"Onx of the most striking journeys of the past year... a remarkable feat." This is the verdict of no less! an authority than the President of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir! Clenients Markham, and refers to the romantic and adventurous feat of Captain E. S, Grogan, a young Englishman, who has successfully overcome the difficulties of a journey from Beira, on the Indian" Ocean, north of Delagoa Bay, to Cairo, traversing many districts which no white man's foot had ever trod before, and amassing a large amount of infor-motion as interesting as it may be valuable.
Twelve months or more ago there was a great deal more talk of the Cape to Cairo railway than there is to-day. Events in the meantime have turned the world's attention to other things, and it may be news to many to be told that a large fraction, closely approaching one-half of the much debated line, is already an accomplished fact. The completed portions are at the two ends—the southern from Cape Town to Buluwave, the northern from Cairo to Khartoum.
Captain Grogan's journey began at Beira, since there was nothing new to be learnt from the Cape to Buluwayo. His first point was Lake Nyanza, then by the Stevenson.road to Lake Tanganyika, past Lake Kim to the Albert Edward Nyanza, thence past the Albert Nyanza to Wadelai, and so northward to Bor, Fashoda, Khar-tourn, and Cairo. It was fit and proper that such " pioneering expedition should have been undertaken by a countryman of those great African travellers, Mungo Park, Hugh Claperton, Richard Lander, and David livingstone, and though African travel in these days is very different from what it was since Park's adventures amongst the tribes about Timbuctoo, no one who reads the story of Mr. Grogan's journey will deny that hairbreadth escapes and thrilling experiences can yet be found when sought in the right quarter.
It was in the beginning of 1898 that the adventurous explorer, accompanied by Mr. Arthur Sharp, set out. art of the way is a well-beaten track. There are steamers for instance on Lake Tanganyika, but past thet and in the section between Tanganyika and Kim the travellers found themselves in virgin territory. Then they came to an extensive volcanic district where recent eruptions had played tremendous havoc, immense lava streams having to be crossed with great difficulty and some risk. "It was only within two years that this great valley had been filled up with lava—a veritable sea forty miles by sixty, and with a varying depth of 100f. The whole country had been devastated, forests and herds of elephants having been buried under the liquid fire.
Then came a strip of cannibal country, whose horrid customs and awful rites are described as something too dreadful for publication. Captain Grogan had to fight his way through a part of this district and succeeded only with great loss of "boys" and burdens, Other tribes of very low development were met with, Some of them "ape-like creatures which might be the ' missing links' of the Darwinian theory." They are described as having " the igog arins,/ pendant pouch, ain aboer legs of the ape."
En route the travellers had an opportunity of seeing how much good, or rather how little, was being done by the international agreement for the protection of game, etc. They themselves paid £25 for a license to shoot a couple of elephants, " whereas the natives shot indiscriminately everything with a trunk, of course without paying anything." Nor were the natives the only sinners in this respect. Round about the posts in the Congo Free State territory, white men were not a whit behind in this thoughtless massacre.
Captain Grogan found various tribes well disposed to him as an Englishman, as they had previously had acquaintance with Captain Lugard who, they said, bad promised them British protection. It was, however, at Wadelai, so well remembered as the district held by Emin Pasha after the revolt of the Soudan, that our traveller met the first English officer. Thence to Khartoum he had intended to follow the Nile, but the accumulations of "sudd" in the stream made communication by water impossible. "Sudd" is a native term for the vegetable islands which collect to a depth of several feet, become sufficiently solidified at times to bear an elephant in safety, and, stranding, block up the whole channel and dam the water until the whole country is turned into a swamp by the overflow. Since Captain Grogan was there the British authorities have tackled the difficulty in a practical fashion, and will: probably conquer the sudd as completely as they did the Khalifa.
The enforced' detour proved an interesting one, as it took the traveller through a hitherto unexplored region, where the people had never seen a white face before. "They regarded me as a huge joke—as a sort of white Christy Minstrel," writes CaptainGrogan. Amongst the Dinkas, however, the reception was not so friendly, and later there was a tract of terrible country to cross, "never a native or living beast, except the dismal hippos, solemn marabouts, and screaming kites; no trees, no bushes, no grass, nothing even to boil a cup of tea." But not long after they fell in with Major Dunn, who was on a shooting trip, reached his camp and so were forwarded to Omdurman and Cairo, "a fortnight of wild hospitality."
Both from a geographical and from a naturalist's point of view this journey was extremely interesting. Much has been cleared up with respect to the territory through which the future line will probably run, The new voleanic district is not the least important of the discoveries made. From a sportsman's point of view it is no less agreeable to find that there are yet districts in which the larger wild animals roam with their pristine freedom. While some forty miles distant from the banks of the main Nile stream, with a sea of floating grass islands between, the banks were sometimes seen to be "black with elephants." Probably there hashardly been time yet for the proper enforcement of the humane understanding respecting the destruction of these and other wild animals, but it is to be hoped that Captain Grogan's experience will have the effect of stimulating those societies and governments that are really in earnest in the matter to issue stringent instructions to their agents, and see that the same are as stringently carried out.
the explorer in completing his enter-Two yas nearly were occupied by prise. There can be but little doubt that before many years are over the Cape to Cairo railway will be a reality. Whether it will pay or not will for some time be problematical, but that it is destined to be some day as great an artery for travel and trafic as the Canadian Pacific is almost a certainty.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.