MODERN EXPLORATION. Thus far the Portu guese had been almost alone in the exploration of Africa, but in the second half of the eight eenth century a new era of discovery began—an era in which men of several nationalities have had a share, and by the results of which several nations have sought to profit. The new line of explorers is headed by James Bruce (q.v.), a Seotehman who had been British consul at Algiers from 1763 to 1765. While in Egypt in 1768 he conceived the plan of seeking for the sources of the Nile. After crossing the Red Sea to Jiddah, lie entered Abyssinia by the way of Massowah, and proceeded to Gondar. where he won the favor of the Negus. After some delay he succeeded in reaching the headwaters of the Blue Nile, and believed that he had found the true source of the main river. He arrived in Cairo in 1773. His account of his journey and the increasing interest in the slave traffic led to the organization. in 1788. of the African Associa tion, expressly intended to promote the explora tion of the unknown parts of the continent. In 1795 the association dispatched Mungo Park (q.v.), a young Scotehman, to the mouth of the Gambia. to explore the interior and to find the Niger, on which was supposed to be the negro city of Timbuktu. Passing up the Gambia, Park, after many adventures, reached the Niger, which he traced for a considerable distance along its middle course. He returned to England. but again set forth in 1805, intending to travel over land to the Niger, and by sailing down that stream prove his theory that it was identical with the river which was known at the mouth as the Congo. He was drowned at Bussa. with one of his companions, and all the other members of the party succumbed to fever.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese Brazilian E. J. de Lacerda in 1797 started from the Zambezi to cross the continent from east to west, hut died near Lake Macro. Other Portuguese explorers traversed this region from both sides during the next thirty-five years. The stories that Park had heard and published about the mysterious city of Timbuktu aroused great curiosity. The city was reached in 1811 by a British seaman named Adams, who had been wrecked on the Moorish coast and carried inland as a slave, but was ransomed by the British consul at Slogador. In 1822 Major Denham and Lieutenant Clap perton (q.v.) attempted the trans-Saharan route to Timbuktu. From Murzuk, the capital of Fezzan, they made their way to Lake Chad and thence to Bo nn, adding, in a second trip by Clap perton from Benin to the Niger, some two thou sand miles of route to the known geography of West Africa. In 1826 Timbuktu was reached by Major Laing (q.v.), who was murdered there. In 1828 Rene CaiIlie reached the far-famed metropolis, and his report aroused widespread in terest, one sign of which was the prize poem with which Tennyson berm]] his public career. The doubtful geographical problem of the course and mouth of the Niger was finally solved, 1830 34, by the Lander brothers. At this time the exploration of the Nile was carried on under the auspices of Mehemet Ali, its course being traced almost to the equator. In 1847 the German mis
sionaries Krapf and Rebmann discovered the peaks of Kilimanjaro and Kenia.
The middle of the nineteenth century marked the introduction of the distinctly scientific spirit into African exploration. Heretofore the thirst for adventure, the desire to develop a profitable trade, and a somewhat sentimental humani tarianism had been the chief motives of the ex peditions. The era of systematic scientific ex ploration was ushered in by Dr. Heinrich Barth (q.v.). a German in the English service. The primary object of his activity was the opening of trade with Central Africa. He left Tripoli early in 1850 with James Richardson, who died soon after leaving Bornu, where the party had separated. Overweg, another of the loaders, was the first European to sail on Lake Chad, and died in 1852. Barth, for four years, conducted extensive explorations in the heart of Africa. From Lake Chad he crossed Haussaland to the Niger, thence across country to Timbuktu, thence back to Say on the Niger, to Sokoto, to Kukawa in Bornu, and across the desert to Tripoli, whence he returned to England with the most valuable contribution yet made to the geographical knowledge of interior Africa. His voluminous works are of the highest value. Be fore Barth started from the north, another of the greatest of African explorers, David Living stone (q.v.). had unostentatiously begun his re markable career. lle had settled in 1841 in Bechu analand, and. gradually pushing northward, dis covered Lake Ngami in 1849. In 1851 be arrived at the Zambezi. He prepared himself thorough ly for more extended work. and went to the Zam bezi again in l852, followed up the river almost to its source, eros-red to Angola, and then returned and followed the Zambezi to its mouth. He went to London in 1S56. Burton (q.v.) and Speke (q.v.) explored Somaliland in 1854, and in 1856 led an expedition under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. which discov ered Tanganyika and the southern shore of Victoria Nyanza, which Speke and Grant ex plored from 1860 to 1864. Numerous Austrian, Italian, German, and English explorers had been working in the Nile region. Sir Samuel Baker explored the Abyssinian branches of the Nile, met Speke and Grant in 1S64, and discovered the Albert Nyanza and its connection with the Nile. Livingstone, between 1858 and 1864, ex plored the River Shire and discovered Lake Nyassa. He renewed his work in 1866, going from the RUV11111a River to Nyassa, Tanganyika, Moero, the Luapula River, and Bangweolo, where he arrived in 186S. Thence he went to Tanganyika and Nyangwe on the Upper Congo, which he called the Lualaba. At Ujiji a relief expedition sent by the New York Herald under H. M. Stanley (q.v.) met him in 1871. Living stone soon returned to Lake Bangweolo, where he (lied in 1873. Another relief expedition sent out by the Royal Geographical Society in 1S73 under Lieutenant Cameron, starting at Zanzibar, learned of Livingstone's death, but went on, mapped Lake Tanganyika, found that the Lua tait was the Congo. and reached Benguela in 1875, having crossed the continent.