In 1877 an important expedition was sent out by the Portuguese
government under Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello and Roberto
Work in the Congo.
Ivens for the exploration of the interior of Angola. The
first named made his way by the head-streams of the Kubango
to the upper Zambezi, which he descended to the Victoria
Falls, proceeding thence to Pretoria and Durban. Capello
and Ivens confined their attention to the south-west Congo
basin, where they disproved the existence of Lake Aquilunda,
which had figured on the maps of that region since the 16th
century. In a later journey (1884- 1885) Capello and Ivens
crossed the continent from Mossamedes to the mouth of the
Zambezi, adding considerably to the knowledge of the borderlands
between the upper Congo and the upper Zambezi. More important
results were obtained by the German travellers Paul Pogge and
Hermann von Wissmann, who (1880-1882) passed through previously
unknown regions beyond Muata Yanvo's kingdom, and reached the
upper Congo at Nyangwe, whence Wissmann made his way to the east
coast. In 1884-1885 a German expedition under Wissmann solved
the most important geographical problem relating to the southern
Congo basin by descending the Kasai, the largest southern
tributary, which, contrary to expectation, proved to unite
with the Kwango and other streams before joining the main
river. Further additions to the knowledge of the Congo
tributaries were made at the same time by the Rev. George
Grenfell, a Baptist missionary, who (accompanied in 1885 by K.
von Francois) made several voyages in the steamer ``Peace,''
especially up the great Ubangi, ultimately proved to be the
lower course of the Welle, discovered in 1870 by Schweinfurth.
In East as in West Africa operations were started by agents of
the Belgian committee, but with less success than on the Congo.
Opening up East Africa.
The first new journey of importance on this side was made
(1878-1880) on behalf of the British African Exploration
Committee by Joseph Thomson, who after the death of his
leader, Keith Johnston, made his way from the coast to the
north end of Nyasa, thence to Tanganyika, on both sides
of which he broke new ground, sighting the north end of
Lake Rukwa on the east. In 1882-1884 the French naval
lieutenant Victor Giraud proceeded by the north of Nyasa to
Lake Bangweulu, of which he made the first fairly correct
map. North of the Zanzibar-Tanganyika route a large area
of new ground was opened in 1883-1884 by Joseph Thomson,
who traversed the whole length of the Masai country to Lake
Baringo and Victoria Nyanza, shedding the first clear light
on the great East African rift-valley and neighbouring
highlands, including Mounts Kenya and Elgon. A great advance
in the region between Victoria Nyanza and Abyssinia was
made in 1887-1889 by the Austrians, Count Samuel Teleki and
Lieut. Ludwig von Hohnel, who discovered the large Basso
Norok, now known as Lake Rudolf, till then only vaguely
indicated on the map as Samburu. At this time Somaliland was
being opened up by English and Italian travellers. In 1883
the brothers F. L. and W. D. James penetrated from Berbera
to the Webi Shebeli; in 1892 Vittorio Bottego (afterwards
murdered in the Abyssinian highlands) started from Berbera
and reached the upper Juba, which he explored to its
source. The first person, however, to cross from the Gulf
of Aden to the Indian Ocean was an American, A. Donaldson
Smith, who in 1894-1895 explored the headstreams of the Webi
Shebeli and also explored the Omo, the feeder of Lake Rudolf.
In the region north-west of Victoria Nyanza the greatest
additions to geographical knowledge were made by H. M. Stanley
in his last expedition, undertaken for the relief of Emin
Pasha. The expedition set out in 1887 by way of the Congo to
carry supplies to the governor of the old Egyptian Equatorial
province. The route lay up the Aruwimi, the principal
tributary of the Congo from the north-east, by which the
expedition made its way, encountering immense difficulties,
through the great equatorial forest, the character and extent
of which were thus for the first time brought to light.
The return was made to the east coast, and resulted in the
discovery of the great snowy range of Ruwenzori or Runsoro,
and the confirmation of the existence of a third Nile lake
discharging its waters into the Albert Nyanza by the Semliki
river. A further discovery was that of a large bay, hitherto
unsuspected, forming the south-west corner of the Victoria Nyanza.
Great activity was also displayed in completing the work of
earlier explorers in North and West Africa. Morocco was in
Expeditions in North and West Africa.
1883-1884 the scene of important explorations by de Foucauld,
a Frenchman who, disguised as a Jew, crossed and re-crossed
the Atlas and supplied the first trustworthy information as
to the orography of many parts of the chain. In 1887-1889
Louis Gustave Binger, a French officer, made a great journey
through the countries enclosed in the Niger bend, and in
1890-1892 Col. P. F. Monteil went from St Louis to Say, on the
Niger, thence through Sokoto to Bornu and Lake Chad, whence
he crossed the Sahara to Tripoli. Meantime explorers had
been busy in the region between Lake Chad, the Gulf of Guinea
and the Congo. The Sanga, one of the principal northern
tributaries of the Congo, was reached from the north by
Lieut. Louis Mizon, a French naval officer, who drew the
first line of communication between the Benue and the Congo
(1890-1892). In 1890 Paul Crampel, who in the previous
year had explored north of the Ogowe, undertook a great
expedition from the Ubangi to the Shari, but was attacked and
killed, with several of his companions, on the borders of the
Bagirmi. Several other expeditions followed, and in 1806
Emile Gentil reached the Shari, launched a steamer on its
waters and pushed on to Lake Chad. Early in 1900 Lake
Chad was also reached by F. Foureau, a French traveller,
who had already devoted twelve years to the exploration of
the Sahara and who on this occasion had crossed the desert
from Algeria and had reached the lake via Air and Zinder.
The last ten years of the 19th century also witnessed many
interesting expeditions in east Central Africa. In 1891 Emin
Lakes and mountains of Equatorial Africa.
Pasha, accompanied by Dr F. Stuhlmann, made his way south
of Victoria Nyanza to the western Nile lakes, visiting for
the first time the southern and western shores of Albert
Edward. Stuhlmann also ascended the Ruwenzori range to a
height of over 13,000 ft. In the same year Dr O. Baumann,
who had already done good work in Usambara, near the coast,
started on a more extended journey through the region of steppes
between Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza, afterwards exploring
the headstreams of the Kagera, the ultimate sources of the
Nile. In the steppe region referred to he discovered two new
lakes, Manyara and Eiassi, occupying parts of the East African
valley system. This region was again traversed in 1893-1894
by Count von Gotzen, who continued his route westwards to Lake
Kivu, north of Tanganyika, which, though heard of by Speke
over thirty years before, had never yet been visited. He also
reached for the first time the line of volcanic peaks north of
Kivu, one of which he ascended, afterwards crossing the great
equatorial forest by a new route to the Congo and the west
coast. Valuable scientific work was done in 1893 by Dr J.
W. Gregory, who ascended Mount Kenya to a height of 16,000
ft. In 1893-1894 Scott Elliot reached Ruwenzori by way of
Uganda, returning by Tanganyika and Nyasa, and in 1896 C. W.
Hobley made the circuit of the great mountain Elgon, north-east
of Victoria Nyanza. In 1899 Mount Kenya was ascended to its
summit by a party under H. J. Mackinder. The exploration
of Mount Kilimanjaro has been the special work of Dr Hans
Meyer, who first directed his attention to it in 1887.
The region south of Abyssinia proper and north of Lake Rudolf,
being largely the basin of the Sobat tributary of the Nile,
was traversed by several explorers, among whom may be mentioned
Capt. M. S. Wellby, who in 1898-1899 explored the chain of
small lakes in south-east Abyssinia, pushed on to Lake Rudolf,
and thence traversed hitherto unknown country to the lower
Sobat. Donaldson Smith crossed from Berbera to the Nile by
Lake Rudolf in 1899-1900, and Major H. H. Austin commanded
two survey parties between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Lake
Rudolf during 1899-1901. Meantime in south Central Africa the
Barotse country had been partly made known by the missionary
F. Coillard, who settled there in 1884, while the middle and
upper Zambezi basin were scientifically explored and mapped
by Major A. St H. Gibbons and his assistants in 1895-1896 and
1898-1900. In the same period the Congo-Zambezi watershed
was traced by a Belgian officer, Capt. C. Lemaire, who
had ascended one of the upper tributaries of the Kasai.
In the early years of the 19th century the first recorded
crossing of Africa took place. That crossing and all subsequent
crossings had been made either from west to east or east to
west. The first journey through the whole length of the
continent was accomplished in the two last years of the
century when a young Englishman, E. S. Grogan, starting from
Cape Town reached the Mediterranean by way of the Zambezi,
the central line of lakes and the Nile. Other travellers
followed in Grogan's footsteps, among the first, Major Gibbons.
Additions to topographical knowledge were made from about
1890 onwards by the international commissions which traced
Work of international commissions and surveying parties.
the frontiers of the protectorates of the European powers.
On several occasions the labours of the commissions disclosed
errors of importance in the maps upon which international
agreements had been based. Among those which yielded
valuable results were the Anglo-French commission which in
1903 traced the Nigerian frontier from the Niger to Lake
Chad, and the Anglo-German commission which in 1903-1904 fixed
the Cameroon boundary between Yola, on the Benue, and Lake
Chad. These expeditions and French surveys in the same region
during 1902-1903 resulted in the discovery that Lake Chad
had greatly decreased in area since the middle of the 19th
century. In 1903 a French officer, Capt. E. Lenfant, succeeded
in establishing the fact of a connexion between the Niger and Chad
basins. Subsequently Lenfant explored the western basin of the
Shari, determining (1907) the true upper branch of that river.
In East Africa a German-Congolese commission surveyed (1901-1902)
Lake Kivu and the volcanic region north of the lake, R. Kandt
making a special study of Kivu and the Kagera sources, while
the Anglo-German boundary commission of 1902-1904 surveyed
the valley of the lower Kagera, and fixed the exact position
of Albert Edward Nyanza. Much new information concerning
the border-lands of British East Africa and Abyssinia between
Lake Rudolf and the lower Juba was obtained by the survey
executed in 1902-1903 by a British officer, Captain P. Maud.
While political requirements led to the exact determination
of frontiers, administrative needs forced the governments
concerned to take in hand the survey of the countries under their
protection. Before the close of the first decade of the 20th
century tolerably accurate maps had been made of the German
colonies, of a considerable part of West Africa, the Algerian
Sahara and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, mainly by military
