Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/503

EXPLOEATION OF THE CONGO. 413 lake region, whence they reached the Zambese. In 1843, the Portuguese Graca penetrated from the west coast to the Upper Kassai Galley in the territory of the Muata-Jamvo. But the first decisive journey in any region within the Congo basin was that made in 1857-8 by Burton and Speke to the east side of Tangan- yika, without, however, crossing this inland sea or ascertaining whether it belonged to any fluvial system. Even after visiting other lakes beyond Tanganyika and discovering a network of streams flowing northwards, Livingstone was still unaware to what basin they belonged. He even supposed they flowed to the Nile, sending everything to the Egyptian river, like the old writers, and from his reports many modern geographers still described the great inland lakes from the Bongweolo to the Albert Nyanza as afiluents of the Mediterra- nean. Nevertheless the knowledge already acquired of the continental relief, and of the periodical floods in the various fluvial basins, enabled scientific students to see that the rivers described by Livingstone were really tributaries of the Lua-Laba, or Upper Congo, which traverses a less elevated region than the plateau containing the depressions of the Victoria Nyanza and other lakes draining to the Upper Nile. Its floods, due to the south tropical rains, reach their highest level in January, whereas those of the Upper Nile occur in August and September. The discharge of the Lua-Laba, calculated at low water by Ijivingstone, is also over three times greater than that of the Nile below the Bahr-el- Jebel and Bahr- el-Ghazal confluence. Hence it was evidently impossible to hold that the Lua- Laba flowed to the Nile ; and the Shari and Ogoway being excluded on similar grounds, the re remained only two alternatives, either that it discharged into some vast inland basin which had never been heard of, or else joined the Lower Zaire — by far the most likely hypothesis. The point was finally settled by Stanley, who after finding Livingstone on the banks of the Tanganyika in 1871, embarked in 1876 on the Lua-Laba, and after nine months' fluvial navigation reached the mouth of the Congo. The whole expedition had lasted, from the time of its departure from Zanzibar, altogether nine hundred and ninety- nine days, and a distance of 7,000 miles had been traversed in the various explorations of the great lakes and the river. Rapids had been shot, falls turned, rocks blown up, boats pushed across forests and ravines ; hunger and fever had been endured, and as many as thirty-two battles fought with the natives, some perhaps too hastily. Of the four Europeans forming part of the expedition, Stanley alone had survived, and of his three hundred and fifty six native followers, two hundred and forty-one were left behind in the wilds of Africa. After this prodigious exploit, displaying marvellous daring and energy, indomitable perseverance, amazing moral ascendancy and military talents of a high order, nothing remained except to verify details, correct the first summary draught of the course of the main stream, and connect with this funda- mental route all subsequent surveys made in the region of the Congo and its afiluents. In this work are now engaged a host of explorers, and the observer remains almost overwhelmed with the great results obtained within the brief