unless Providence in the shape of death, or Sir George Goldie—de Brazza's only rival in administrative ability in West Africa—intervenes, he will succeed in uniting Congo Français with the French Soudan. De Brazza has done so much and done it so well that I, as a woman, may be excused a sentimental hope that he may live to see his edifice of power completed.
After sketching the work of de Brazza the completer, we must turn to the work of Du Chaillu, the inaugurator of geographical knowledge in this region; but I will only briefly sketch Du Chaillu's work, because his books are accessible to English readers and not given in scattered journals of geographical societies, as are the notices of de Brazza.
Du Chaillu's works should be read carefully by every one interested in the forest region of Africa, for you find in them a series of wonderfully vivid pictures of life, both of man and beast, and of the country itself with its dense, gloriously beautiful, gloomy forests and its wild rivers, as true in all these things as on the day on which Du Chaillu wrote. On his return to England great doubt was cast upon his accounts; but I have no hesitation in saying that I never came across anything while in his region that discredited Du Chaillu's narrative on the whole. His deductions from the things he saw are a matter apart, for no two West African travellers will ever be found to agree in their deductions; but his descriptions of the country and the animals are truthful—yes, including those gorillas; I know places where the gorilla population is every bit as thick as he says and the individuals every bit as big; and his account of the natives and their ways are recognisable by any one having personal knowledge in the matter. Nor am I alone, I am glad to say; for one of the greatest authorities on this matter, Dr. Nassau, who was on the Coast when Du Chaillu was, says there is nothing Du Chaillu relates that might not have happened in this country. More can be said of no one of the school of travellers of which Du Chaillu, Dr. Barth, Joseph Thomson, and Livingstone are past masters, and of which I am an humble member. We have not a set of white companions with us to confirm our statements and say, "Oui, oui, certainement, Monsieur," as the engineer and his brother used to say on the Éclaireur to their captain; but we
