The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-30 00:00:00

TilE SUN, LONDOIS, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 30, 1866.

190
100
100
110
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11 ME

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114 116
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130 131

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person.

IT [ES.

920 1/

LAW INTELLIGENCE.—This Day.

SHERIFFS' COURT.
(Before Mr. Commissioner Kerr.)
ASSIGNMENT OF DEBTS BEFORE BANKRUPTCY.

IMPORTANT DECISION.

BEALE V. BORTON.

This was an action to recover £4 10s., and defendant
pleaded that ho did not owe plaintiff the money. Ho was
sued by Richard Beale, and James Beale claimed the
money. The fact was that the real plaintiff was a
bankrupt.

Mr. Biircham—lt is quite true that the pers3n to whom
the defendant owed the debt was bankrupt some time ago.
Before his bankruptcy he executed a deed of assignment
to my client, and that deed is regularly executed in con-
formity with the provisions of the statute.

Defendant.—But if a man becomes bankrupt all his
goods and property go to his creditors. lamin a fix.
His Honour—For whom do you appear, Mr. Buchanan ?
Mr. Buchanan.—l appear for the assignee under the
deed.

Defendant. —But I am sued in the name of the bankrupt.
_ _

Mr. Buchauan.—Of course. We are entitled to use his
name. In fact, we could not sue in the name of any other

Defendant—There are three persons who claim this
amount. There is the plaintiff, there is the person to
whom the debt was assigned, and there are the assignees
in bankruptcy. Ido not know to whom lam to pay the
money. lam willing to admit that if Beale had not been
bankrupt I owed him the money.
Mr. Buchanan—This is a case in which the debt was
assigned before the bankruptcy, and therefore the assignees
under the bankruptcy can have no claim to it.
His Honour—lt is quite clear, defendant, that this deed
is a good one ; but, in order that no harm may come to
you from paying plaintiff the money, I will give you time
to see whether the assignees under the bankruptcy make
any claim to this money. The verdict will pass formally
for the plaintiff, and in the event of the assignees not
claiming the money you can pay him.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE .This Day.

Geography and Ethnology.

M. P. B. Du CIIAILLU delivered an address at
the British Association on the physical geography
and tribes of western equatorial Africa. He said
that his object in coming before them was to try to
give them, to the best of his ability, a bird's-eye
view of the physical geography of the countries
which he had explored during both his last and
former journeys. There could now be no doubt
that equatorial Africa, from the west coast, formed
a belt of impenetrable jungle. So far as he had
been, 13.30 east longitude from Greenwich, that
jungle did not stop, but was seen as far as his eye
could reach, and the natives had never heard that
it ended. The breadth of that gigantic forent ex-
tended north and south of the equator from two to
three degrees on each side. Now and then prairies,
looking like islands, were found in the midst of
that dark sea of everlasting foliage, and how grate-
fully he met with them no one could conceive un-
less he had lived in such a solitude. At a certain
distance from the coast the mountainous country
began and ran almost "parallel with it. That
range of mountains seemed to gird almost
all the western coast of Africa. Between
these mountains and the sea the country
which he had explored was low and marshy, and in
it were found many rivers and streams. The low
land was alluvial, andhad had no doubt been formed
by deposits which had been washed down from the
table lands. Two great rivers pierced that district,
one from the north-east, the other from the south-
east ; they united, and formed a river which dis-
charged itself into the sea, forming a delta. In the
great woody wilderness man was scattered and
divided into a great number of tribes. He was struck
by the absence of those species of animals which
were found in almost every other part of Africa, and
he did not wonder at it, for the country was not at
all like those parts which he had previously explored.
He found neither lion, rhinoceros, zebra, giraffe, nor
ostrich ; the great number of elands, gazelles, &c.,
found everywhere else were not to be seen. The fo-
rest thinly inhabited by man was still more scantily
inhabited by beasts. Now and then by the side of the
wild man roamed the apes, among them the savage
gorilla, which sometimes destroyed the plf.ntations of
the native and sent hunger into his householdb There
was no horse, camel, or donkey; woman was thebeast
of burden. He himself never travelled with a load
less than 301 b. Miles and miles were travelled with-
out hearing the sound of a bird, the chatter of a
monkey; or the footstep of a gazelle. The hum of
insects, the falling of a leaf, or the gentle murmur
of a little stream, were the only sounds which came
upon the ear and broke the awful silence in that the
grandest solitude which man could ever behold—a
solitude which often chilled him, but which was well
adapted for the study of nature. He felt that that
field belonged to him. He rejoiced that no other
white man had been there, but he felt the responsi-
bility of the work which it had fallen to his lot to
accomplish. He was the pioneer, and he felt that
on him it perhaps depended as to whether or not
others would follow in his wake. He assured them
that his whole soul was engaged in the work
which he had undertaken, and the days passed
pleasantly when illness did not lay him prostrate.
The study of the great book of nature made
him forget the hardships he had to pass through.
He had plenty to do. There was the study of
man in his primitive condition, and there were -as-
tronomical and meteorological observations to make;
added to which, there was the discovery of new lands,
which would bring fresh subjects continually before
him. Happily, he could travel under the leafy
canopy of the forest, sheltered from the powerful
rays of the equatorial sun. Two or three degrees of
latitude would make an enormous difference in the
wet or the rainy season ; longitude on the other
hand affected the temperature, though in a less de-
gree. He thought that the differences of latitude and
longitude had been rather overlooked in the study
of the supply of water to the Nile. In the interior
there seemed to be no very distinct dry season ;
they had rains, though not very heavy, through-
out the year. Tornadoes would suddenly spring
up, and within 30 tor 40 seconds burst over the
country, coming almost from the north-east. Dur-
ing those tornadoes he was very much struck with
the vibrations of the magnetic needle. While he
was making astronomical observations at night, the
sky would suddenly become covered with a grey
vapour, coming always from the south-east. It
lasted for an hour or two, would then disappear,
and afterwards appear again. That vapour did
not reach to the earth. He thought it would be
well for travellers to publish their astronomical ob-
servations at the end of their books, for two rea-
sons. In the first place, the original observations
would afford a criterion of the degree of reliance to
be placed on the observing powers of the traveller ;
and, secondly, in the event of errors being sus-
pected, they might be traced to their origin and
the observations reduced again, with any improve-
ments in astronomical tables which time might
bring forth. Man had also been a subject of very
great study by him. In those mountainous re-
cesses man was what they might call primitive.
No trading caravans had penetrated to him ; no
" fiery water" had reached his place : he was shut
out from the world around him. The few indivi-
duals who left the interior country for the seashore
never went back to tell of the white man and the
world. The path was closed ; there was a gulf be-
tween the sea and the interior, though not be-
tween the interior and the sea. Throughout that
country tribes speaking one language were divided
from each other by tribes speaking another lan-
guage ; thus tribes became divided into clans, each
clan being independent of the others, and war fre-
quently taking place between them. There was a
great similarity in their form of government,
and he was much struck by the mildness of
their chiefs, who were more like fathers to them
than rulers. Questioning the natives about the past,
he found that to them it was a dark sea. As to lan-
guage, he had carefully noted down the words of
many tribes, including the words of the remark-
able tribe of dwarfs which he had discovered. He
had also carefully noted down their fables,. myths,
and legends. After a close study of languages which
at first seemed to him to be very different, he found
that they had a great similarity. Their language
seemed to be derived from two different sources. A
knowledge of the language of the coast tribes was
no help towards understanding the language of the
tribes in the interior. Fables were alike in all tribes,
and their superstitious customs were similar. A
belief in witchcraft was very prevalent, and was the
cause of untold slaughter. Nothing, not even the
slave trade, could compare with the destruction of
life caused by witchcraft. He mentioned this fact
because most travellers seemed to pass it over and
give all their attention to the slave trade, than which
witchcraft was much worse. Polygamy and slavery
were common to all the tribes, slaves being treated
as members of the family: He had tried in vain to
find remains of buildings, or anything which would
show that the negro had formerly been more ele-
vated—he would not say more civilised—than he
was at present. Other travellers had not been more
successful than he, and they must conclude, what-
ever might be their feelings, that the negro was now
in the same state that he was in past ages. (Hear,
hear.) The question would naturally occur to every
one how such a curious state of political disintegra-
tion as the one he had described had happened.
They must come to the conclusion that Africa had
not escaped political convulsions, followed by great
wars and migrations. He recommended all travel-
lers to note down words, so that they might see the
links which language would show between the
eastern and the western tribes. The population of
Africa had never been dense enough to fill up that
immense tract of country. Villages were continually
being sacked by the inhabitants of other and stronger
villages, and the people carried into slavery. In
other cases, raids were committed, the people
massacred, and the cattle plundered. Generally
speaking, no village was by itself strong enoughi to sack
another village. There were very few ages which
contained a thousand persons, most of them having
only from fifty to two hundred. Some of the tribes,
especially those to the north of the equator, were
very warlike, their mode of warfare consisting
chiefly of killing people in ambush. He found no
cannibals, in his last journey, south of the equator.

It seemed to him that the kingdoms of Eastern
Africa were fast coming to the same state of
disintegration as that which now prevailed
in Western Africa. He had been struck by the
decrease of population ; and here he must raise his
voice in defence of the white man, who had been
said to be the cause of it.. He admitted the popula-
tion was decreasing, but he alleged that that decrease
had begun before the white man entered the coun-
try. The white man noticed the decrease, but could
not stop it. Populous villages, where no white man
or fiery water had ever been, had decreased enor-
mously. lie might be laughed at for saying so, but
he was of opinion that the African would in time
disappear from his continent like the native Briton
from this island, the wild Indian from America, the
Australian from his country, and the Polynesian
from his many islands. Instead of mourning he
rejoiced that an all-wise Prosidence had caused the
more intellectual race to take the place of an inferior
one. Let them never despair. Little by little, and
by dint of great exertions, the large unknown space
of Africa was becoming smaller and smaller ; the
distance between his furthest explorations and the
lake discovered by Sir S. Baker, being only about
1,000 miles. The further he went into the interior,
the higher he found the land rise. A complete series
of observations enabled him to states that it rose
2,574 feet above the sea level. '1 here probably were
great rivers and lakes still to be discovered. Judg-
ing from the enormous quantity of rain which fell
beneath the equator, other rivers or lakes lying to
the, west must be found. M. Du Chaillu concluded
his address with a graphic account of the misadven-
ture which befell one of his party in the Asbangi
country, and which was the cause of his being
obliged to leave Africa without having, as he had
hoped to do, traversed the whole breadth of that
mysterious land, and with much emotion he de-
scribed the perils which he had, in consequence, to
endure, and the faithful manner in which his native
companions stood by him in a time of great per-
sonal danger.