Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1854-06-21
Central Africa.

The Continent of Africa is like such great
potato as Irishmen are said to enjoy best-one
with bone in it. Geograpbers make easy work
with the outside, but they cannot set their teeth
into the bone in It's centre. In old books they
used to call Africa the dry nurse Of lions. She
certainly is terribly, thirsty old lady, and drinks
up her rivers like another sea. Though Solomon
had drawn circle of a thousand miles diameter
about its center to Danish Africa and wicked Ge-
nil within, no mortal had yet been inside Of it to
bring back the tidngs Of their penitence. Human
enterprise has not yet reached its limits, howev-
er 1t IS not admitted that men will not yet keep
Christmas and throw up their windows for a
breath Of cool air at the very foot Of the North
Pole, and drink ice water and eat melons in the
very heart of Africa. s -. ,r- ..-,.a g 'sr-a.
! Three several expeditions are now in progress
striving to penetrate to this latter point. DR.,
Baths is about preparing TO return to EuroPe.-
DR.. VOgel's has just reached that outpost Of the
central unexplored portion, which bears no name
of town, river Or mountain upon it--Luke Tchad
"a sheet Of water not differing much in urea
from that of the Aral Seas 1t was near this lake
that Dr. Vogel. ON the Sd of January last, wus
riding on horseback, as he pennedaa brief letter
that announces his safe arrival across the desert,
and the health of his companions. In one of the
villages not named ,any map Or in the gazet-
teers, there had been great revolution and one
in authority, good friend Of the expeditionists,
had died. The Doctor makes Tchad to be but
$50 feet above the level of the sea, instead Of
1000 as has been held, and that the rivers, fo1
many miles around, all run towards it, instead Of
its dischargiug itself either into the Niger or the
Nile. A conclusion which must modify the
course of succeeding expeditionists, and lead to
new theories Of the physical conditions and eli
mate of Central Africa. Itgives additional rea-
son to hope that steamers will fine less rapids in
the streams than had been feared to obstruct their
J passage. .a sd.
, Meanwhile on the l7th of May steamer, the
Pteiad rigged also as powerful fore-and-af
schooner, left Liverpool to try her fortune iI at
f cending the Chuddu, one of the branches Of
trunks Of that strange river Niger which, rising
, not very far from the Western Coast, pushes
eastward into the desert--is swallowed up by tn,
thirsty sands, reappears after trayersing thir'
e part of the width OF the Continent, and runnin!
X southwark, empted into the Blight of Benin
: -Four times before, attempts to ascend the Nge
o have been made. Whether this will prove NOR
successful than the proceeding, we shall probabl
o know by Christmas, since whatever is done i
y that climate must be quickly done. The Pleia
: goes thoroughly equipped for geographical e,
If plorations. The Europeans of her compan
l. number not over thirteen. The crew will be ne
e groes, and about ninety of them. She is to be
Is the mouth Of the Kowasa on the lst of July, on
y hopes by the frs. of August to have reached &
far up the Chadda as it will be possible, with tn
IS steamer, to ascend Mr.. Macgregor Laird bea
" The expenses of the Expedition, though for Il
y passage of the Commissioners appointed by Go
e. ernment Cor the service, he receives compens
re ton. The three Commissioners are Captain
H. croft, DR.. VIM. Ballour Baidie, the Naturalis
e. and Dr. VIM. Bleek, the Ethnographer and Ii
In gust. God speed them into the desert and ba
p. again, with abundance of such treasures as eve
Of new Exploring Expedition returns to Science.
N. Y. Times.