While the solution of the problem of the sources of the Nile was being achieved, import ant accessions were made to the knowledge of the geography of Western Africa. Du Chan] explored the eonntry back of the Gabun and the region of the Ogowe, and Burton in 1861 sealed the Peak of Kamerun.
Dr. Gerhard Roblfs (q.v.). a German serving in the foreign legion in Algeria, began to make explorations in Algeria and Morocco about 1860, and in 1866 succeeded in making the journey across the desert to the Gulf of Guinea. An other German, Dr. Nachtigal (q.v.), intrusted by the Prussian Government with a mission to the Sultan of Bonn]. started from Tripoli in 1868, explored the mountains in the central Sahara, and the whole of the eastern Sahara and Sudan. In 1S75 Stanley circumnavigated the two great lakes, Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika, crossed to the Congo, embarked upon that river at Nyan gwe. in 1876, and followed its course to the Atlantic. which he reached in August. 1877. Schweinfurt]] (q.v.), a native of Riga, ascended the White Nile in 1868, discovered the Wylie Biter, and returned to Egypt in 1872. having accumulated a large amount of information. Leopold II, King of the Belgians, took an active interest in the work going on in Africa, and in 1876 organized the international African Association, in which most of the European coun tries were associated. Several geographical and scientific expeditions were the product of this organization, and stations were opened from Zanzibar to Tanganyika. In 1879 Stanley was sent into the Congo country, supported by funds furnished chiefly by Leopold, and worked for five years in that region in the name of the asso ciation. Several thousand treaties were made with native chiefs, by which territorial rights of more or less value were acquired. and perma nent posts, with regular routes of trade and travel, were established along the course of the river. The purpose was to found a State which should be a civilizing centre, in the heart of Africa. For a time there was some international interest in the project ; but for several years those European powers which had been active in African exploration had been looking for ward to possible political results. and the institution of such a State, with a territory comprising about one-eleventh of the whole continent. seems to have been the signal for the rise of territorial claims on all sides. Interest in the international enterprise died out, and the King of the Belgians was left free to develop the Congo State into a Bel gian dependeney. The English hoped to make it an English possession, and the attempt of Great Britain to conic to an agreement with Portugal. whose territory in the southwest touched that of the Congo State, led to the as sembling in 1884 of the Berlin Conference, called to bring about an international agreement in African affairs. The results of this conference are described in a subsequent paragraph.
Of the long list of African explorers up to this time only those have been mentioned whose work marked a distinct advance in the knowledge of the continent. There may be added to the num ber, prior to 1885, the Portuguese Se•pa Pinto (1877-79). and Capello and ( 1884-85), who made valuable explorations in South Africa; Junker (1880-83), a traveler, whose examina tion of the western watershed of the Nile was of great value; Joseph Thomson (1883-84), who made thorough studies of the mountainous coun try between Mombasa and the lakes, and likewise in West Africa and the Atlas Mountains; Wiss mann (1881-82), who crossed the continent and returned through the southern side of the Congo basin; Oscar Lenz, who, in 1879-87, went from Morocco to Senegambia by the way of Timbuktu, ascended the Congo, and traveled to the Zambezi by the way of Tanganyika; Brazza, who explored the country between the Ogowe and Congo; and Emil Holub, who added greatly to the knowledge of the natural history of South Africa.
Much has been done in the way of exploration since 1885, the object generally being to perfect geographical and scientific knowledge of the dif ferent regions. Of such expeditions, the best known and one of the most noteworthy was Stan ley's mission, undertaken in 1887. in search of Gordon's the German S'ehnitze•, bet ter known as Emin Pasha, who had retreated into the interior after the fall of Khortom. Stanley went up the Congo and crossed to Zanzibar. On the journey he traversed the dense and vast forest inhabited by diminutive savages, and thus eon firmed ancient accounts of African Pygmies. The predominance of the British in Egypt and in South Africa, and the fact that the territory under British influence stretches with but one break (German East Africa ) from the mouth of the Nile to Cape Town, has given rise to the project of a trunk line railway "from the Cape to Cairo," a project which is likely to he carried out at no distant day, with far-reaching muse quenees in the development of the continent. This plan led to the (Tossing of the continent from south to north by Ewart S. Grogan and Arthur Sharp in 1899. Their journey was an adventurous and dangerous one, hut the change in African conditions at the end of the nineteenth century is indicated by tlo• fact that. there was a choice of routes in buying first-class railway tickets from the Cape to Karonga at the head of Lake Nyassa, and the journey from Sobat, a considerable distance south of Fashoda, is de seribed as "a fortnight of wild hospitality" at the hands of English friends. This journey was productive of much valuable information regard ing the country which the transcontinental line is expected to traverse in the volcanic region around Lake Kivu and on the eastern shores of Lake Albert Edward and the Upper Xilc. A host of scientific investigators and explorers have in tla• last twenty years done useful work in various African fields. Among- such, special reference should be made to Donaldson Smith in connec tion with explorations in Somaliland. The two most notable expeditions of recent years have been those of Marchand (the Mission to Fashoda") and Eourean, the latter, in his trans Saharan journey to the Congo, making an epoch in African exploration. One of the most extra ordinary among, African explorers for his suc cess as traveler, organizer, administrator, and historian of Africa is Sir TTarry 1T, Johnston.