mentary native information, and he would be a bold man who asserted that he possessed a definite knowledge of even its most elementary hydrographical features.

Vainly do we look to the ancients or to the Arabs for definite information respecting the interior of these territories, and although Fra Mauro, in his map of the world (1457) has given us a picture of Abyssinia, surprisingly correct as to certain details, though fearfully exaggerative with respect to distances, and even indicates a river Xibe, which in its lower course assumes the name of Galla, and finally finds its way into an arm of the Indian Ocean, against which is written the word "Diab," it is only since the Portuguese, in their victorious career round Africa, extended their researches inland into the country of Prester John, that our geographical knowledge assumes a definite shape. As early as 1525, Jorge d'Abren, one of the gentlemen attached to the mission of Don Rodrigo de Lima, accompanied an Abyssinian army into Adea. He is the first European who stood on the shore of Lake Zuway, and up to within the last few years, the only one. Subsequently (1613) Antonio Fernandez vainly tried to make his way through the Galla countries to the Indian Ocean, and although he failed in his main object, he yet visited Kambate and Alaba, countries which no European has beheld since. A few years after him, in 1624, Father Lobo walked from Pata to the mouth of the Jub in search of an inland route to Abyssinia. He too failed; but the names of the twelve tribes, through whose territories he was told his route would lead, have kept their place on our maps down to the beginning of the present century, and this represented nearly all we knew with respect to it.

It may with truth be stated that the map of Abyssinia published by Tellez, is a geographical monument which does credit to the enterprise and capacity of these early Portuguese explorers. And if, during the last two centuries, Portugal, exhausted by efforts quite out of proportion to the number of her children, has allowed the stage of geographical exploration almost to be monopolised by others, it is all the more gratifying to find that in these latter days she has once more sent explorers into the field, whose scientific accomplishments are quite on a par with those of other nations.

Until far into the nineteenth century our knowledge of the countries under review can hardly be said to have increased, and when the work of exploration was resumed, it was Englishmen who stood in the van. Whilst Lieut. Carless and other officers of the Indian Navy were busy surveying the coast, Colonel Rigby, then on service at Aden, collected useful information on the interior, and first wrote an outline grammar of the Somal language. Lieut. Christopher, however, was the first to make important discoveries (1843), for during three trips inland, from Barawa, Merka, and Mokhdesho (Magadoxo), he came upon the lower course of the Wébi Shabeela, which he named the Haines river. M. Guillain,

whose book on Eastern Africa will always maintain its place among geographical standard works, visited the same river in 1847, and determined the latitude of Geledi.* M. Léon des Avanchers, although he made no excursions into the interior, yet greatly extended our knowledge by careful inquiries among travelled natives, and it is to be regretted that only a mere outline of his itineraries should have been published. In 1865 Baron von der Decken achieved a great success by ascending the Jub to beyond Bardera, and if the explorer himself lost his life in this enterprise, it is some consolation to us that the results of his work have been saved. The Jub has since been ascended for a considerable distance by Colonel Long, who was attached to Admiral McKillopp's squadron, despatched to the east coast of Africa, at the instigation of Gordon Pasha, with orders to take possession of a suitable point whence overland communication might be established with the Egyptian stations on the Upper Nile.

In Northern Somal Land, Lieut. Cruttenden is entitled to the credit of having first penetrated into the interior of the country, for Mr. R. Stuart, whom Salt despatched to Zeyla with instructions to proceed to Harar, never left the coast; whilst Lieut. Barker, who endeavoured to reach that point from Shoa in 1842, failed in his enterprise. Mr. Cruttenden looked down from the summit of the Airansid upon the broad vale of the Tok Daror, or "river of mist" (1848). Captain Speke extended these explorations six years afterwards; and Captain Burton, in 1855, achieved one of those triumphs which it is given to few travellers to achieve. He reached Harar, the old capital of Adea, the first European who did so, although that town lies within a few marches from the coast, and was known by report to the old Portuguese. Among more recent explorers we may mention Heuglin (1857), whose excursions inland have not, however, been of any extent; Captain S. B. Miles (1871), who explored the Wadi Jail, to the south of Cape Guardafui (1871); Hildebrand (1873), the botanist, who ascended the Yafir Pass; Haggenmacher (1874), who pushed his way far inland to the very border of far-famed Ogaden; Graves (1879), who explored the vicinity of Cape Guardafui; and last, not least, M. Révoil (1878-81), who, during three successive expeditions through North-eastern Somal Land, did perhaps as much work as all his predecessors taken together.

In the meantime Harar had been occupied, in 1876, by an Egyptian force commanded by Rauf Pasha, and almost immediately became a focus of attraction to explorers and merchants, not, however, before General Gordon, during a flying visit to the place, had deposed the

* Geledi, in M. Guillain's book, is placed in 2° 6' N., but this appearing to me to be a misprint for 2° 16' N., I requested Captain Lannoy de Bissy to try and obtain a look at the original records. These have unfortunately been destroyed. The map, however, very clearly places Geledi in 2° 16′ N., and Captain de Lannoy writes: "La carte que j'ai calquée semble donner raison à votre assertion. Je vous l'envoie avec la latitude de Magadoxo determinée par les officiers du Ducouédie."

No. V.-MAY 1884.]

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Egyptian Pasha, just as he had done four years previously when he found him installed on the Upper Nile. Giulietti, the same who was subsequently murdered in the Afar country, provided us with a good map of his route from Zeyla (1879), and Father Taurin, already favourably known through his work in Abyssinia, gave us an insight into the Galla country to the west of Harar (1880). Captain Cecchi, on his return. from the coast, turned out of his way to pay a visit to Harar, and determined its latitude (1882). All efforts, however, to penetrate from Harar into the interior have, with one single exception, ended disastrously. M. Luceran, a scientific explorer in the service of the French Ministry of Education, was murdered by the Galla, when he had scarcely left that place, in 1881. Sacconi, who proposed to visit the Ogaden country, met with the same fate when about twenty days' march to the south or south-east of that town (5th August, 1883); and Lazzaro Panajosi, a Greek, shared the same fate soon afterwards. M. Rimbaud, however, a gentleman in the service of Messrs. Mazeran, Bardey and Co., is reported to have returned in safety from a trading trip into the country of the Ogaden.

Continuing our survey of the borders of the Galla Land in a westerly direction, we reach Shoa and Abyssinia, where in the course of three centuries the Galla have obtained a footing, but where they have largely adopted the language and the customs of the more highly civilised people whose territories they invaded. Taking the Hawash and the Abai as the natural boundaries of Galla Land in the north, we find that the number of modern travellers who have overstepped that line is as yet far from considerable. On the other hand, many of those who confined themselves to Abyssinia and Shoa, and more especially Dr. Beke, M. Rochet d'Héricourt, and Dr. Krapf, have collected information on these southern countries, which in our present state of knowledge proves still highly acceptable.

Lieut. Lefebvre was the first European who in modern days (1843) crossed the Hawash into the country of the Soddo Galla. He was succeeded in 1879 by Signor Bianchi, the first of modern Europeans who furnished an account of Gurage from personal knowledge. Since then Chiarini and Cecchi have travelled from Shoa through the Galla countries as far as Kaffa. The former died at Ghera from the cruel hardships which he was made to suffer, but Captain Cecchi was able to return to Europe with a rich store of solid information. Since this enterprising and arduous expedition King John and his Viceroy Menelik of Shoa have extended their sway to the south as far as Kaffa; and the first European to avail himself of the facilities for travel thus afforded has been M. Soleillet, who visited Kaffa in 1882.

The region immediately to the south of Abyssinia proper, with its bold mountains, deep valleys, and very mixed population, was first explored in a scientific spirit by M. A. d'Abbadie, who visited Bonga in

Kaffa in 1840, and traced the Gibbe to its source during a second expedition in 1846. Some useful information was likewise collected by the Roman Catholic missionaries, Massaja and Léon des Avanchers, the latter of whom died at Ghera in 1879, after a residence extending over many years.

More recent still than either of these expeditions is that of the German, Dr. Stecker, the first to visit Lake Zuway since 1525. The last explorer whose name we have to mention is J. M. Schuver, whose recent murder in the Denka country has cut short a career of great performance during the past, and much promise for the future. He was the first and is still the only European who has penetrated to the Lega Galla, in the extreme north-west of the vast Galla Land. Dr. Emin Bey, the Governor of the Equatorial Province, intended to visit the Galla tribes lying to the east of the territories over which he so wisely and successfully rules; but recent events have wrecked his plans. I may mention parenthetically that the Lango, on the Upper Nile, are generally described as Galla; and that Dr. Emin, in one of his communications to the Journal of the German Ethnographical Society, states that they are of the same race as the Latuka. If this is so, then the Lango cannot be Galla, for an examination of his vocabularies of the Latuka language shows that these, at all events, are Masai. Hence arises the further question as to the nationality of the Wa-huma, who have given rulers to U-nyoro and U-ganda, and are met with as herdsmen far towards Lake Tanganyika.

In this rapid survey of the progress of geographical exploration we have mentioned the names of a large number of travellers of merit, but a glance at the Society's map of Equatorial Africa, upon which their routes are laid down, shows that the districts explored by them are still very limited in extent, if we compare them with the regions into which up till now no European has set his foot. Under these circumstances compilers of maps are still dependent to a very large extent upon native information. Indeed, one whole sheet of the map just referred to, embracing an area of 90,000 geographical square miles, is exclusively based upon imperfect information of that kind, and several other sheets of the map are almost in the same condition.

Amongst earlier travellers to whom we are most largely indebted for information of this class are Cruttenden, Christopher, Beke, d'Abbadie, Guillain, and Léon des Avanchers. To these honoured names I now wish to add that of the Rev. Thomas Wakefield, who has laboured sedulously on the East Coast since 1865, and has allowed no opportunity for obtaining information on the Galla countries to escape him. Before his return to Eastern Africa in 1883, that gentleman placed in my hands a large volume of manuscript notes, and from these I have culled all such information as appeared to me to be of interest to geographers.

The Country of the Hawiyah Somal.-It will, be most convenient for future reference if we arrange Mr. Wakefield's information according to the geographical

districts with which it deals. The country of the Hawiyah, which extends from Mokhdesho along the coast as far as Hópia, has hitherto been most inadequately delineated on our maps. Mr. Wakefield is the first to supply materials for indicating some of its more prominent features. It is to all appearance a country of white sands, producing scanty pasture, and affording only in a few localities a soil sufficiently rich for agricultural purposes, or for the growth of timber. Game is absent; lions or leopards are never seen; and even the hyena is very scarce. The principal tribes are the Abgal (including the royal clan of Al Yakub, the Wa Ézk, the Al Erli or "pot-bellies," the Arti (Herti), the Yusuf and the Galmaha, in the southwest; the Móro Sathe in the centre, and the Ábr Gíthirr (Habr Gader) in the northeast. Hópia lies within the country of these latter. It is merely a small port, near which good water and timber are found. Amber is sometimes thrown up there on the coast. Sarur, a locality in the interior, appears to be one of the more favoured spots, and the Abgal, who live there in small villages, cultivate millet, kunde, beans, water-melons, and cotton, and keep camels, cattle, sheep and goats, but neither horses nor asses. The home-grown cotton is spun by them, and woven into coarse tobas for the men, the women contenting themselves with goatskins. There are native smiths, but they are capable only of doing repairs. Tobacco, agricultural implements, and the calico in which the women wrap the head, are imported from Mokhdesho. These articles are very expensive, for a camel is given for nine or ten yards of tobacco, and a goat for a yard of blue cotton stuff. Slavery is said to be unknown among this tribe.

The Móro Sathe, in the centre of the country, are the Murrusade of Guillain and the Emor Zaidi of old authors. They cultivate the same products as their neighbours. They likewise keep no horses. The Abgal, finally, are the tribe with whom Europeans come into contact at Mokhdesho.

The Wébi Shabeela or Haines River.-The Wébi Shabeela or Haines river, is apparently the only perennial river of the Somal country. There can be no doubt that some of its head-streams rise near the city of Harar, but we are unable to say whether the Waira, recently discovered by Chiarini, is one of its tributaries, or finds its way into the Jub. The accounts which Mr. Wakefield received as to its source are most conflicting, and quite irreconcilable with the topography of the country around Harar, such as it has been described to us by M. Taurin and other trustworthy European travellers. One of his informants, Ādamu bin Máhamud, an Ogaden Somal, has embodied his ideas in a map, of which we give a copy, as a curious specimen of native cartography. According to this native traveller, whom Mr. Wakefield describes as a man between fifty-five and sixty years of age, of mild disposition, and apparently intelligent, the river comes from a country called Karán by the Somal and Bisan Gudda ("much water") by the Galla. The western section of this region is a plain, flooded during four months of the year, and covered with pools imbedded in reddish soil during the remainder. The river of Karán, which flows through this country, has been traced for six days upwards. It is a swift stream, a stone's throw across when in flood, but dry during the greater part of the year. The eastern section of Karán is stony, with rugged rocks scattered over its surface. There are seven hollows, about 300 feet across, which during part of the year are filled with rain-water. The Gojan Galla live to the west of Karán, the Géri Kómbe or Kavlalala two days to the north-east of it, and the Ogaden Somal to the east. The path which leads from Sérre in Ogaden to the Gúbben Dóre in the Idur country passes between the eastern and western sections of Karán.

To the south-west of Karán the river, divided into two main branches, flows round a lofty conical mainland, riven by frightful chasms, and called Maghúgha. Beyond, it is once more gathered up in a lake, Bíleka Maghúgha, nearly the whole