TIMES.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 634, 10 February 1870, Page 4

TIMES.

Letters from. Dr Livingstone ! It is no wonder .that tlyj announcement attracted a crowded assembly to the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, There is no living Englishman of whom the public are so anxious to hear as of their adventurous countryman who for three years and a>: half has been shrouded in the mystery of the mysterious xJontin^htii Ij; was pa thjj 28th March, 1566, tliat Dr 'Livingstone left Zanzibar, intending to penetrate to tlie interior of the continent by way of the river Pvovuma, From that time to this hardly any actual communication has b<ben received .from him." A few months after, his. departure he' ;said in a despatch from Ngomaho that he stood upon tlie threshold of the unexplored, but that it was Beat to say little of the future; and from that time no more Was heard from him, In December, nine months after hia departure, one of his little travelling party —a man from the island of Johanna, named Moosa —returned with a circumstantial story, of the great traveller's murder.. The.story was. that he had arrived at the uuknown land between the Loende -and Rovnma Riyers with an escort reducßd to 20 by death, desertion, and dismissal; that he had with his reduced party crpsaed the Lake Nyasaa^ to push wes-fcw'ardy i when aquarrel with sortie savage natives took plaice, and rDr Livingstone waa killed by one of them .--aMatite man^-whq came: up behind and : cut him down with tlie b! low of air'aXei The story was pretty generally believed, and for a long period no trustworthy infjunnation could be got which either confirmed or contradicted it. It really seemed as though the great traveller had Massed pyer the threshold of the.imknpwn,, c^nd disappeared for" ever. Sir Roderick ..Mnrchison, however, never believed the "story, and, as he was able to boast, never doubted Dr Livingstone's reappearance. Such was the interest his fate excited that in Jf:u»e, 18,67, An expedition was, sent;out to follow his track, arid to get tidings of him, if possible, on the very spot of his supposed, murder. That expedition.sue;;. deeded #o far that it disproved Moosa's story, and so far gave a negative proof of Dr Livingatone'a existence, though it threw no light on his actual whereabouts. From that time to this an exciting mystery has enfolded him. Rumors have every now and' then, reached the outer world, and last year some letters came to hand which bad Been written; by him in 1867, and these traces of him seemed to promise his speedy reappearance; spi,ne r where on the coast. But the public had so long watched for him all round the continent, now hoping to hear of him on the Guinea coast, then expecting him to come jflpating down the Nile, and hoping and expecting in: vain,. thai it had ceased o ex.p&jtf or h»pe,: The'letters rioW-rer-d. i will revive all our hopes. The news direit from Dr Livingstone/'himself brings oi r of his movements up to tie second year of his journey, seven mont a later than his last communications, and within IB months of the present moment^ With Dr Livingstone's letter before-iii?, it is difficult to understand where it leav ahim, At the south-eastern corner of that ilfirge qentral areqjr'of Africa whioh is call d iNigr'itift, 'arid winch still teinairis a blank. 'in all our atlases, is a place marked as iOivaembe's town, It lies f^r norfh:west.Qf: = iLivke Nyasaa, arid hot fur to 'tli'e'sbuth- ■ west of Lake Tanganyika. "ThistoWn •is aituated," says Dr Kirk, "<n a chain iof lal^es and vivura that flow nor.hwards." It is the outpost of European ex] loration, and is the point at which Dr Lningstone hfid arrived in Fehrnary, 1807- It is in the large 1 and- magnificently^ watt rod;, dis-. trict of which this town is the kuy thatDr Liviugstuuc awMiis to havo continued hJ3

explorations. He describes the country between the Loangwa Valley and Lako Tanganyika as an upland of some 350 miles square, covered with dense or open forest, with a rich soil, an undulating surface, and a coo} climatg. Eaat of it lies a similar district, and west of it the phain of the Kone Mountains, .where tliQ river Zambesi, so familiar to Dir Livingstone in early days, takes ita^rise. It ia. quite impossible to follow J&im "in Ilia journeys to and fro in this part of Africa. Hia letter, however, confirms the impression already oonveyed by previous discoveries, that the oentre of the African continent, ao far from being the burning desert imagined by our forefathers, is a country deluged with rains in the rainy season and dotted over with lakes, which render it well watered and-, fruitful through the hot mouths. Dr Livingatone gives a picture of one of these lakes, which reada like a tale of the Beautiful Islanda :— "On the northern slope of the upland, and on the 2nd April, 1867. I discovered Lake Leimba. It lies in a hollow^ with precipitous sides, 2,000 ft down, It is extremely beautiful, sides, top, and bottom being covered with trees and other vegetation. Elephants, buffaloes, and antelopes feed on the steep slopes, while hippopotami, crocodiles, and fish swarm in the waters. It ia-aa perfect a natural paradise as Zetiophpn could have desired. On two rocky mountains men till the land, rear goats, and catch fißh ; the villages ashore are embowered in the palm oil palms of the West Coast of Africa." Into thia hitherto unknown lake four rivers were flowing, and some brooks, like Scottish trout burns, were falling in magnificent cascades. One of the rivera, 5X> : miles from its. confluence, was 100 yards broad, and thigh and waist deep, and flowing in a fast. stream over the hard saudstone.Jaottoin, though it was four months since rain had fallen. Another cornea in with a 'smooth stream, bearing duckweed and grassy islands on its. siirface, -and 10 f athomß in depth. The Lake Leimba is small for Africa. It is 18 to 20 milea broad, and 35 to 40 long, and Dr Livingstone thinks, it drains in some way into Lake Tanganyika. Dr Livingstone has been almost entangled in lakes, rivers, and mountain chains, and his detentions have been caxiaed by floods. . He gives no details, but his letter suggests that Africa, the land of deserts, will be known also as the land of lakes. •Apart from the personal interest which attaches to tne writer, the chief in|terfest \ of .-Dip Livingstone's letter is iti the sgecu- : latiqna in which he indulges. DrLivtngstojje. reserves the detailed ac6durit of his observatipna for a.complete: atateuaeirit; on his return ; this letter was hastily written on a bit of borrowed paper,: ;on.- the, shore of Lake Raingweolo. : He adds a.poateript to aay thait in Rua, one of the districts of the Wooded upland south of Lake Tariganyikay a large tribe lives in underground houses. Some of the excavatapna are said to bip. thirty miles long, and;to have rills running through them ; the people write by a kind of hieroglyphics, and haveiheir eyes slanting.; in person they are dark and well made. Dr Livingstone had not seen thia curious people, but he half promiaes c 6 go and do so ; his short account of them reads like some strange relic of an anoient civilisation, whioh.has entrenched itself where it can stand a siege, as he says the whole district can. .; But r Dr Livjngatone being on the watershed of the continent, with the rivers running north, naturally.thinks of the Nile,;aud suggests thai all. these floods , of. . Southern Africa may find their way to the sea by the great northern stream. He thinks the sources of "the Nile have been looked for too far north, and believes that they are, after all, somewhere near where Ptolemy put them. liSir Samuel Baker has found the Nile^pourittg in Ml stream,, put . of. the Lake Albert Nyanza, but he only saw the northern end of the lake, some two degrees n6rjth[pf the equator. The doctor believes that this lake is fed from aources ten degrees south of the equator, and that -the-whole lake system of the wonderful lake district he is now penetrating is the head of the Nile. The wonderful river loses none of, its wonders aa it loses its mystery! But the'~-mysfery is not dissipated yet. Sir S. Baker pursued it from the north, and found the Nile reservoir ; Dr Livingstone ia pursiiing it from the south, to discover how that reservoir is fed. "We may hope erelong to : hear of hinS appearing o«t; of theliniysterjr which still envelopes His movements, with the chart of the Nile sources in hia hand.