LIEUTENANT CAMERON'S EXPLORATION.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 616, 9 June 1876, Page 3

LIEUTENANT CAMERON'S EXPLORATION.

jO Passing now to other subjects, it is With unmirigled-flatiafaction that the con'ntry'has this \?eek Welcomed Lieutenant Cameron back £o English soil. . The young African r q£U )iim, is h9t,n>Oie than &)TandSd entertairiwa ht a lunchdh by< the ■ Mayor. In reply to the toast pi" his health, he gave- a brief sketch of his travels, with the'main results of which we have been previously acquainted by letter. It will be recollected that he went out first at the head of the relief party despatched - by the Geographical Society in search of Dr Livingstone, that he was for some time detained on the seaboard, and on his first advance into the, interior, prostrated by fever, and that before he bad recovered the news reached him of the death of ? the great traveller. Subsequently he pressed forward to the shores of the Lake Tanganyika, found the map- and journals of - Livingstone, and sent them -home ; and then commenced his own explorations, He discovered alter careful examination that at the southern end of the lake every

Siver flowed inwards, but that bn the west here was a river, called the Lakauga, which, lowed outwards about twenty-five mile's jbuth of the point to which Captain Speke lad crossed. Pushing forward, he found that the Lualaba,,instead, of flowing to the north as Livingstone conjectured, turned to |he west in a vast stream, and the information he obtained, as well as the observations he made, convinced him that it was the Congo, He. next tried to get to the lake ijntn which the Congo falls—the Loami; but a hostile. Chief refused to give him a passage, working south he; came to a place where • tihere were some and was delayed f6r 7 ab6ui ' Six' months. During that time, However, he was able to see Lake Kassali, Hnd although not allowed to cross the Loyoi, vithich was between him and the lake, he slw that the latter was one of’ the great affluents of the Congo. Following the water parting between the Zambesi and the Congo till he came to the basin of the Kwanza Bonn to Behi, he jri, fthp mmfoe of Africa one of the most magnificent sjstems of water communication in the World. “ The Congo and the Zambesi might, if) fact, be joined by, r » canal thirty miles in lebgtß. The ; riches of the country were unspeakably great, and he was sure that hereafter Africa, especially on this side of the Tanganyika and the highlands, of the watorcourse"of Befrguela; would 'be a centre of, civilisation and productive trade. Those districts would be new granaries for the wbrld, where .manufactures could be carried oh, and coal and iron mines worked, when those in other parts of the world were exhausted. Iflhia journey had done anything towards the, opening up of Africa, he should jfeel amply repaid.” Here is a new and wonderful vista., opened for the generations to come into Central Africa. All the old ideas of f waste > and burning sands ate ' finally dissipated ; thfe great blanks in our maps.may.now be filled npi With paradisaical In* place of the Bden.buribd in the skhds of the Euphrates,.the race may yefefind another goldeh these regions of plehtyV-when the means of bur present civilisation are exhausted,.-,.. The scientific; fibßervatiorit) mhdh by; Lthhthflin't' Cameron are numerous and acdurute beypndjali and oJOhany< points geographers have how exact information instead of general knowledge;; For nineteen months the lieutenant was entirely lost to emerged 1 4>n L 'the ' Western coast, he had covered,, between. .Zanzibar - and Benguela, 2963 miles. mot ’ the'first European whbhas crossed the Continent of Africa,J)ut Jie |s the first whomad actually wklkbd across j it in its tropical portions. The whole of this vastdi^tuubewaadone’ori'footi 2 -Libtitenaht Cameron is the son of a Kentish clergyman. The little village of Shoreharri made holiday when he reappeared at the vicarage to rest a brilf while in his riifdl hoiae.- There was a service of thanksgiving in the church. Among otherioM friends 'wfio 'turned out to greet him was the traveller’s pet dog—a fine white bull terrier. It is related'a a another instance of i sagacity that the creature rec6gnised> his master, l^nbt withstanding his three years’ : absence,Vand could hot be restrained from the wildest demonstrations of r m K ,