Chương Chương 4 · African Explorations.—Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet,

. African Explorations.—Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet,

Penney, Andrea, Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Bruce, Krapf and

Rebmann, Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke.

The aërial line which Dr. Ferguson counted upon following had not been

chosen at random; his point of departure had been carefully studied,

and it was not without good cause that he had resolved to ascend at the

island of Zanzibar. This island, lying near to the eastern coast of

Africa, is in the sixth degree of south latitude, that is to say, four

hundred and thirty geographical miles below the equator.

From this island the latest expedition, sent by way of the great lakes

to explore the sources of the Nile, had just set out.

But it would be well to indicate what explorations Dr. Ferguson hoped

to link together. The two principal ones were those of Dr. Barth in

1849, and of Lieutenants Burton and Speke in 1858.

Dr. Barth is a Hamburger, who obtained permission for himself and for

his countryman Overweg to join the expedition of the Englishman

Richardson. The latter was charged with a mission in the Soudan.

This vast region is situated between the fifteenth and tenth degrees of

north latitude; that is to say, that, in order to approach it, the

explorer must penetrate fifteen hundred miles into the interior of

Africa.

Until then, the country in question had been known only through the

journeys of Denham, of Clapperton, and of Oudney, made from 1822 to

1824. Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, jealously anxious to push their

investigations farther, arrived at Tunis and Tripoli, like their

predecessors, and got as far as Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan.

They then abandoned the perpendicular line, and made a sharp turn

westward toward Ghât, guided, with difficulty, by the Touaregs. After a

thousand scenes of pillage, of vexation, and attacks by armed forces,

their caravan arrived, in October, at the vast oasis of Asben. Dr.

Barth separated from his companions, made an excursion to the town of

Aghades, and rejoined the expedition, which resumed its march on the

12th of December. At length it reached the province of Damerghou; there

the three travellers parted, and Barth took the road to Kano, where he

arrived by dint of perseverance, and after paying considerable tribute.

In spite of an intense fever, he quitted that place on the 7th of

March, accompanied by a single servant. The principal aim of his

journey was to reconnoitre Lake Tchad, from which he was still three

hundred and fifty miles distant. He therefore advanced toward the east,

and reached the town of Zouricolo, in the Bornou country, which is the

core of the great central empire of Africa. There he heard of the death

of Richardson, who had succumbed to fatigue and privation. He next

arrived at Kouka, the capital of Bornou, on the borders of the lake.

Finally, at the end of three weeks, on the 14th of April, twelve months

after having quitted Tripoli, he reached the town of Ngornou.

We find him again setting forth on the 29th of March, 1851, with

Overweg, to visit the kingdom of Adamaoua, to the south of the lake,

and from there he pushed on as far as the town of Yola, a little below

nine degrees north latitude. This was the extreme southern limit

reached by that daring traveller.

He returned in the month of August to Kouka; from there he successively

traversed the Mandara, Barghimi, and Klanem countries, and reached his

extreme limit in the east, the town of Masena, situated at seventeen

degrees twenty minutes west longitude.

On the 25th of November, 1852, after the death of Overweg, his last

companion, he plunged into the west, visited Sockoto, crossed the

Niger, and finally reached Timbuctoo, where he had to languish, during

eight long months, under vexations inflicted upon him by the sheik, and

all kinds of ill-treatment and wretchedness. But the presence of a

Christian in the city could not long be tolerated, and the Foullans

threatened to besiege it. The doctor, therefore, left it on the 17th of

March, 1854, and fled to the frontier, where he remained for

thirty-three days in the most abject destitution. He then managed to

get back to Kano in November, thence to Kouka, where he resumed

Denham’s route after four months’ delay. He regained Tripoli toward the

close of August, 1855, and arrived in London on the 6th of September,

the only survivor of his party.

Such was the venturesome journey of Dr. Barth.

Dr. Ferguson carefully noted the fact, that he had stopped at four

degrees north latitude and seventeen degrees west longitude.

Now let us see what Lieutenants Burton and Speke accomplished in

Eastern Africa.

The various expeditions that had ascended the Nile could never manage

to reach the mysterious source of that river. According to the

narrative of the German doctor, Ferdinand Werne, the expedition

attempted in 1840, under the auspices of Mehemet Ali, stopped at

Gondokoro, between the fourth and fifth parallels of north latitude.

In 1855, Brun-Rollet, a native of Savoy, appointed consul for Sardinia

in Eastern Soudan, to take the place of Vaudey, who had just died, set

out from Karthoum, and, under the name of Yacoub the merchant, trading

in gums and ivory, got as far as Belenia, beyond the fourth degree, but

had to return in ill-health to Karthoum, where he died in 1857.

Neither Dr. Penney—the head of the Egyptian medical service, who, in a

small steamer, penetrated one degree beyond Gondokoro, and then came

back to die of exhaustion at Karthoum—nor Miani, the Venetian, who,

turning the cataracts below Gondokoro, reached the second parallel—nor

the Maltese trader, Andrea Debono, who pushed his journey up the Nile

still farther—could work their way beyond the apparently impassable

limit.

In 1859, M. Guillaume Lejean, intrusted with a mission by the French

Government, reached Karthoum by way of the Red Sea, and embarked upon

the Nile with a retinue of twenty-one hired men and twenty soldiers,

but he could not get past Gondokoro, and ran extreme risk of his life

among the negro tribes, who were in full revolt. The expedition

directed by M. d’Escayrac de Lauture made an equally unsuccessful

attempt to reach the famous sources of the Nile.

This fatal limit invariably brought every traveller to a halt. In

ancient times, the ambassadors of Nero reached the ninth degree of

latitude, but in eighteen centuries only from five to six degrees, or

from three hundred to three hundred and sixty geographical miles, were

gained.

Many travellers endeavored to reach the sources of the Nile by taking

their point of departure on the eastern coast of Africa.

Between 1768 and 1772 the Scotch traveller, Bruce, set out from

Massowah, a port of Abyssinia, traversed the Tigre, visited the ruins

of Axum, saw the sources of the Nile where they did not exist, and

obtained no serious result.

In 1844, Dr. Krapf, an Anglican missionary, founded an establishment at

Monbaz, on the coast of Zanguebar, and, in company with the Rev. Dr.

Rebmann, discovered two mountain-ranges three hundred miles from the

coast. These were the mountains of Kilimandjaro and Kenia, which

Messrs. de Heuglin and Thornton have partly scaled so recently.

In 1845, Maizan, the French explorer, disembarked, alone, at Bagamayo,

directly opposite to Zanzibar, and got as far as Deje-la-Mhora, where

the chief caused him to be put to death in the most cruel torment.

In 1859, in the month of August, the young traveller, Roscher, from

Hamburg, set out with a caravan of Arab merchants, reached Lake Nyassa,

and was there assassinated while he slept.

Finally, in 1857, Lieutenants Burton and Speke, both officers in the

Bengal army, were sent by the London Geographical Society to explore

the great African lakes, and on the 17th of June they quitted Zanzibar,

and plunged directly into the west.

After four months of incredible suffering, their baggage having been

pillaged, and their attendants beaten and slain, they arrived at Kazeh,

a sort of central rendezvous for traders and caravans. They were in the

midst of the country of the Moon, and there they collected some

precious documents concerning the manners, government, religion, fauna,

and flora of the region. They next made for the first of the great

lakes, the one named Tanganayika, situated between the third and eighth

degrees of south latitude. They reached it on the 14th of February,

1858, and visited the various tribes residing on its banks, the most of

whom are cannibals.

They departed again on the 26th of May, and reentered Kazeh on the 20th

of June. There Burton, who was completely worn out, lay ill for several

months, during which time Speke made a push to the northward of more

than three hundred miles, going as far as Lake Okeracua, which he came

in sight of on the 3d of August; but he could descry only the opening

of it at latitude two degrees thirty minutes.

He reached Kazeh, on his return, on the 25th of August, and, in company

with Burton, again took up the route to Zanzibar, where they arrived in

the month of March in the following year. These two daring explorers

then reembarked for England; and the Geographical Society of Paris

decreed them its annual prize medal.

Dr. Ferguson carefully remarked that they had not gone beyond the

second degree of south latitude, nor the twenty-ninth of east

longitude.

The problem, therefore, was how to link the explorations of Burton and

Speke with those of Dr. Barth, since to do so was to undertake to

traverse an extent of more than twelve degrees of territory.