DR. LIVINGSTONE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 599, 18 November 1869, Page 4

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

Sir Roderick Murchison, in reply to a letter asking what is his opinion respecting a suggestion of Mrs Burton, wife of the African explorer, writes as follows to the London Scotsman: — "My argument for believing that my dear friend had really gone westward from the Lake Tanganyika in order to reach the Atlantic was founded on the supposition that he had satisfied himself that this body of water which is fed by affluents from the south and east, and is probably barred from communication with the great equatorial lakes by higher intermediate lands, as also by lying at a lower level, it followed necessarily that the affluents of the Tanganyika must proceed to the west. I then inferred that he would follow them and thus determine the true watershed and drainage of his own Southern region of Africa. As all the researches of Livingstone relate to that region only, and have been wholly unconnected with the Nilotic lakes of equatorial Africa, I am persuaded that he would specially strive to determine the course of the streams which flow from the Tanganyika to the Atlantic. That such streams exist, seems to me to be certain ; for they are laid down on the map of Duarte Lopez, of the 16th century, a reduced copy of which was published by Mr Major, in his admirable work of the life of Prince Henry of Portugal. If the mighty Congo, which is capable of receiving a vast amount of water, be not one of those rivers, why may we not admit that one or more of them terminate on the western seaboard in swamps and lagoons, or are absorbed in sands ; just as the great river Limpopo, of South Africa, ends, as recently proved by the adventurous traveller, St. "Vincent Erskine, who followed it to the eastern coast ? Let your readers look at any map of Africa in which the lake Tanganyika is correctly laid down, and they will see that the distance between it and the western coast 13 nearly three times as great as that which intervenes between this great internal mass of fresh water and Zanzibar on the east coast, and consequently if the great-travel-ler had to keep that direction a long time must have elapsed before we could receive tidings from him. It is, therefore, I think, quite unnecessary to have recourse to the hypothesis of his captivity. But whatever may be the speculations entered into during his absence, I have such implicit confidence in the tenacity of purpose, undying resolution and herculean frame of Livingstone, that, however he may be delayed, I hold stoutly to the opinion that he will overcome every obstacle, and will, as 1 have suggested, emerge from South Africa on the same western shore on which he appeared after his first great march across that region, and long after his life had been despaired of."