Chapter XII: Great Explorers (2)

On the West coast of Africa the most remarkable journeys made in the
fifties and sixties were those of Paul du Chaillu, who travelled in
the Gaboon country, and whose natural history collections almost
surpass those of any other traveller for their richness and the
remarkable forms they revealed. He will always be remembered as the
man who practically discovered the gorilla. Winwood Reade, the first
modern African traveller who was at the same time a literary man,
visited the West coast of Africa in the sixties, and travelled
inland to the source of the Niger. His exploring journeys were of
small account, but his descriptions of West Africa are the most
vivid, the most truthful, and will perhaps prove to be the most
enduring, of any that we possess. (Sir) Richard Burton of Tanganyika
fame, who had been appointed Consul at Fernando Pô, ascended the
peak of the Cameroons, and visited Dahomé and the falls of the Congo
between 1860 and 1864. The Marquis de Compiégne and Herr Oskar Lenz
explored the Ogowé River, in French West Africa, in 1873; and later
Mr George Grenfell, a member of the Baptist Mission who was
afterwards to become still more famous, considerably increased our
knowledge of the Cameroons.

In 1876, Mons. M. J. Bonnat, a French trader, travelled up the Volta
River and reached the Muhammadan town of Salagá in the Gold Coast
hinterland; thus for the first time, since the vaguely recorded
Portuguese embassies to the king of Mosi in the 15th century,
bringing Europeans into touch with the Muhammadan lands beyond the
forest belt of Central Guinea.

Livingstone’s death and Cameron’s successful crossing of Africa did
a great deal to arouse European interest in that continent. H. M.
Stanley was despatched by the _New York Herald_ and the _Daily
Telegraph_ to complete Livingstone’s explorations of the Unknown
River. In 1875 he started on that journey which in its discoveries
and its results is the greatest feat to be found in the annals of
African exploration. He circumnavigated the Victoria Nyanza and
Tanganyika, marched across to the Lualaba, and followed its course
resolutely and in the teeth of fearful obstacles until he proved it
to be the Congo, and emerged on the Atlantic Ocean in 1877.

Cameron’s journeys had aroused the Portuguese from their lethargy.
Three explorers, Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello, and Roberto Ivens, were
despatched to Angola. Leaving São Paulo de Loanda in 1877, Serpa
Pinto journeyed in zigzags to the Zambezi, and descended that river
to the Barotse country, whence he accompanied M. Coillard, the
French missionary, across the Kalahari Desert to the Transvaal.
Capello and Ivens explored the northern part of Angola and the River
Kwango. Two or three years later they started on a journey
remarkable for the importance of the geographical results obtained.
They explored much of the Upper Zambezi, tracing that river to its
source, travelled along the water-parting between the Zambezi and
the Congo, and then turned southwards again to the Zambezi, and so
out to the Indian Ocean.

In the Nile regions explorations were steadily continuing. One of
the great African travellers, Georg August Schweinfurth, a native of
German Russia (Riga), first visited the Nile valley as a botanist.
In 1868 he started on a journey of exploration up the White Nile and
the Bahr-al-Ghazal, accompanying Nubian ivory merchants. With these
he penetrated far to the southwards through the Nyam-nyam country
till he reached the Mañbettu country, and there he discovered the
Wele River, flowing to the west, which ultimately turned out to be
one of the principal feeders of the Mubangi, the great northern
confluent of the Congo. Schweinfurth returned to Egypt in 1872, and
for a long time devoted himself to the botanical exploration of
Egypt, Arabia and Abyssinia. His journeys, from the enormous amount
of material gathered together, were surpassed in importance by few
African explorations. Sir Samuel Baker (1868-73) and later General
Gordon became Governors-General of the Egyptian Sudan, a vast
dependency of the half-European state of Egypt, which naturally,
whether under European or Egyptian governors, employed large numbers
of Europeans. Amongst those who added to our geographical knowledge
were Colonel Purdy-Bey, Colonel Colston, the great General Gordon,
and Marno (a Viennese); Colonel Chaillé Long (an American), who
visited Uganda, discovered Lake Ibrahim, and actually proved that
the Nile flowed out of the Victoria Nyanza, and then into the Albert
Nyanza; and Linant de Bellefonds, a Belgian, who also visited Uganda
whilst Stanley was there in 1875, Stanley giving him a famous letter
to be posted in Egypt[181]. There were also Colonel Mason Bey and
Gessi Pasha, who circumnavigated the Albert Nyanza; poor Lupton Bey,
who explored the Bahr-al-Ghazal and Nyam-nyam country and died after
long captivity in the Mahdi’s hands; and Slatin Pasha, once Governor
of Darfur, who had a happier fate.

The establishment of missions in Nyasaland drew explorers thither.
Captain Frederic Elton, who had been appointed Consul at Moçambique,
journeyed to Lake Nyasa with several companions, explored the
northern extremity of the lake, and started to return overland to
Zanzibar, but died on the way. His successor as Consul, Lieutenant
H. E. O’Neill, crossed backwards and forwards over utterly unknown
ground between Moçambique and Nyasa, fixed many positions at the
south end of the lake and in the Shiré Highlands, and explored many
parts of Portuguese East Africa north of the Zambezi. Bishop Steere,
Bishop Chauncey Maples, Bishop Smythies, and other missionaries of
the Universities’ Mission also explored the country between Lake
Nyasa and the River Ruvuma and the Moçambique coast. South of the
Zambezi, explorations had been carried out by Baldwin, Baines,
Andersson, Eriksson, and other sportsmen-travellers. Karl Mauch and
Edward Mohr (Germans) had explored Mashonaland (1866-9); and Mauch
had discovered gold in the stream valleys, and the remarkable ruins
of Zimbabwe. In 1875 Dr Paul Pogge made a journey from Angola to the
court of the Mwata Yanvo. Two other Germans, named Reichard and
Böhm, had in the later seventies crossed Tanganyika from Zanzibar,
and explored the country to the north of Lake Mweru.

In 1877, Dr Erwin von Bary, a German explorer, travelled far into
the Sahara from Tripoli and Southern Tunis, discovering some
remarkable recently extinct volcanoes in the country of Air. He was
however killed by the fanatical people of Ghat. In 1877 also a
notable journey was made into the Bahr-al-Ghazal province of the
Egyptian Sudan by a Greek doctor in the Egyptian service, P.
Potagos, who thus crossed into the Congo basin and reached the Mbomu
affluent of the Wele-Mubangi.

A remarkable journey was made in 1878-9 by Dr R. W. Felkin, who with
one or more missionary companions of the Church Missionary Society
journeyed overland from Suakin up the Nile to Uganda. They came back
again (with the Rev. C. T. Wilson) in 1881 from Uganda _via_ the
White Nile, Bahr-al-Ghazal and Darfur to Egypt.

Between 1880 and 1887, Professor J. Büttikofer, a Swiss (afterwards
a naturalized Dutchman), conducted a very careful exploration of the
coast-lands of Liberia, revealing much that was new and curious in
the remarkable fauna of that still little-known part of West Africa.

The return of Cameron and the subsequent success of Stanley had
caused the King of the Belgians to become intensely interested in
the exploration of Africa; at first, no doubt, from a disinterested
love of knowledge, but soon afterwards with the definite idea of
creating in the unoccupied parts of that continent a huge native
confederation or state which should become dependent on Belgium. The
king summoned to Brussels distinguished ‘Africans’ from most
European countries, with the desire of forming an International
Committee which should bring about the complete exploration of
Africa. But this international enterprise soon split up into
national sections; and what the King of the Belgians had intended
should be entirely disinterested geographical work ultimately
developed into the “Scramble for Africa.” Still, it did lead
considerably to the increase of geographical knowledge. The Royal
Geographical Society sent out a well-equipped expedition to Zanzibar
to explore the country between Tanganyika and Nyasa. It was under
the orders of Keith Johnston, who died soon after starting, leaving
his task to be fulfilled by Joseph Thomson. Mr Thomson was
completely successful, and covered much new ground between Nyasa and
Tanganyika to the west of Tanganyika, and to the south, where he
discovered the north end of Lake Rukwa[182]. On the West coast the
French Section despatched De Brazza to explore what is now French
Congo. His geographical discoveries led to annexation. Antonelli and
other Italians directed their efforts to the exploration of Shoa, to
the south of Abyssinia. But the main outcome of this action on the
part of the King of the Belgians was the founding of the Congo Free
State.

H. M. Stanley was sent back to the Congo at the expense of a small
committee—eventually at the sole charge of the King of the Belgians.
While he was by degrees reascending the Congo and making many
geographical discoveries, such as the Lakes Leopold and Mantumba, a
Baptist missionary already referred to, the Rev. George Grenfell,
made known the Mubangi River, the great northern affluent of the
Congo, which Colonel A. Vangèle and other Belgian explorers
afterwards determined to be the Wele. Lieutenant Hermann
Wissmann[183] (afterwards Major von Wissmann) mapped out the course
of the Kasai and other southern affluents of the Congo, and crossed
and recrossed Africa, coming out the first time at Zanzibar and the
second at the Zambezi. Dr Ludwig Wolf was the main agent in tracing
the course of the great Sankuru affluent of the Kasai. Other
companions of Wissmann were Major von François and Dr Hans Mueller.
Together they discovered the leading southern affluents of the Congo
between 1880 and 1886; but it must not be forgotten how much they
were helped in this respect by the Rev. George Grenfell of the
English Baptist mission and his mission steamer the _Peace_.
Grenfell stands second only to Stanley as a Congo explorer. Besides
his notable discovery of the Mubangi, he explored the Kwango (also
mapped in the middle of its course in 1880 by the Austrian, Major
von Mechow), the Kasai, Busira, Lulongo, Lomami, Aruwimi, and Ruki
rivers. W. H. Stapleton, Thomas Comber, Dr Holman Bentley, and
William Forfeitt, other members of the Baptist mission, and S. P.
Verner, an American, also explored the Congo basin in the last
quarter of the 19th century. J. R. Werner (an English engineer)
contributed some surveys of the Mongalla and the Northern Congo; and
Capt. Sidney Hinde (afterwards an English official in East Africa)
explored the Lualaba in 1892-3. The Belgian explorers who cooperated
with English and Germans in the great work of laying bare the
intricate mysteries of the Congo basin were, besides the estimable
Vangèle, Georges le Marinel, L. van Kerckhoven, A. Hodister, Paul le
Marinel, Dr Cornet, Alexandre Delcommune, Captain Baert, and Baron
Dhanis.

In 1879 Dr Oskar Lenz, an Austrian who had previously explored the
Ogowé, journeyed from Morocco to Timbuktu, and from Timbuktu to
Senegambia. Subsequently Dr Lenz ascended the Congo, and crossed
over to Tanganyika, returning to Europe by the Zambezi, on a more or
less futile attempt to discover the whereabouts of Emin Pasha. In
the earlier eighties another Austrian explorer, Dr Holub, travelled
in South Africa and made a journey into Central Zambezia. The
celebrated hunter of big game, Mr F. C. Selous, not only added much
to our knowledge of South-Central Africa (the Rhodesia of to-day),
but penetrated north of the Zambezi into the valley of the Kafue
river, his explorations in that direction having only been “caught
up with” quite recently. Mr F. S. Arnot, a missionary, made a
remarkable journey from South to Central Africa, exploring the
southern part of the Congo basin (Katanga) and reaching the west
coast at Benguela. In 1884 Lieutenant Giraud, a Frenchman, carried
out an interesting exploration of the Tanganyika plateau and Lake
Bangweulu, which he was the first European to map with any degree of
accuracy. In 1882 the Earl of Mayo, accompanied by (Sir) Harry
Johnston, explored the River Kunene, in South-West Africa.
Subsequently Johnston travelled through Angola and up the River
Congo, and on his return journey to England visited that little
known part of Africa, Portuguese Guinea. He was subsequently sent on
an expedition to Mt Kilima-njaro, in East Africa. Amongst other
geographical work he visited little known parts of Tunis in 1880 and
1897; discovered (with Dr Cross) the southern end of Lake Rukwa, in
East-Central Africa, in 1889; in 1886-88 explored the Cameroons and
the Niger Delta; made numerous journeys in “British Central Africa”
(Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia) in 1889-95; and added a little to
geographical knowledge in East Africa, Uganda, and on Mt Ruwenzori
in 1899-1901.

In 1883, Joseph Thomson, already famous as an African explorer, was
sent on a most important mission by the Royal Geographical Society.
He was to cross the nearly unknown country separating the Mombasa
littoral from the east coast of the Victoria Nyanza, between the two
great snow mountains of Kenya and Kilima-njaro (Kilima-njaro since
Krapf’s and Rebmann’s reports had been thoroughly mapped by Baron
von der Decken; it had also been ascended nearly to the snow level
by Mr Charles New). Joseph Thomson practically rediscovered Kenya
(Krapf’s account being so vague that it had become regarded as
semi-mythical), and photographed this second loftiest snow mountain
of Africa. After some difficulties he succeeded in penetrating the
Masai country, and described the great Rift valley of Lake Naivasha
(reached a year or so earlier by the German explorer, Fischer);
discovered Lake Baringo and Mount Elgon, and finally reached the
northeast coast of Victoria Nyanza—a most remarkable expedition,
resulting in great additions to our geographical knowledge. Thomson
subsequently made a journey from the mouth of the Niger to Sokoto,
explored the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, mapped much fresh country
in Central Zambezia, and died, still a young man and much regretted,
in 1895. The Hungarian, Count Samuel Teleki, who followed in
Thomson’s footsteps, discovered Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie.
Lieutenant Höhnel, who went with him, conducted other expeditions in
the same direction and accomplished admirable surveying work.

Then came the last epoch-making journey of Stanley—the search for
Emin Pasha. After the British occupation of Egypt and the loss of
the Sudan, Emin Pasha had retreated to the Equatorial Province.
Through Dr William Junker (a Russian traveller, who had made
journeys in the western watershed of the Nile, reached the Nepoko
affluent of the Aruwimi, and brought back great additions to our
geographical knowledge of the Nile-Congo water-parting) he managed
to communicate with Europe by way of Uganda, making known his
condition, and appealing for help. Stanley was placed at the head of
a great British expedition which was to go to his relief. He
travelled by way of the Congo, and at the junction of the Congo and
the Aruwimi entered the unknown. He crossed that always difficult
barrier, the Bantu borderland—in this case an almost impenetrable
forest. After overcoming innumerable obstacles, Stanley met Emin
Pasha on the Albert Nyanza, and eventually escorted him to the coast
at Zanzibar. In the course of this journey Stanley discovered
Ruwenzori, the third highest mountain in Africa, the Edward Nyanza
(one of the ultimate lake sources of the Nile), and the Semliki
River, which connects the Edward with the Albert Nyanza. Stanley’s
explorations were much assisted in this journey by his excellent
lieutenant, Captain Stairs, who was the first to attempt Ruwenzori
and who subsequently explored Zambezia and Katanga.

In West Africa, which had for some time been neglected as a field
for exploration, there still remained gaps to be filled up—in the
great bend of the Niger and behind the Cameroons. In the last-named
country German travellers—Dr Zintgraft, Lieutenants Morgen, Kund and
Tappenbeck, Von Stettin, Uechtritz and Dr Passarge—explored the
mountainous country between the Cameroons and the Benue watershed,
or traced the course of the great and hitherto quite unknown rivers
of Lom and Mbam, which unite and form the Sanagá, a river which
enters the sea on the south side of the Cameroons estuary. Dr Oskar
Baumann[184] also explored the neglected island of Fernando Pô. In
the bend of the Niger various French explorers and one or two
Germans and Englishmen filled up the blanks. Notable among these was
Captain (afterwards Colonel) L. G. Binger, who was the first to make
known much of the country between the Upper Niger and the Gold
Coast; and Colonel P. Monteil, who travelled across from the Upper
Niger to the Central Niger, and thence to Lake Chad and Tripoli
(1890-1). Colonel Binger’s journeys may be placed in the first rank
of African explorations. They were undertaken between 1886 and 1889,
and the results were published in 1892 (_Du Niger au Golfe de
Guinée_). Together with the work of Colonel Monteil, of Commandant
Georges Toutée, and of the German G. A. Krause, the English Captains
R. L. Lonsdale and Brandon Kirby, the Gold Coast native explorer G.
E. Ferguson, and Colonel H. P. Northcott, Binger’s surveys showed
the comparative narrowness of the Niger basin in the great bend of
the Niger. Much of the enclosed land is drained southwards into the
Gulf of Guinea by the Black and the White Volta, two streams uniting
after very long courses to form the main Volta. This is an important
river constituting the boundary (except at its estuary) between
German Togoland and the British Gold Coast. Binger did for this
region what Grenfell and Wissmann did for the secondary mysteries of
the Congo basin. The eastern half of the Niger course, from its
mouth upward to Sokoto, had been carefully explored in 1880-1 by the
German E. R. Flegel; and this last most noteworthy explorer in
1882-4 traversed the unknown southern basin of the Benue, and traced
that river to its ultimate source near Ngaundéré. The gap between
the basin of the Congo and Lake Chad was filled up between 1890 and
1900 by the explorations of Paul Crampel, Dybowski, C. Maistre, E.
Gentil, A. Bernard, F. J. Clozel and other French travellers.

Between 1889 and 1895, Sir Alfred Sharpe (afterwards Governor of
Nyasaland) gradually mapped Lake Mweru, discovered the large salt
marsh between that lake and Tanganyika, explored the Luapula and the
Luangwa, and made other interesting additions to the map in
South-Central Africa, discoveries supplemented by the survey of Lake
Bangweulu by Mr Poulett Weatherley. Captain Hore, an agent of the
London Missionary Society, made a survey of Lake Tanganyika between
1878 and 1889; and his discoveries in its water fauna were so
remarkable that Mr J. E. Moore (a scientific zoologist) was sent out
in 1896 to study the prawns, jelly-fish and water molluscs of
Tanganyika, the remarkable character of which had first been noted
by Böhm (1879) and Hore. Moore afterwards explored the snow-crowned
volcanoes of Mfumbiro (Virunga) and thence proceeded to Ruwenzori
(Mubuku valley) and Uganda. He had previously explored the water
fauna of Lakes Shirwa and Nyasa. Count Goetzen explored the unknown
country between Lake Edward Nyanza and Tanganyika, discovering the
lofty volcanoes of Virunga and Lake Kivu; and Mr Scott Elliott
journeyed from the east coast to Mt Ruwenzori, and thence to British
Central Africa for botanical purposes.

The great eastern horn of Africa, Somaliland and Galaland, was long
left unexplored after Burton and Speke’s journey to Harrar in the
fifties. At the beginning of the eighties its exploration was again
attempted. Messrs F. L. and W. D. James, with three companions,
penetrated Somaliland as far south as the Webbe Shebeili River. They
were succeeded in exploration by Révoil (a Frenchman), by Ruspoli,
Bricchetti-Robecchi and Bottego (Italians), and by Borelli (a
Frenchman). The last-named made a most important journey south from
Abyssinia, and discovered the Omo River. His account of his travels,
published by the French Government, is an almost perfect exemplar of
what such a work should be. Mr W. Astor Chanler, an American,
afterwards made an important rough survey of Galaland, north of the
Tana River. Dr J. W. Gregory, of the British Museum, travelled to
Lake Baringo and Kenya, which mountain he ascended higher than any
preceding explorer. Dr Gregory’s journey was productive of much
information regarding the geology of the countries traversed. Dr
Donaldson Smith (an American) travelled in 1894-5 over these
countries between Somaliland and Bantu East Africa, bringing back
much new material for geography. Captain (now Colonel) H. G. C.
Swayne explored the interior of Somaliland; Colonel Seymour
Vandeleur surveyed Uganda and Unyoro; Colonel Sir J. R. L. Macdonald
in 1897-9[185] conducted a most important expedition, which for the
first time traversed the mountainous country between Mt Elgon, Lake
Rudolf and the Mountain Nile, revealing much new geography and
ethnology; and Mr H. S. H. Cavendish in 1897-8 made a remarkable
journey across the eastern horn of Africa from the Gulf of Aden to
Lake Rudolf and Mombasa.

In 1899, Mr H. Mackinder ascended the snow peak of Kenya to its
highest summit. Nine years previously the great extinct volcano of
Elgon (Equatorial East Africa) had been climbed to its highest point
(14,000 ft.) by an expedition under Messrs F. J. Jackson and Ernest
Gedge. C. W. Hobley also added a great deal of detail to our
knowledge (geographical and ethnological) of inner East Africa, from
Elgon to the German frontier in the south, between 1896 and 1912.

The main features of German East Africa had already been discovered
before Germany took possession politically of the region between the
Zanzibar Coast and the great Lakes; but in 1889, Dr Hans Meyer
achieved the great feat of ascending the highest mountain in
Africa—Kilima-njaro—to its summit (19,321 feet). Oskar Baumann (a
Viennese) examined in some detail the northern parts of German East
Africa between 1888 and 1893, visiting the ultimate sources of the
Nile (the headwaters of the Kagera river) near the north-east coast
of Tanganyika and discovering or describing for the first time
tribes with puzzling linguistic affinities, such as the Sandawi. The
journeys of Dr Franz Stuhlmann both alone and with Emin Pasha,
especially in regard to the Tanganyika-Congo-Nile water-partings
were of great interest both to geography and ethnology. Honourable
mention must also be made of Captain Paul Kollmann, whose travels
round the south shores of the Victoria Nyanza and its islands
resulted in an admirable book on the people and languages of that
district.

Between 1884 and 1900, much important exploring work was done in
German South-west Africa by H. Schnitz, Dr von Passarge, Drs A.
Schenk and Stromer von Reichenbach. Togoland in West Africa was
explored during the early nineties by Dr R. Büttner (already known
for his journeys in West Congoland), by L. von Bunnon and N. Seidel.

Renewed interest in Morocco was shown during the last quarter of the
19th century. Besides the bold journey of Joseph Thomson to the
Atlas mountains in 1888, there was the really remarkable exploration
of nearly the whole Moorish empire in 1883-6 by Charles de Foucauld,
a Frenchman travelling in disguise. Walter B. Harris crossed the
Atlas into Tafilalt in 1895. In Central Africa Colonel J. B.
Marchand and his companions performed a wonderful journey in 1895-9.
Entering French Congo from the Loango coast, Marchand travelled up
the Congo and Mubangi Rivers till he paused for a further
organization of his mission near the Congo-Nile water-parting. Then
he transported his little steamer in sections to the Suë, a
confluent of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and thence navigated the western
confluents of the Nile till he reached the main stream. Pursuing his
journey east and north, he reached the old Egyptian station of
Fashoda on the White Nile, where he established himself, and where
he defeated a small body of Dervishes sent against him by the
Khalifa of Omdurman. The advent of the British and Egyptians under
Lord Kitchener rendered the evacuation of Fashoda by Marchand
necessary. The gallant French explorer therefore continued his
journey eastward by following up the Sobat River as far as it was
navigable, and thence struck across hitherto unknown countries, and
travelled through Shoa and Somaliland to the French port of Jibuti,
on the Gulf of Aden. From the point of view of distance traversed,
without great loss of men or material, Marchand deserves to rank as
a hero of African adventure.

The only travellers in Madagascar who achieved important results in
geography and physical science were the English missionary, the Rev.
J. Sibree (1868-85), and above all Dr Alfred Grandidier (1875-1900),
E. F. Gautier (1892-9), and Dr G. Grandidier (1898-1902). To the
last-named is mainly due the recent discoveries of semi-fossil
extinct lemurs described in the publications of the Zoological
Society of London. To Alfred Grandidier we owe the magnificent work
in 28 volumes which completely describes this strange island.

At the close of the 19th century France began to take definite
possession of the Sahara; and several expeditions, scientific and
political, traversed this desolate region and revealed all its
leading physical characteristics. Prominent among French explorers
was Fernand Foureau, who concluded ten years of varied explorations
by a magnificent journey in 1898-9 from Algeria to Zinder and Lake
Chad by way of Ahaggar, Air and Damerghu. G. B. M. Flamand explored
the important oasis of Tuat in 1900. Much exploring work went on in
the Niger Bend and the Ivory Coast hinterland; and the expedition
(1898-1900) of M. Hostains and Captain d’Ollone revealed great
mountains and the courses of numerous rivers in north-east Liberia.

This record brings us down to the beginning of the 20th century. The
least-explored parts of Africa that then remained were: (1) the
interior of Liberia; (2) the region between the Benue and Cameroons
watersheds; (3) Lake Chad and the country between Lake Chad, the
Shari, and the Nile; (4) the Western Sahara; (5) the Libyan Desert
and Tibesti; (6) Wadai; (7) the region between the Shari, the Benue,
and the Mubangi; (8) that between the Cameroons, the Sanga river,
and the Mubangi; (9) South-west Congoland; (10) South-east Angola;
(11) the Moςambique hinterland, between Moςambique and Lake Nyasa;
(12) South-west Galaland and the region between the Sobat River and
Lake Rudolf.

In regard to the first-named area, a good deal has been added to our
knowledge by the Dutch survey officers, Naber and Moret, by Mr John
Parkinson and Messieurs A. Chevalier and Maurice Delafosse; the
last-named having accomplished a remarkable language survey of West
Africa. In No. (2), must be recorded the journeys of Captain E.
Lenfant (who proved the connection between the Upper Benue and the
Shari system by way of the Tuburi marshes); of Colonel L. Jackson;
of P. Amaury Talbot (Benue, Cross River, and Ekoi country); and of
the German explorers F. Hutter, F. Bauer, and O. Zimmermann. As
regards No. (3)—Lake Chad—this first-discovered of all African lakes
was never properly investigated and mapped until the beginning of
the 20th century, when this work was accomplished by the expeditions
of Captain Lenfant, Colonel Destenave, Mons. A. Chevalier, and
Captain Tilho. It was also examined with much minuteness by
Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, whose Niger-Benue-Mubangi-Nile journey in
1905 greatly added to our knowledge of the Chad region. In No. (4),
the Western Sahara and Southern Morocco, we have had the important
explorations of the French officers or civilians, La Perrone,
Arnaud, Paul Blanchet, Edmond Doutté, Cortier, Niéger, and Gautier
(this last specially studied the rock-engravings and archaeology);
and the noteworthy journey of the Englishman, Captain A. H. Haywood,
who travelled from Sierra Leone to Algiers. No. (5), still remains
one of the blankest parts of Africa, though the Eastern Sahara from
Tripoli to Bilma was crossed by Mr Hanns Vischer of British Nigeria
in 1906. The Libyan Desert is also being explored by W. Harding King
and other British explorers coming from Egypt. In Wadai, which was
traversed by Lieutenant Boyd Alexander in 1910 (he was killed on the
Darfur border), the French military occupation will soon produce a
detailed survey. In No. (7), there have been the detailed
explorations of Captain E. Lenfant, and Messrs E. F. Gautier and R.
Chudeau, on behalf of the French Government. The principal blanks in
No. (8) have been filled up by an English traveller, Mr G. L. Bates
(a remarkable field naturalist who has made very important
discoveries of new vertebrates in West Equatorial Africa), by O.
Zimmermann and other German explorers. In South-west Congoland a
great explorer and anthropologist has come to the front, Mr Emil
Torday, a Hungarian, whose admirable works on the Bushongo and the
tribes of the Kwango, Kwilu, Kasai, and Sankuru rivers, have been
published in English and French. Mention should also be made of the
journeys through central and northern Congoland of an Austrian,
Franz Thonner, which have been of great value in determining the
intricate distribution of language families in that region.
South-west Angola still remains very little known, though the work
of the Lobito Bay-Katanga railway is gradually casting a light on
the geography of this region; while in Barotseland and Northern
Rhodesia there have been the first-class surveys of Major A. St Hill
Gibbons, Frank Melland, and other officials of the British South
Africa Company. A good deal of accurate surveying and geological
investigation is needed in No. (11). In No. (12) (Southern Galaland
and the Sobat to Lake Rudolf), there have been since 1900 the
remarkable explorations and surveys of Oskar Neumann (a German),
Captain M. S. Wellby, Captain H. H. Austen and Captain P.
Maud—English officers travelling on their own behalf or on that of
the British Government.

Dr Richard Kandt, a German, between 1901 and 1906, made a thorough
and careful survey of Lake Kivu, of the plateaus at the northern end
of Tanganyika, and of the Kagera (the ultimate Nile source) and its
tributaries. Between 1900 and 1904, Commander B. Whitehouse mapped
the entire coastline of the Victoria Nyanza Lake, making many new
discoveries and remedying many old errors of delineation.

The long-talked-of journey from the Cape to Cairo was accomplished
first in 1900 by Mr Ewart Grogan, followed soon afterwards by Mons.
Lionel Décle. Many tourists and officials subsequently have repeated
this feat, rendered comparatively easy now by the development of
railways and river-steamboat navigation. A noteworthy journey
however was that in 1911 of Mr Frank Melland and a companion on
bicycles, from Rhodesia to Egypt. German officers have motored
across Africa, from German East to German South-west Africa.

Noteworthy feats in exploration, though they may not have revealed
much that was new in cartography, have been the journeys and
studies of Lieut. P. H. G. Powell Cotton (Abyssinia, East Africa,
Congoland and Portuguese Guinea—1900-11); Auguste Chevalier, the
French botanist (Central Sudan, Upper Niger, West Congoland and
Liberia—1898-1910); Alexander Whyte, a Scottish botanical
collector (British Central Africa, East Africa, Uganda, and
Liberia—1891-1904); Dr W. A. Cunnington (Tanganyika, 1904-5);
H.R.H. the Duke of the Abruzzi, who in 1906 made the first
complete survey of the Ruwenzori range and ascended all the
highest peaks; A. Savage Landor, who crossed Africa at its
broadest, mainly on foot, from Somaliland to Senegal (1906);
Theodore Roosevelt (East Africa and Egyptian Sudan, 1909-10); and
Sir David and Lady Bruce (Uganda, Nyasaland, and Northern
Rhodesia—1903-11).

The heroic stage of African exploration finished with the 19th
century; and it is impossible to record the names of all the
military and civil officials who have since been quietly,
painstakingly, and usefully filling in the details between the broad
outlines drawn (at the cost of terrible fatigue, severe ill-health,
and danger from savage natives) by the great explorers of the past.
There are still many high mountains to be ascended—in the Atlas, in
Tibesti, on the north Liberian border, on the south-eastern limits
of the Niger basin, in the Cameroons, south-west Moçambique,
south-east Angola and northern Galaland; there are lakes to be
plumbed, geological formations to be determined, zones of vegetation
and distribution of the rapidly-disappearing fauna to be defined.
Archaeology in South-east Africa, in the Sahara, in Morocco and
Somaliland, still has some surprises in store for us. The
palaeontological exploration of Africa is merely beginning; and
already in Algeria, Egypt, East and South Africa, and Madagascar
research has produced evidence of an amazing vanished fauna of giant
buffaloes, giant dinosaurs, giant birds, big horses, small
dinotheriums, of the remote ancestors of the elephants, whales,
sirenians, hippopotami, giraffes, monkeys, and anthropoid apes. A
more careful search after living types has already revealed since
1900 the okapi in the north-east Congo forests, the big black pig of
Equatorial Africa, and several new antelopes and monkeys. Botanical
research has, since 1900, shown the existence in Africa of some
thirty sources of good rubber, and of many valuable gums and
oil-nuts. Gold has been found in the north-east Congo basin, tin in
Nigeria, and diamonds in German South-west Africa, in south-west
Congoland, and in Liberia. Africa will probably remain in the
future, what it has seemed to the Caucasian since he began his
historical colonization—the most interesting and mysterious of the
continents, always producing something new.

-----

Footnote 163:

See the article of Professor Flinders-Petrie in the _Geographical
Journal_, November, 1908.

Footnote 164:

Caius Plinius Secundus: born at Verona or Como 23 A.C. His
geographical publication or _Natural History_ was published
(according to Sir E. Bunbury) in 77 A.C.

Footnote 165:

He visited the Upper Niger in 1352.

Footnote 166:

The subsequent adventures of this heroic man, Lobo, are summarized
in my book, _The Nile Quest_, 1903.

Footnote 167:

Probably identical with the Ba-jok or Va-kioko between the rivers
Kwango and Kasai.

Footnote 168:

See my _Pioneers in West Africa_, 1911.

Footnote 169:

Where he was British Chaplain.

Footnote 170:

Pliny and one or two succeeding classical geographers mention the
Ger or Gir and the Niger as rivers of Western Africa, the former
being possibly the river Draa. Both words may be derived from
Berber roots.

Footnote 171:

See my work, _Pioneers in West Africa_, for details of Hornemann’s
journey and the possible date and place of his death.

Footnote 172:

Afterwards Sir William C. Harris. He explored Shoa (South of
Abyssinia) in 1841-2, and was knighted for concluding a treaty on
behalf of the Government of India with the King of Shoa.

Footnote 173:

Then nearly independent of Turkey, and ruled by the Karamanli
dynasty of Turkish pashas.

Footnote 174:

Denham, who had really rendered great services in the cause of
exploration, was rewarded somewhat inadequately with the post of
Secretary to the colony of Sierra Leone and Superintendent of the
slave settlement at Fernando Pô, where he soon died.

Footnote 175:

In a patent collapsible boat.

Footnote 176:

His name is spelt by the French “Mardochée.”

Footnote 177:

Ludwig Krapf, like his colleagues in East Africa, Rebmann and
Erhardt, was a native of Württemberg, having been born near
Tübingen in that South-German kingdom.

Footnote 178:

These in order of achievements were: Frédéric Caillaud (French)
who explored the Nile as far as Khartum and the Blue Nile to
Fazogl (1819-23); Adolphe Linant (Belgian) who in 1827 penetrated
150 miles above Khartum; Thibaut (French consul at Khartum), who,
with one of Muhammad Ali’s expeditions reached as far south as Bôr
(6°, 30′ N. Lat.); and Ferdinand Werne (German) who got as high up
the Mountain Nile as Gondokoro (4°, 20′) and mapped the whole
course of the river from Khartum to Gondokoro in 1841.

Footnote 179:

For a detailed account of Miss Tinne’s work and terrible death,
see my book _The Nile Quest_ (1903).

Footnote 180:

Dr Bastian had explored the Lower Congo in 1858; and the region of
Loango was examined by a German scientific expedition in 1875-80,
by Bastian, Pechuel Loesche, Falkenstein, and other German
explorers.

Footnote 181:

This was the letter which Stanley wrote to England appealing to
missionaries to come out and settle at the court of the King of
Uganda. It was taken away by Linant de Bellefonds to be posted in
Egypt. After leaving Uganda, de Bellefonds was killed by the Bari
on the Upper Nile. Stanley’s letter was concealed in one of the
boots of the corpse when it was recovered. It was handed to
General Gordon, and transmitted by him to England.

Footnote 182:

Sir Harry Johnston and Dr Cross discovered the south end of this
lake in 1889.

Footnote 183:

Wissmann was a lieutenant in the Prussian army, born at
Frankfurt-on-the-Oder. He played subsequently a great part in
German East Africa.

Footnote 184:

Baumann made a careful examination of the mountainous country of
Usambara in East Africa, and mapped the lands due west of the
Victoria Nyanza.

Footnote 185:

Sir J. R. L. Macdonald (then Captain Macdonald, R.E.) had
conducted with Captain Pringle, R.E. a very remarkable railway
survey at the beginning of the nineties, from Mombasa to the
Victoria Nyanza, a survey which was really a geographical
exploration of the East Africa Protectorate.