The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-22

| Balonda respecting the Kasai and Quaugo. |
They invariably describe the Kasai as receiv- |
ing the Quango, aud beyond the confluence |
assuming the name of Haire, or Zerezere. |
And the Kasai, even previous TO the junction, |
is much larger than the Quango. from the nu- |
merous branches it receives, |
Distinct as this information seems TO be, l |
venture, nevertheless, to dispute its validity. |
In the first place, i demur generally to the |
conclusion drawn from the apparently con- |
current testimony of native traders, than
which often nothing can be more fallacious.
In proof of this may appeal to the Athena
um of the 4th of December last, where |
showed how Sir Samuel Baker had formally |
recorded his opinion, based on enquiries he
had made of traders, black, white, and
brown, that the source of the Nile was ''as
nearly as possible upon the Equator" and
that Spekes Nyanza had nothing to do with
this river. Yet we see how the same traveller,
by his discovery of the "Albert Nyanza"
shortly afterwards, proved himself to have
been grossly misinformed.
1t may, however, be objected that there is
one of DIR. Livingstone informants- namely,
the old man from Mails town that pointed
out the confluence of the Quango and Kasai-
whose testimony is too precise and circum-
stantial to be thus set aside. / will there
fore adduce similar, only stronger, instance
of native testimony given to myself, which
conclusively demonstrates that the idea which
the natives of Africa, and probably of other
parts of the world likewise, have of the juno
tion of rivers is often totally different from
that entertained by ourselves.
When l was at the commercial town of
Yaush, in Godjam, in August, 1S42, OBJ
tanned from an intelligent Christian native
trader, named Fanta, much valuable informa-
tion respecting the provinces of Abyssinia
east of the Abai, and north of Shoa. On my
inquiring of him the course of the rivers Mill
and Berkona, two affluents of the Hawash, he
answered that he knew them well, and that
they both joined the Abai. As l was aware
they did nothing of the Sort / began to fear
that the whole of Fanta's information might
be of the same apocryphal character. But
little explanation showed he was right accord4s
ing to his own way of thinking and speaking.
On my expressing doubts as to the correctness
of his assertion, he not only repeated it, but
appealed to myself as o witness of the fact.
''Do you not say, asked he, 'that you came to
Shoa through the Adal country" / admitted
it. consequently you crossed the Hawash,
into which the Mill and Berkona flow. ''This,
too, could not deny. "The Hawash, after
passing between Adal and Shoa, runs round
to the south of the latter country, between it
and Guragye. Does it not?" AS l now began
to conceive Fanta's meaning, did not think
it worth while to dispute his assertion, though
the fact is that the course of the Hawash is
said he triumphantly, 'the Hawash joins the
Muger, the confluence of which latter river
with the Abai you have seen with your own
eyes," This last likewise was true enough,
| and so the worthy Fanta, by merely making
| the Hawash run the wrong way, and regard
ing the Muger as o continuation of it, be-
| cause the two rivers have some of their
sources together on Mount Salala, succeeded
| in proving to his own satisfaction, if not en-
| To mil hot
| join the Abai.
In like manner, the fact that some tributa-
ries of Kuango (Quango) and the Kassavi
| (Kasai) have their sources together in the
Mossamba Mountains, near the town of Mai,
| led DR.. Livingstones informant to assert the
confluence of these two rivers.
This anecdote respecting Fanta was related
by me as long ago as the year 1849, in my
observations sur la Communication sup
posee entire le Niger ct le Nil' published in
| the 'Nouvelles Annales des Voyages" 5me
serie, TOM ii. PIP. 186-194), for the purpose
of explaining and refuting statement made
by Fellatah pilgrim, named Adder -Rahman,
to the late M. Fulgence Fresnel, from which
statement that learned Orientalist inferred, in
spite of his own great local experience and
knowledge, that water communication ac-
tualy existed between the Atlantic Ocean and
the Mediterranean Sea, by means of ''Canal
des deuX MerS," as he called it, of which,
unlike the one that has now Just been opened
he imagined Nature had been at the expense.
1t is singular that after a lapse of twenty
years, should have occasion to repeat this
anecdote for the purpose of rebutting the
inference from similar native statement of
the existence of q water communication be-
tween the Kuango (Congo) and the Nile
This objection having thus been removed
the question of the lower course of the Kas-
saw is freed from all difficulty, and the river
may now be allowed to run in the direction
in which Ladislaus Magyar said it does When
that observant traveller first learned that the
Kassavi flows towards the east he had not,
nor any one, the remotest idea of the possi-
bility of its connection with the Nile; and as
it was evident that SO immense O river must
enter the sea somewhere, it was natural for
him to conclude that its mouth was in
the Indian Ocean. Between 1853, when he
expressed such an opinion, and 1853, when
he wrote the heletterpublishedby by DR.. Petermann,
Magyar must, however, have heard of the
''reputed great lake of Nyassa, which Burton
and Spoke were sent to explore in 1856, and
consequently nothing was more reasonable
than that he should then make his river
Kassavi run into that lake-for such 1
understand to be what he meant by his
extensive lake Nhanja (by mistake written
Uhanja). His other name for it, Moeva or
Moera, may possibly be intended for Moravi
or Maravi, as the same lake was sometimes
called. Had the Hungarian traveller lived
to know of Bakers Albert Nyanza, he would
OF course have made this the recipient of
the Kassiya and he would thus have solved
the Nile problem, instead of leaving to me
Its solution with the help of his materials