PAPERS READ

BEFORE THE

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

I.-The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa, with Notices of the Lunar Mountains and the Sources of the White Nile; being the results of an Expedition undertaken under the patronage of Her Majesty's Government and the Royal Geographical Society of London, in the years 1857-1859. By RICHARD F. BURTON, F.R.G.S., Captain, H.M.'s Indian Army, &c.

"Nor will you require from a man full of occupations, anything of deep research, or the wondrous effects and prerogatives of learning."-BACON, Essays.

PREFACE.

SECTION I.

THEY were the foremost European explorers of Eastern Intertropical Africa, that illustrious race, whom Faith and Chivalry impelled, at an infant period of navigation, to dare every danger and to endure every hardship in the sacred causes of Religion and Honour. The Portuguese first touched at Mozambique in 1498. Ere fifteen years had elapsed Makăd el Sha'at (Makdishu or Magadoxo), Barava, Malindi, Mombasah, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafiyah (Monfia), Kilwa, and the seaboard southwards to Angoza, Sofala, and De Lagoa Bay, with many places of minor importance, were linked into a chain of forts and factories, of monasteries and mission-houses, extending from Lisbon to Japan, and composed a single province of an empire bounded by a meridian drawn, with a magnificent hand, from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole.

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Portugal obtained possession of a hemisphere. The sun of her prosperity in the East, soon, however, paled: its splendours endured not beyond half a generation. "Till this time" (1515), writes the old historian, gentlemen had followed the dictates of true glory, esteeming their arms the greatest riches; thenceforward they so highly applied to trade, that those who had been captains became merchants; duty became a shame, honour scandal, and reputation a reproach." Corrupted by the lust of lucre and the pride of power, by the allurements of commerce, and by the neglect of arms, the younger generation lost what their worthier sires with immortal renown had Do Couto, writing in 1565, thus laments the degeneracy of his age :"We are beaten on our own ground by the English and the Dutch: wherever they go they are sure to make discoveries; whereas we remain in ignorance of the value and extent of our own possessions, because we are Portuguese." The road thus thrown open to a fresher race, the stout-hearted mariners and travellers of England, second to none in spirit and perseverance, began to

won.

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visit the shores of Eastern Intertropical Africa, and to gather for themselves the experience which they had been content to borrow from others. Those indeed were the palmy days of exploration when Majesty did not disdain to bid God-speed to an expedition, when holy churchmen chanted, fair women wept, and multitudes joined in prayers for a prosperous return of the adventurers from "isles beyond the sea."

In 1591, Captain, afterwards Sir James, Lancaster opened to the English the Indian Ocean, and touched at Zanzibar Island; and in 16881723, Captain Alexander Hamilton" spent his time trading and travelling" his experiences, embodied in the New Account of the East Indies,'† incited many to follow his example. About a century afterwards Captain Bissell, R.N., commanding H.B.M.'s ships Leopard and Orestes, first made astronomical observations on the island of Zanzibar. Mr. Salt, in 1809-10, added an account of the Portuguese settlements on the East Coast of Africa in his Voyage to Abyssinia.' In 1811-12 Captain Smee and Lieutenant Hardy § were dispatched by the Government of Bombay to collect information at Kilwa and its dependencies and the eastern coast generally. Captain Fairfax Moresby, R.N., in 1822, surveyed the port of Zanzibar, and laid down accurate sailing directions. Captain W. F. W. Owen, R.N., commanding H.B.M.'s ships Leven and Barracouta, and accompanied by a staff of officers, expended the years between 1822-26 in that laborious hydrography of the East African littoral and harbours, justly termed by a modern author Miranda Tabularum Series.' After a blank of twenty years, when the rule of the late Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, formerly Superintendent of the Indian Navy, gave impetus to science and discovery among those whom he commanded, the island and mainland of Zanzibar were visited by Lieutenant W. Christopher, 1.N., then commanding the H.E.I.C.'s brig of war Tigris. This officer, who lost his life doing gallant service at the siege of Multan, after touching at Kilwa, Zanzibar, Mombasah, Brava, Marka, Gulwen, Makdishu, and the Webbe Ganana or Shebayli-which he injudiciously named the "Haines River"-forwarded plans, charts, and political memoranda to the Government of Bombay.

No European, however, had, within historic ages, penetrated the narrow line of coast till 1847, when the Church Missionary Society of Great Britain dispatched two of their servants, the Rev. Dr. Krapf and the Rev. J. Rebmann, to Eastern Intertropical Africa. Charmed by the serene beauty of the scenery, by the apparent salubrity of the climate, and by the friendly reception of the people, the missionaries made Mombasah their station, "resolved," to quote their own words, "in their journeys and intercourse with the natives

*First and Second Voyage of the English to India in 1591 and in 1601, begun by Capt. George Raymond, and completed by Capt. James Lancaster.' Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels,' vol. viii.

+ Chap. I. "Giveth a traditional account of the first settling of Europeans at the Cape of Good Hope, with some historical remarks on the maritime countries between the said Cape and Cape Guardafoy, with the inhabited islands of that coast.' Pinkerton's General Collection of Voyages and Travels,' vol. viii., London, 1811.

A Voyage from England to the Red Sea,' by Austin Bissell, R.N., 1798–9, 1806, published at the expense of the East India Company.

§ Observations during a Voyage of Research on the East Coast of Africa, from Cape Guardafui, South to the Island of Zanzibar, in the H. C.'s Cruiser Ternate, Capt. T. Smee, and Sylph Schooner, Lieut. Hardy.' Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Soc. from Sept., 1841, to May, 1844.'

|| De Azania, Africæ Litore Orientali Commentatio Philologica, scripsit Georgius Bunsen, Romanus.' Bonn, 1852. This dissertation was forwarded to me with a courteous note by its author, and proved most useful in lands where bulky classics cannot be carried.

to lay hold of all they should see and hear, and make it known." In 1847, Taita (Dayda), an inland district, was traversed by Dr. Krapf. Mr. Rebmann, in 1848, discovered the much-vexed snow-mountain," Kilima-Njáro, or Kilima-Ngaó. Shortly afterwards Dr. Krapf explored Fuga, the capital of Kimwere, "tyrannos" of Usumbara. Mr. Rebmann, in 1849, promised by Mamkinga, the principal chief of the Chhagga country, safe conduct to the far "Unyamwezi Lake," trusted to a plunderer, and lost all means of progress. In 1849 a perilous journey to Ukambani and a voyage to Cape Delgado were accomplished by Dr. Krapf, who, visiting a second time the barbarous regions of Kitui, barely escaped with life. The Rev. J. Erhardt, who joined the "Mombas Mission in 1846, resided during some months at Tanga, and visited in 1854 Sultan Kimwere of Usumbara.

These appear to be solid services in the cause of discovery. The want of exact geographical data, however, made the learned regard them, not unnaturally, with a jealous eye. Men who had spent their lives in African study could not but hesitate to receive strange and novel knowledge from unknown hands. Mr. W. Desborough Cooley, the lynx-eyed detector of geographical frauds and fallacies, declared the principal explorer to be "poor in facts, but profuse in theory," asserted that his distances-sometimes for days together, 33 miles per diem-are exaggerated, that his bearings are all in disorder, and his etymologies puerile. Finally, the discoverer is determined by him to be "wanting in those habits of mental accuracy, without which active reason is a dangerous faculty." The stigma extended to his fellow-labourers in the field.

Although, however, a sketch of the country to the west and the north-west of Mombasah has been published to the world, the broad lands south of the Pangani River still lay a geographical blank. Mr. Rebmann had made several stout-hearted attempts to reach the Tanganyika or Lake of Ujiji, but none were crowned with success. In 1845 appeared a new explorer, M. Maizan, an Enseigne de Vaisseau in the navy of France, and a distinguished pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique. Before, however, he had penetrated a hundred miles into the interior, he was murdered by an independent chief: the terrible end of this traveller, from whom much might have been expected, will be described in a future page.

Thus the vast area of Central Intertropical Africa was doomed to remain a "terra incognita." Mr. Cooley had determined the position of the "Great Lake " as early as 1835 in a most able paper, the Memoir on the Geography of N'Yássi,'* which wanted nothing but the solid basis of accurate data. Mr. Macqueen † added notices of the rivers and watersheds of Eastern Africa, derived from Arabs and native travelling traders, and from the exploration of Messrs. Gamitto and Monteiro, two Portuguese officers, who, seeking an "Overland route" across the peninsula, visited the capital of the late Kazembe in 1831-32. Lastly, in 1856 appeared at Gotha a detailed map by the Rev. Messrs. Erhardt and Rebmann, who, unhappily trustful to the exaggerations and the misapprehensions of Asiatic and African informants, threw into one sea, about equal to the Caspian, the four lakes of Nyanza or Ukerewe, of Tanganyika or Ujiji, of Chama or Moiro Achinto, and of Nyassa or Maravi, thus submerging the territory and the city of the Kazembe. The land, how

Published in the 'Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' vol. xv., 1845. Notes on the Geography of Central Africa, from the Researches of Livingstone, Monteiro, Graça, and others, by James Macqueen, Esq., F.R.G.S.' December 10, 1855.

Read

Skizze einer Karte eines Theils von Ost-u-Central Afrika, &c., &c.' Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1856. This map, the joint production of Messrs. Erhardt and Rebmann, was published in translation by the Church Mission Society in Salisbury-square. It will frequently be alluded to in the following pages as the Mombas Mission Map.'

ever, remained unexplored, and the late lamented Rear-Admiral F. W. Beechey, V.P.R.G.S., &c., &c., in his Presidential Address to the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain,* promised, ex cathedrâ, "an immortality of fame" to the fortunate adventurer whom fever and fatigue might spare to drink the mysterious waters of the Lake Region in Central Intertropical Africa.

The numerous troubles which followed the murder of M. Maizan would have deterred an Oriental Prince less prejudiced and inquiring than His Highness the late Sayyid Said of Maskat and Zanzibar from encouraging the exploration of Europeans. Yet this estimable friend of the English nation for years before his decease made repeatedly the most public-spirited offers to H.M.'s Consul, the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton. The Sayyid frequently entertained the thought of applying to the Imperial Government for officers selected to map the caravan route of East Africa, and he professed himself willing to assist them with men, money, and the weight of his widely-extended influence. His death was, indeed, a severe blow to the cause of discovery in lands where his name only could command respect.

SECTION II.

Convinced of old that the sources of the White River may profitably be attempted from East Africa, instead of pursuing the problem which has baffled the Priests of the Nile, the Phoenicians, the Greeks under the Ptolemies, and the Romans under Cæsar and Nero; anxiously desiring, moreover, to pursue those projects of exploration which had been foiled by official incuriousness, and consequently by the treachery of the Somal at Berberah in 1855, I ventured, after the conclusion of the Crimean campaign, to lay before the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain a project for opening up the Lake Regions reported to exist in the little-known centre of the peninsula. An Expeditionary Committee, to whom these pages are respectfully inscribed, was pleased to approve of the plan, and, at an interview with Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to obtain from the Right Hon. the Lord Clarendon a grant of 1000l. It was understood that a similar sum would be contributed by the Court of Directors of the late Honourable East India Company: unfortunately, however, it was found wanting."

On the 13th September, 1856, I received from the Court of Directors formal permission, "in compliance with the request of the Royal Geographical Society, to be absent from duty as a regimental officer, whilst employed with an Expedition under the patronage of Her Majesty's Government and the Royal Geographical Society, to be despatched into Equatorial Africa, for a period not exceeding two years, calculated from the date of departure from Bombay, upon the pay and allowances of a lieutenant's rank."

On the 1st of October, 1856, the following instructions were received from the Expeditionary Committee of the Royal Geographical Society. They are published in detail, not only because they may be useful to future explorers in the same path, but also as showing what is expected from the African traveller in this portion of the nineteenth century.

"To Captain RICHARD BURTON.

"London, October 1st, 1856. "SIR,-The Royal Geographical Society having determined to send an expedition to Eastern Africa for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, and the Council

*May 26, 1856. P. 158.

having recommended you as a fit and proper person to undertake the conduct of the said expedition, you are hereby appointed to the charge of this service.

"As soon as you are in all respects ready, you are to proceed by the overland route to Bombay, where you will report yourself to the Governor, Lord Elphinstone. It is to be hoped that, through the good offices of his Lordship, you may obtain at Bombay the assistance of a person competent to undertake the necessary astronomical and meteorological observations, and willing to accompany the expedition.

"At Bombay you will make such arrangements and provide yourself with such articles as may be necessary for the expedition, in which we have reason to believe you will receive every assistance from the authorities at that place. "Proceeding from thence to Zanzibar, you will report yourself there to Colonel Hamerton, H.B.M.'s Consul and Agent to the Honourable East India Company. At the same place, or at Mombas, you will also find Mr. Rebmann, a missionary, who will have been prepared for your arrival, and you will immediately place yourself in communication with him and mutually concert operations for your undertaking.

"The Council has obtained the consent of the Church Missionary Society to associate this gentleman with you, and, from his long residence and experience on the coast, it is expected that he will afford important assistance. Although we consider it proper to intrust the conduct of the expedition to you, we, nevertheless, direct you to give great weight to the counsel of Mr. Rebmann, and especially in any matter upon which his local knowledge entitles his opinions to respect.

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"The objects of the expedition are geographical, but we see no objection to Mr. Rebmann, while duly assisting you in the execution of the great purposes of the expedition, at the same time pursuing his avocation as a missionary. But the Council nevertheless expect that there will be upon all these points such a mutual co-operation and concert that no delay, danger, or increase of expense shall arise from such avocations of Mr. Rebmann on the one hand, nor any unnecessary rigour or restriction be practised by you on the other.

"The great object of the expedition is to penetrate inland from Kilwa, or some other place on the East Coast of Africa, and make the best of your way to the reputed Lake of Nyassa; to determine the position and limits of that lake; to ascertain the depth and nature of its waters and its tributaries; to explore the country around it; to acquaint yourself with the towns and tribes on its borders; their minerals and other products and commerce. As much native copper is said to be possessed by the natives, you will learn whence it is procured, and, if within your reach, visit the locality and obtain specimens of the mineral in situ.

"Having obtained all the information you require in this quarter, you are to proceed northward towards the range of mountains marked upon our maps as containing the probable source of the Bahr el Abiad,' which it will be your next great object to discover.

"Before this period of your journey arrives you will, it is hoped, have received replies to your communications from the interior; but should this not be the case, and should you have acquired all the information within your means, you will be at liberty to return to England by descending the Nile, where it is possible you may fall in with the expedition under the Comte d'Escayrac de Lauture, now proceeding up that river to reach its sources; or you may return by the route by which you advanced or otherwise, always having regard to the means at your disposal.

"To procure you a favourable reception upon the coast, and to ensure the protection of the chiefs of the country you will visit, the Imám of Muscát has been communicated with by our Government through Colonel Hamerton, Her Majesty's Consul at Zanzibar; and other diplomatic agents upon the coast,