Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-08-25
Stanley and African Discovery.

| can exploration within the last 20 years.
AT the remote commencement of that pc
riod, all Central Africa was an unknown
region, across which some geographers
stretched the mythic Mountains of the
Moon, while others lefl it bare blank on
the maps. There were then, as for thou
sands of years, three unanswered ques-
tions: as TO the sources of the Nile, as to
the causes of its annual inundItion, and as
to the supply of the mighty, exhaustless
stream of the Egyptian river, flowing as IL
does, for 17O0 miles through n burning,
ranless desert without tributary.
The first OF these puzzles TO be solved
was that of the yearly overflow which
makes the valley of Egypt Gertile.' One
summer night in 1861, Sir Samuel Baker
was hustled out OF bis encampment in the
dry bed of the Atbara river, in Nuba, by
the sudden, thunderous approach of tre
mendous flood, which in the morning he
beheld, 20 feet deep and half mile wide,
rolling down 10 the Nile. He at once d.
vined the meaning of the torrent, aud fur
thcr Investigation proved that the Atbara
principally, a"d the Blue Nile further
south in auxiliary measure, draining the
extensive mountain country of Abysinnia,
gave TO Egypt her wonderful iertlizing
flood. Its primary causes are supposed TO
be the moisture laden east winds from
the Indian ocean, striking its cold peaks
and leaving there their burden.
The discovery of the reservoirs of the
Nile in the great lake system of Central
Africa is due TO Speke aud Burton, and to
Baker. Capt. Speke in 1858 touched the
southern shore of the Victoria Niyanza,
and four years later beheld its outlet at the
north, through The Napoleon channel and
over the Ripon Falls; but he made no ex-
ploralion Of the lake or the river flowing
from it, and supposed the latter TO be the
stream of the White Nile. Sir Samuel Ba-
ker and his wife, in 1864, traced this outlet
to its entrance into anotber lake, lying
westward, which he named Albert Niyan-
"a, and believed to be the greater of the
two bodies of water, and the real source of
the Nile.
DIR. Livingstone, striking the long lake
Tanganyika, which Speke and Burton had
discovered 10 the south of the Albert and
Victoria lakes, proved that it was not as
they had presumed, the feeder Of the Zam-
besi, but that the watersheds of the latter
river,-thc largest African stream that emp
ties into the Indian ocean, were totally
distinct from those of the lake. Then he
surmised that the Tanganyika had an out
let at the northern end, emptying it into
the Albert lake, and during the yeaIs in
which he was lost TO the world he found,
FoaAp for tho tpnrihig knntu1aAUo i'm
meuse system of lakes and rivers west of
Tanganyiks, and The Lualaba river flow
ing north and west. He died in tue faith that
this river was the primitive origin OF the
Nile, having, after his finding by Stanley,
gone southwark again, 10 make certain ev-
cry step in the survey.
After Livingstone came Lieut.. Cameron,
who found the outlet Of Tanganyika into
the Lukuga river on its western side, near
the southern end, and, believing that it
poured into the Lualaba, and that river in
10 the Congo, set himself 10 trace that river
10 the Atlantic. Hostile tribes prevented,
aud he struck the Atlantic far south OF The
Congo, leaving the Lualaba's course and
identity still matters Of conjecture. But
what he did settle is, that it cannot flow in
TO the Albert lake nor be tributary TO the
Nile, on account of the difference of levels.
In establishing this last fact, that the
great region of waters discovered by Liy-
ingstone must drain into the Atlantic, and
not the Nile basin, it Is also made certain
that Stanley has discovered the head
stream of the Nile, in the great liver Shin
eeyu, flowing into the Victoria lake from
the southeast, from region as yet only
made known by SANKEY'S passage through
it. This, so far, is his share of the Nile
work. The work on which he is at pres
ent engaged he himself describes in pri-
vate letter TO Mr.. Edward King, as that OF
exploring these various lakes, discovering
their sources, and unraveling the compli-
cations of geographers. The Gordon ex-
pedition, one of whose members has lately
circumnavigated the Albert lake, is busy
in the same direction, and has already, as
il seems, settled that the Albert lake is
lesser body than the Victoria, and receives
no affiuent of any consequence from any
point, except the stream from the Victoria.
The discoveries of these two or three years
past have been so important, numerous
and rapidly succeeding, that they have
made obsolete the statements and probabil-
tiles of the American cyclopedia in rela-
ton TO this region and we have not, in
this brief survey, even alluded to the ex
| plorations of Barth and Schweinfurth in
the northern part of Central Africa.
"As now disclosed" to quote from the
Herald, "tAe Nile is the longest river of
the world. 1t drains a basin which, south
of Egypt, is equal to the support of lOO, ,OOO,-
900 of people," from its capacities in the
production of foods, the raising of cattle,
the growth of timber, the abundance of
| game and fish, the great lake system, un-
rivalled by any save that of North Ameri-
ca, and probably far surprising that. All
this region is crowded full of peoples in
various states of savagery, and most of
| them ready for war at the moment, for
cause or without cause. Every step of ex-
ploration is taken, every item of knowl-
edge gained, at the imminent risk of hu-
man life. But the discoveries are not bar
ren ones, and we cannot say that these
| lives are foolishly or vainly risked, as we
cannot but feel those are that venture
among the icebergs for the chimera of a
northwest passage. ...
In his latest letters, Stanley records two
voyages on the Victoria lake; the one In
which he bad an exciting encounter with
the savages inhabiling an island on which
he attempted TO land, killing fourteen of
them with his elephant riaei the other
return by aid of the king of Ukerewe to
Uganda, "chastising" the hostile people of
Bumbireh on the way, aud inflctlng loss