Notes

Abstract

THE communications from Mr. Stanley in the Telegraph of Thursday and Monday last, though containing few positive additions to our knowledge, are full of interest; the episode on the arrival of the starved and wretched party at Ni Sanda is quite thrilling. Notwithstanding the number of cataracts and rapids on the Lualaba—Congo, Stanley maintains it is well fitted to become a great commercial highway—2,000 miles of uninterrupted water communication, opening up an extent of country embracing 600,000 square miles. North of the equator it receives a tributary 2,000 yards wide at its mouth, coming from a little north of east, and which, according to our present imperfect knowledge, is likely enough to be the Welle. Mr. Stanley speaks of the “infamous inaccuracy”of our present charts of West Africa, an inaccuracy which cost him the lives of many of his men, but which, no doubt, he will be able to correct. Three of Stanley's letters are dated from Nyangwe, and were written about a year ago. In them he speaks in the strongest language of the manner in which the slave-trade is carried on in that region, describes the wonderful forest scenery of the country between Tanganyika and Nyangwe, and gives some tender reminiscences of Livingstone preserved among the people, among whom the great traveller sojourned for so long. Mr. Stanley also endeavours to clear up the geography of the region between the Victoria, the Albert, and Tanganyika, showing that the most erroneous and confused ideas on the subject had been accepted mainly on the reports of natives to Sir Samuel Baker, No one now believes that the Tanganyika is connected with the Albert Nyanza, and, indeed, as Stanley suspects himself, he is, in refuting this notion, slaying the slain. From the little foretaste given us in these preliminary letters, there is no doubt that there is a rich feast in store for us of new and valuable information, and of adventure scarcely paralleled in the history of geographical exploration.