FROM NIGER TO NILE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9718, 14 February 1910, Page 4

FROM NIGER TO NILE.

Sxpedition after expedition goes into ;he wilds of Africa, yet there alway? leema something new to be fouru ;here. The part of the continent o: which least is known, is probabiy ;he region to the west of the Soudan, between'the Nile and Lake Chad. Light has been thrown on this dark "egion by Dr Karl Kumm, head of ;he Soudan United Mission. Dr £umm started out from Nigeria in L9OB, for the interior, with a number of missionaries whom he left at >osts as he went along. When his purely missionary work was com-' jleted he found himself 900 miles :'rom the coast, and determined to rash on to the Nile. Ha did so, and ■eached the Soudan after suffering nany hardships. On several occasions he party was at death's door from starvation, Dr Kumm being reduced >nce to boiling his sleeping matj [made of antelope skins) for food. Tor nineteen days he ploughec ;hrough a vast swamp, most of th< ;ime up to his waist in water. Yei le lost only one member of his large party. He opened up a new high

road across the Sahara, and obtained many interesting and valuable specimens of birds, beasts, and minerals; but his most important wort was probably the traversing of the territory of the great chief Senussi. This man is said to be the most powerful independent chieftain in Africa, and controls the last great high road for the slave traffic. A French military expedition sent against him was cut up, and French traders who have penetrated to his country have been murdered. Bowever, Senussi received Dr Kumm very hospitably. The traveller reports that the chief has j thousands of modern rifles, that his I capital is strongly fortified, and ' that the country round about has been devastated by his slave traffic. The reckoning with this gentleman will probably be a long and difficult business, but it must come sooner or later. Civilisation is slowly spreading right across Africa.