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THE SOLUTION OF AN IMPORTANT

GEOGRAPHICAL PROBLEM.

THE OUTLET TO LAKE TANGANYIKA.

THE interest we have ever felt in the progress of African exploration can alone constitute an apology for introducing such a topic as the discovery of an outlet to Lake Tanganyika, in what may be termed a holiday number of the NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. The importance of the discovery made by Lieutenant Cameron and his party, during their circumnavigation of the lake, cannot, however, be over-estimated. If it does not determine the exact position of the sources of the Nile, added to what has been done before, it circumscribes the basins of the Nile, the Congo, the Zambesi, and the Benuwe, or eastern Niger, within limits that can now be proximately defined.

Lake Tanganyika has been hitherto a puzzle to geographers. Burton and Speke, its discoverers, concluded that it received waters from the north, east, and south, and this has turned out to be the case. But Sir Samuel Baker's discovery of a vast lake to the northwards the Albert Nyanza-stretching to within a short distance of Tanganyika, led to a discussion concerning the comparative level of the two lakes, and it was rather generally surmised that Tanganyika flowed into the Lake Nyauza. Livingstone and Stanley's exploration of the mouths of the Rusisi, the northern tributary of the lake, determining that it flowed into the lake, led to a suspension of the controversy; but it was still conceived by some that at seasons of low water the Kusisi might flow into the lake, but that in times of flood, the waters of Lake Tankanyika flowed into the Albert Nyanza, and, by it, into the Nile.

This view was rendered all the more plausible as no outlet had been found to the lake. Some who, from differences of level and the reported intervention of mountains, did not believe in its flowing into the Albert Nyanza, thought that it might find a way to the Indian Ocean by the Lufiji or Rufiji river, an opinion originally held by Admiral Owen; others, again, thought that it might have a subterranean communication with Livingstone's Lualaba and the Congo. Others, again, as the late Dr. Beke, held by the opinion that it was an inner basin, without any outlet at all.

It is impossible to explain, from the few details which have as

yet reached us, how the outlet discovered by Lieutenant Cameron -whose name will now be enrolled most honourably in the long list of African explorers-can be the same as Livingstone's Lualaba, which, or branches of which, have their sources in the high upland which separates the basin of the Congo from that of the Zambesi, to the south of Lake Tankanyika; but we may certainly presume that it constitutes a feeder to the Lualaba, or upper Congo, if it be not its most important tributary.

This discovery, then, replaces Ptolemy's "mountains of the moon," where Speke originally conceived them to be, between Lakes Tanganyika and the Albert Nyanza-where that gallant traveller found the Mfumbiro mountains some ten thousand feet in elevation on the east, where Livingstone found the Kabogo mountains, and where Sir Samuel Baker saw what he calls the "Blue Mountains," from a standpoint on the Albert Nyanza.

It limits the basin of the Nile to this central African group to the south, to the long range of the Himadu, with its snow-clad peaks and active volcanoes (Kilima-njaro, Kenia, Obal, Fah Dongo, and other Fahs, or culminating points), on the east, and to the unexplored, but, in all probability, high and inhabitable regions, that lie between the Congo and the Benuwe, or eastern Niger, on the west. It brings the basin of the former river into close proximity of the Indian Ocean, and establishes it as the highway from the west into Central Africa, and as the readiest means of traversing from ocean to ocean. It is to be hoped that Lieut. Cameron and his companions will be able to avail themselves of their knowledge of this important fact, and that they will meet, on their way down the Congo to the western coast, the expeditions of of succour which are proceeding inwards from that direction. Dr. Augustus Petermann's anticipation that, Livingstone being no more, his work is going to be continued and finished by German and American explorers loses half its sting; but Mr. Stanley or the Germans may, if successful and spared by the natives and the climate, yet put their feet on the fountains of the Nile, or, at all events, open the vast region that lies between the Nile, the Congo, and the Niger, to the knowledge of civilised communities. are triumphs in which all nations alike will rejoice.

These

EOS.

A CLASSIC STUDY.

I.

Eos, monarch of morning,
Rosy-fingered Queen,

Glinting into my chamber,

The darkling curtains between.

I love to dream of my darling amid thy golden sheen

[I.

She is golden haired like thee,

Eos, queen of the day!

She broke on my being's night

With just as fair a ray;

Opening flowers and gemming the grass where I sped my way.

IJI.

And now she is all my own

Eos, my darling, my pride;

While I lie in the morning and dream,

She is by my side;

O'er the pillow those golden tresses are scattered far and wide.

IV.

Her beautiful eyes are veiled,
Her face is fair and white,
Her long thin fingers I clasp,

In

my arms I hold her tight.

'Tis the calm aftermath of the Golden Harvest of Night.

V.

Shine on her, Eos serene,
With thy translucent hue;

For though the bright vision fades

E'en from my spirit's view.

Yet well do I know the dream that Eos shines on is true.

VI.

Though it passeth awhile,

That vision my fancy fills;

And I know it will substance take,

And solace my life's long ills,

When the morning beams upslant from the Everlasting Hills

CLODE MORYCE.

CHRISTMAS CHAINS.

A PROLOGUE.

"Only the ravings of a mad girl," you say. Just so. ravings of a girl with a turned brain.

True, only the

Christmas to her is ever the same Christmas that was to have been her happiness, but that came to her in shadow and sorrow.

So she passes each one as it comes round. Waiting, hoping, trusting, till the waiting brings to her no " Rudolf," and she learns at last, again and again, the old ending to the old story,

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bell

Tra-la, tra-la, tra-la; Hark, how they clash, bang, crash! But it's Christmas time, you know.

Soon there will be wedding-bells!

Practising for Christmas, do they say? I know better. They are practising for my bridal day. A month-four weeks-thirtyone days; then my wedding-day; Yes, yes, I know! Hark! There is a footstep! Rudolf, I am coming! Is it you, my bonnie laddie?

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No, no; not Rudolf yet. Ah well, he's coming; he said he would. Christmas bells, ring out the glad news! Coming, coming; hark how they ring! When will they say, Come? Why does, he not hasten? But stay; not till even, they say, not till the great clock strikes the evening hour can he return. Rudolf! so long away, so long returning. Only three months, he said, they all said; yet sure, were ever three months so long in passing as these? "Shall I tell you where we parted ?

When plenteous autumn sheaves were brown,

Never more!

Then we parted heavy-hearted.

The full rejoicing sun looked down
As grand as in the days before ;
Only to us those days of yore

Could come back never more.' "2
What does that mean?

Thank the good God,

! Jean Adams: "There's nae luck about the house."

2 C. Rossetti.

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