geography can never be referred to without calling to mind
the remarkable hypothesis by which the distinguished President
of the Eoyal Geographical Society (Sir Roderick I.
Murchison) clearly indicated this peculiarity, before it was
verified by actual observation of the altitudes of the country
and by the courses of the rivers. New light was thrown on
other portions of the continent by the famous travels of
Dr. Barth, by the researches of the Church of England
Missionaries Krapf, Erkhardt, and Rebman, by the persevering
efforts of Dr. Baikie, the last martyr to the climate and
English enterprise, by the journey of Francis Galton, and
by the most interesting discoveries of Lakes Tanganyika and
Victoria Nyanza by Captain Burton, and by Captain Speke,
whose untimely end we all so deeply deplore. Then followed
the researches of Van der Decken, Thornton, and others;
and last of all the grand discovery of the main source of the
Nile, which every Englishman must feel an honest pride in
knowing was accomplished by our gallant countrymen,
Speke and Grant. The fabulous torrid zone, of parched and
burning sand, was now proved to be a well watered region
resembling North America in its fresh-water lakes, and
India in its hot humid lowlands, jungles, ghauts, and cool
highland plains.
In our exploration the chief object in view was not
to discover objects of nine days’ wonder, to gaze and he
gazed at by barbarians; but to note the climate, the natural
productions, the local diseases, the natives and their relation
to the rest of the world; all which were observed with that
peculiar interest which, as regards the future, the first white
man cannot but feel in a continent whose history is only just
beginning. When proceeding to the West Coast, in order
to find a path to the sea by which lawful commerce might
be introduced to aid missionary operations, it was quite
striking to observe, several hundreds of miles from the
ocean, the very decided influence of that which is known
as Lord Palmerston’s policy. Piracy had been abolished, and
the slave-trade so far suppressed, that it was spoken of by
Portuguese, who had themselves been slave-traders, as a thing
of the past. Lawful commerce had increased from an annual
total of 20,000?. in ivory and gold-dust, to between two and
three millions, of which one million was in palm oil to our
own country. Over twenty Missions had been .established,
with schools, in which more than twelve thousand pupils were
taught. Life and property were rendered secure on the Coast,
and comparative peace imparted to millions of people in the
interior, and all this at a time when, by the speeches of influential
men in England, the world was given to understand
that the English cruisers had done nothing but aggravate the
evils of the slave-trade. I t is so reasonable to expect that
self-interest would induce the slave-trader to do his utmost to
preserve the lives by which he makes his gains, that men
yielded ready credence to the plausible theory; but the
atrocious waste of human life was just as great when the
slave-trade was legal; it always has been, and must be,
marked by the want of foresight characteristic of the murderer.
Every one wonders why he, who has taken another s
life, did not take this, that, or the other precaution to avoid
detection; and every one may well wonder why slave-traders
have always, by over-crowding and all its evils, acted so
much in direct opposition to their own interests, but it is
the fatality of the murderer; the loss of life from this cause,
simply baffles exaggeration.
On this subject the opinion of the Rev. J. L. Wilson, a
most intelligent American Missionary, who has written by