CAMERON, VERNEY LOVETT British traveller in central Africa, was born at Radipole, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire, on July i, 1844. He entered the navy in 1857, served in the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, and was employed for a con siderable time in the suppression of the East African slave trade. He was selected to command an expedition sent by the Royal Geographical Society in 1873, to succour Dr. Livingstone and to make independent explorations. Not long after the expedition left Zanzibar, Livingstone's servants were met bearing the dead body of their master. Cameron's two European companions turned back, but he continued his march and reached Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, in Feb. 1874, where he found and sent to Eng land Livingstone's papers. Cameron spent some time determining the true form of the south part of the lake, and solved the question of its outlet by the discovery of the Lukuga river. From Tangan yika he struck westward to Nyangwe, the Arab town on the Lualaba previously visited by Livingstone. This river Cameron rightly believed to be the main stream of the Congo, and could not procure canoes to follow it down, owing to his refusal to countenance slavery. He therefore turned south-west. After tracing the Congo-Zambezi watershed for hundreds of miles he reached Bihe and finally arrived at the coast on Nov. 28, being the first European to cross equatorial Africa from sea to sea. His book Across Africa (1877) contains valuable suggestions for the opening up of the continent, including the utilization of the great lakes as a "Cape to Cairo" connection. In recognition of his work he was promoted to the rank of commander, made a C.B., and received the gold medal of the Geographical Society. Cam eron visited the Euphrates valley in 1878-1879, and accompanied Sir R. G. Burton in his West African journey of 1882, and was joint author with Burton of To the Gold Coast for Gold (1883). He was killed, near Leighton Buzzard (Bedford) by a fall from horseback on March 24, 1894.
A summary of Cameron's great journey, from his own pen, appears in Dr. Robert Brown's The Story of Africa, vol. ii. pp. 266-279 (1893).