The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-11-03
The xew Route to stanley Pool.

\ Oh an OktraOruiuary meeting Oh tne UeO
graphical Society of Paris. held in tn
great ampitheatre of the Sorbonne, NJ
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who presided, il
addressing the crowd who had just ap
plauded the recital by Savorgnan d
Brazza of his journeys between tn
Ogoone and Congo, pronounced thes
words: s
"You applaud with reason the stor,
of our traveller. He has given you
though briefly, the results of two year
and a half Of explorations which vii
mark an epoch in the history Of gecssra
ply. The shortest way of access to tn
heart of Africa has been found, and tn,
future will demonstrate the great import
ance of this fact far better than could on,
narration of it, H
We have, in fact. arrived at decisiv,
moment in the hist oIy of the opening o
the African confident. The difficultie:
encountered by tn! numerous expedition.
starting from the '-ast coast in the neigh
borhood of Zanzi1;r, have given birth tt
the idea that it vIiuld be easier to pen
citrate into equatorial Africa from The
west coast. Since the great journey O
Stanley this thought has taken consist
ency. The great valley of the Congo
has appeared like an open door to the
interior of Africa. Stanley Pool, above
the rapids of the lower course of the
river, will be the key to it. Stanley ha:
undertaken to open communication be-
tween Vivi and Stanley Pool, by a road
around the rapids, and the commercial
and missionary societies have rivaled
each otherin their ardor to reach the lat
ter point, for the establishment of factor
les and mission stations, and the employ
ment of steamboats, to explore all the
basin of the middle Congo and carry
there the benefits of Christianity and
civilization. But in view of the Difficult
ties presented by the rapids of the Congo
it has been asked if there might not be
an easier and shorter route for reaching
Stanley Pool. The last travels of Savorg.
nan de Brazza. during the years 1880 and
1882, in the region between the Ogoone
and the Congo seem to furnish favor
able answer to this question.
When De Brazza, in 1875, undertook
to explore the Ogoone, the idea generally
prevailed that it took its rise far in the
interior of the continent, and in his first
journey he reached the Alma and the
Licona and the village of Okauga on the
northern branch of the latter river He
was ignorant of the fact that at just
about that time Stanley was making the
discovery of the great northern bend of
the Congo, and of the northeasterly and
southwesterly direction of that river
in the lower course, and also that the
Alma and LicOna were, in fact, tributa-
ries of the great Congo. In spite of his
desire to solve the problem of the hydro
graphy of that part of Afric I, that ques-
ton became ever more obscure to him.
Nevertheless, he succeeded IN this first
journey in dispelling the feats and hos
tility of the native tribes along the bord-
ers of the Ogoone, and unitipS all in a
common feeling of goodwill to-
wards the whites. and thus greatly
facilitating his future task. On his
return to the coast the news of STAN
ley's discoveries on the Congo made him
believe that the Alma must be an affiu-
ent of that great river, and the difference
in the structure of the valleys of the
WINGED him of the possibility of reaching
Stanley Pool more easily by the former
than by ascending directly the Congo.
In fact, access to the Alma, river II,
yards wide and eighteen feet deep at the
point where De Brazza crossed it, is
comparatively easy by way of the Ogoone.
From the latter river to the Alma the
distance is only seventy miles, and the
country between offers no great obsta-
Giles to the transportation of merchandise,
or even the building of n railroad, while
from the point reached on the Alma,
steamboats, of small tonnage could easily
descend to the Congo. To demonstrate
these facts and to found two civilizating
stations, one on the upper Ogoone and
the other on the Congo, De Brazza left
Europe in December, 1879, for second
journey up the Ogoone. In January,
1880, he arrived at Gaboon, and in June
Of the same year, after successful voy-
age and peaceable negotiations with the
natives for site, he established his first
station, Franceviae, at the confluence
of the Ogoone and the Passa, about $50
miles from the ocean. Leaving France
table-lands occupied by the friendly
Achicouyas, passed down the Lefini by
boat to Ngampo. then leaving the river
he proceeded on foot guided by vassal
chief of Makoko, till he reached the Con-
go. He describes the appearance of the
great river as stretching away to the
northeast like an inland sea, flowing
with current so gentle as
not to disturb the sleep of nature with
the sound OF its waves. After concluding
a treaty of peace with the war-like-Ou
bandits, he descended the Congo in one
of their beautiful canoes as far rs Stanley
Pool, on the right bank of which Utamo,
the key to the middle Congo, is situated.
having given him the choice of
a location for a station on the Congo, he
chose the territory lying between the
rivers Impila and ID jour (the Gordon Ben
nett, of Stanley, and on the 1st of Octo-
Der, 1880, three months after his de-
parture from Franceville, he laid the
of the town to which the geo.
society of Paris has given the
name of Brazzaville. In the second
journey he had travelled a distance of
800 miles in country hitherto unknown,
healthy, fertile, inhabited by numerous
and peaceful populations, easy to cross
with wagons, and which, he thinks, pre-
sents no difficulties for the construction
of a railways. II. B. Lord. in the
Interior.
For long time the art of making
what is known as Egyptian black pot
terry has been lost to the world. The
black is of peculiarly brilliant appear
ance which modern makers have been
unable TO produce. But the owners of
pottery works in Devonshire, England,
are now putting forward the claim that
the lost secret has been found by them.
Il IL = IL