that he has touched at Ujiji, and must have
there received the supplies, despatches, publications, and
medicines which have so long been waiting for him.
Should these South African waters, now laid
open by Livingstone, flow into the Albert
Nyanza, the south-western extremities of which are
as yet wholly unknown (though, we trust, to be soon
defined by Baker), then, indeed, the great modern problem
will have been solved, and we must go back to the old
geography of Ptolemy, and acknowledge that he was
right in placing the ultimate sources of the Nile very
nearly in the same southern tract in which Livingstone
has now found them. In this event it will also give me
much pleasure, at our ensuing anniversary, to assign to Dr.
Beke, Mr. Arrowsmith, and Mr. Findlay, all the credit
which is their due for their support, ontheorctical grounds,
of this great southerly extent of the Nile Basin. In his
wonderful labours Livingstone has not merely been the Chris-
tian missionary and geograpical explorer. He was also accre-
dited as her Majesty's consul to all the native states in the inte
rior. Such being the public mission with which the great tra-
veller was entrusted, let us now confidently believe that her
Majesty's Government will authorise, on his return, the
grant of a suitable pension to the man whose labours have
shed so much renown on Britain, and that our gracious
Sovereign, who has, I know, taken the deepest interest in
his career, will regard him with some appropriate token of
good-will.'
Some other letters were read, but the most importan'
was one to Lord Clarendon. It was very long indeed.
Dated July, 1868, it was written from " Near Lake Bange-
weolo, South Central Africa." The opening paragraphls as
follows :—" When I had the honour of writing to you in
February, 1867, I had the impression that I was then
on the watershed between the Zambesi and either the
Congo or the Nile. More extended observation has since
convinced me of the o sent:al correctness of that impres-
sion ; and from what I have seen, together with what I
have learned from intelligent natives, I think that I may
safely assert that the chief sources of the Nile arise
between 10 degrees and 12 degrees south latitude, or nearly
in the position assigned to them by Ptolemy, whose River
Rhapta is probably the Rovuma. Aware that others have
been mistaken, and laying no claim to infallibility,
I do not yet speak very positively, particularly
of the parts west and north-west of Tanganyika,
because these have not yet come under my observation ;
but I believe that the springs of the Nilo have hitherto
been searched for very much too far to the North. They
rise some 400 miles south of the most southerly portion of
the Victoria Nyanza, and, indeed, south of all the lakes
except Bangweolo."
In a postscript, Dr. Livingstone says :—" Always some-
thing new from Africa ; a large tribe lives in under-
ground houses in Rua. Some excavations are said to be
thirty miles long, and have running rills in them. A
whole district can stand a siege in them. The writings '
therein, I have been told by some of the people, are on
wings of animals, and not letters. Of course, I should
have gone to see them. Very dark, well made, and eyes
slanting-wards."