AFRICAN EXPLORATION.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 630, 26 June 1876, Page 3

AFRICAN EXPLORATION.

(Times.) A paper was read recently by Lieutenant V. Lovett Cameron, UN., on his journey across Africa from Bagamogo to Benguela, before the members of the Royal Geographical Society. The meeting was held at St James’s Ball, every part of which was densely crowded. The chair was occupied by his Royal Highness the Duke of Kdinburgh. In the neighborhood of the platform were exhibited the flags—or what remained of them—which were carried during the expedition, and a number of idols which the explorer had secured at several, points of his journey. The president of the association, Sir Henry Rawlinson; the Rev Dr Moffatt, Dr Livingstone’s father-in-law; Sir Partle Frcre, Admiral Sir William Hall, Dr Badger, and many other Fellows of the society, occupied sea’s on the platform. The Rev L. and Mrs Cameron, parents of the distinguished explorer, were also present Lieutenant Cameron on making his appearance was received with enthusiastic cheering. The Duke of Edinburgh, who was warmly greeted, said he had great pleasure in taking the chair on that, the first occasion since he had been honored by being appointed honorary president of the society, and ho had the additional honor of presenting to the society a distinguished member of the profession to which he had the honor to belong a gentleman who had distinguished himself so greatly by the journey ho had accom plished from sea to sea through the centre of Africa. [Loud applause.J The introduc tion required no preface, as the account ot

his journey would be narrated by Lieutenant 'Cameron himself, and any words of his in reference to it would only take from the interest which they all felt in Lieutenant Cameron’s exploit. He could only say he congratulated the navy on the fact that it was a member of that profession who had presented us with the pluck and energy which distinguished Englishmen in general, and he believed naval officers in particular [Applause]—in performing so great a feat as a journey across that vast continent, and one which had extended over a period of two years and eight months. The original object of the journey was to search for the late lamented Dr Livingston, but eventually it b> c unc a separate and independent exploration of the interior of Africa. He had great pleasure in introducing Lieutenant Cameron, and he was certain they would all be deeply interested in the account he would give of his journey, (Applause.) Lieutenant Cameron, who on coming forward was received with loud and long continued cheering, then proceeded to read a paper supplementary to the accounts of his journey, which had already been given in his letter and extracts from his journal already published, The shortness of the lime at his command, he said, necessarily rendered the account he had to give little more than an outline. He was first joined by bis friend Dr Dillon, and subsequently by Mr Murphy, R.A, who volunteered to accompany him, and afterwards, Mr Moffat, of Natal, a nephew of Dr Livings f one. His first great difficulty on the East Coast was to obtain stores and men, but at the outset he had received most valuable assistance from Sir Bartle Frere, They had not long started with the Expedition when Mr Murphy was struck down with illness, and Mr Moffat remained with him. The Expedition encountered many difficulties on its way from the Bast Coast to Ujuhha before they reached where Mr Murphy joined them, with the sad intelligence that Mr Moffat had died. He was thus prevented taking part in a work on which ho had set his heart, and in the furtherance of which he was willing to spend the last farthing he pos seased, [Applause.] In the Ujuhha district they met with several vexatious delays, principally traceable to the payment of tribute, sometimes the officials appointed to receive it being too drunk to transact even that business. The author then described the feature? of the country through which he passed. Boulders of granite he encamped near—the largest he had ever seen and tree? so wide spreading that 800 men could camp beneath their shade. In some districts the disposition of the people could not be trusted. They were hospitably inclined one day ; the next they were hostile, and would retire into the jungle, leaving strangers to starve, believing that what would be left behind by the travellers, would compensate them for the inconvenience to which they bad put themselves in leaving their town or village. Sometimes they travelled through uninhabited tracts where game was plentiful and wild ; sometimes over plains where the grass was 12ft high, and each stalk an inch in circumference. On the sth of August, 1874, they reached Urura, the capital of Manynema, the Arab chief of which place treated them hospitably, and they were escorted to the house in which Stanley had lived for some time. They had out of courtesy, to visit all the Arabs of the town and to eat with each one of them—a formidable duty to perform between 10 a.m. and 4 p.ra. Here he, Dr Dillon, and Mr Murphy suffered from attacks of fever, During their stay he received a letter from Sir Samuel Baker, to which he sent a reply by the messengers bringing it. Shortly afterwards Jacob Wainwright arrived with an account of Dr Livingstone’s death and news that his corpse was near. The author sent a bale of cloth to Dr Livingstone’s servants to assist them, and when the body of the illustrious explorer arrived it was received by the principal Arabs with the utmost respect. [Applause.] Having made arrangements for the conveyance of the remains of Dr Livingstone to the coast, he resolved to pursue his journey alone, Mr Murphy and Dr Dillon being compelled through ill health to resign, and in a few days afterwards he received the news of the death of his old friend Dr Dillon, which was a great blow to him. Lieutenant Cameron then sketched his journey southwards to Kih ral a, northwest of Lake Kassali, out of which runs the River Lualaba, joining the River Luvwa on its course between Lake Moera and Lake Lanji, some miles south of the latter. From Kilemba he travelled south-west to Ulomda, and finally westward to Benguela on the west coast. The difficulties he had to encounter were great from desertions, from the caprice of chiefs, from exactions, constant delays, and not infrequently _ from hostile attacks in which he rarely retaliated, and never unless it was clear that the lives of his party and his own life were at stake. Some of the journals of Dr Livingstone he recovered, and wherever he crossed the tracks of the great traveller he found that he was kindly remembered. The slave trade could be, and could only be, in Lieut. Cameron’s opinion, rooted out by legitimate trado, for which the nature of the country he traversed was well suited, and on the whole the disposition of the people would offer no difficulties. In one instance he had seen forty or fifty women brought into a town as slaves. Each was laden with spoils, and many had children in arms, and they represented some hundreds who had been massacred. At the conclusion of the address, which was frequently interrupted with applause. Sir Henry Rawlinson said that, on behalf of the Council of the Society, he had to express the high opinion they entertained of the services rendered by Lieutenant Cameron to geography. They considered those services not only rendered to the cause of geography, but that they were of equal interest to the politician, the merchant, and the philanthropist. [Hear, hear.] Lieut. Cameron, although he made light of his journey, and seemed to treat it as a pleasure trip, has traversed upwards of 3000 miles on foot—a feat in which he was engaged, with very short intervals, two years and eight months. During that period he was exposed to the the vicissitudes of the climate and to difficulties and hardships of all sorts, but his courage never gave way. [Applause.] He was upheld by that stout English quality which was called pluck, which rose as the difficulties in the way increased—determined as he was to do his duty and fulfil the task intrusted to him. Lieutenant Cameron had not been a mere explorer. Some travellers carried their eyes in their pocket, but ho kept his eyes open, and the observations he made, both astronomical and as to the physical character of the country, were fof an extraordinary number, and were now being computed at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. One result, he believed, of

those observations would be that they would have a definite line laid down from sea to sea across 20degrees of longitude,which would be a-geographical basis for al future ex> lora tions of Equatorial Africa. Lieutenant Cameron had also, as was shown in a form* r paper he had sent them, cirmmi navigated the great lake Tanganyika, and had discovered that the lake discharged its waters into the Lualaba; and another very important matter was the identification—if not mathematically and physically, at least by a large process of induction, and almost to a certainty, indeed he could entertain no doubt about it—of the Lualaba and the Congo. (Applause.) The number of observations he had taken were, he might mention, over 5000. He trusted that ore other and great result of the gallant exploit of Lieutenant Cameron would be the suppression of slavery in the interior of Africa. [Applause.] Lieutenant Cameron had discovered and forwarded some most important relics of Dr Livingstone, and, among others, the historical chronometer, which the Doctor spoke playfully of as “ his dead chronometer,” which only went for three hours and a half a day, but for that time went perfectly. Lieutenant Cameron found that to bo the case, and had used the chronometer in making his observations. In conclusion, he had to state that the Council of the society had that day awardad to the explorer their blue riband—the gold medal of the year. [ Loud applause.] The proceedings shortly afterwards terminated with a warm vote of thanks to his Royal Highness, the chairman of the evening.