A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY IN MASQUERADE.
TILE French, not without English sympathy, have been trying very hard, for the last thirty or forty years, to find the source of that mysterious African river, the Nile. The scheme is among their great " problemes scientifiques," for the solution of which successive Governments have spent money, learned professors have written books, and bold travellers have laid down their lives. The number of those alone who have tried to enter the interior of the great terra incognita since the beginning of the reign of Louis Philippe is considerable. There are Famisier, Lefebvre, Frerer, Combe, Galinier, and others, who made the attempt from 1830 to 1840 ; M. D'Arnaud, who went in 1841 • M. Brun-Rollet, who started in 1844, and again in 1851; Vayssieres and tialzae, who followed in 1854; and Count D'Escayrao and the brothel's Abbadie, who organized an expedition in 1855. All these under- takings had no result, except perhaps that of stimulating new aspirants to scientific honours and scientific martyrdom. What the philosopher's stone, the " perpetuum mobile," and the squaring of the circle, were to the learned heads of the Middle Ages, the discovery of the source of the Nile has been to the mo- dern French savans. That the problem retains its interest is proved by a recent despatch from Paris, announcing the de- parture of another Nile expedition, under the command of Signor Miani.
The Signor, we learn, is a native of Venice; who for many years past has been settled at Cairo; in Egypt. Studying the question of African travel on the soil of the country, and in im- mediate contact with the natives, he came to the conclusion that all modern attempts at discovery had failed chiefly on account of one defect in their organization, namely, their want of power over the inhabitants of the country. This power has never been gained by any previous adventurer, sufficiently to surmount the great physical obstacles of soil and climate ; and the main thing to be sought is the moral hold of man over man. Analyzing the African character in its various shades and tendencies, after long and patient study, Signor Miani imagines that he has at last found this puissant lever in that propensity which is most de- veloped in southern races, the fear of the supernatural. He ar- gues that the High-priests of ancient Egypt, as well as the rain- makers and jugglers of the present day, have been and still are absolute in their ascendancy by means of this power; and that, consequently, in order to command success, the scientific traveller has to employ the same agency.
This once established to his own satisfaction, our Venetian gentleman, like a man who has found a pearl and at the same time knows what to do with it, forthwith started to put his idea into practical use. He went to Paris, established himself at the Hotel du Louvre, close to the Tuileries, claimed and obtained an audience of his Imperial Majesty Napoleon III. This was about Christmas, 1858, just before the ruler of France had opened his thunder at poor Baron Hubner, just before the Imperial mind was filled with visions of battles on the banks of the Ticino and the Mincio, of triumphal entries into ancient Lombard towns, and of proud meetings with a high and mighty Kaiser and his satraps.
At this favourable moment the cunning Venetian developed his ideas before his Majesty, and explained his new plan for astonish- ing the natives of Africa. We can fancy a grim smile playing on the lips of Napoleon III. at Signor Miani's demonstration, that all the learning of all the savans of Europe is as nothing in the eyes of the faithful Black subjects of some King Dahomey, compared with the clever trick of leger-de-main performed by a Bosco or an Houdin. " Ah, comme vous connaissez le monde his Majesty might have exclaimed ; but very likely did not, knowing as well as any living man, the value of Burns's maxim- " Still keep something to yourself
Ye scarcely tell to onie."
Instead of encouraging the petitioner with fine words, as an Eng- lish Minister might have done, the Emperor justified the expec- tations of Signor Miani, by at once approving the plan, and giving orders to M. Achille Fould for immediate execution.
What these orders were, we now learn from the reports of the French newspapers. They tell us that Signor Miani left Paris a short while ago, accompanied by a small number of men expert in handling rifled cannon, in firing rockets, and in using a vast assortment of modern scientific machinery, such as electric batteries, air-pumps, diving-bells, and similar contrivances, whilom well-known io country visitors of the Regent Street Poly- technic Institution. The purpose of this apparatus in the hands of the Miani expedition will be clear to everybody. But the scien- tific machines or toys are not the sole agencies which the new dis- coverer intends to use, for he is supplied moreover with a most complete assortment of masks of the most hideous character, end of instruments to imitate the voice of various savage brutes, used together, will allow him to change instanter himself and
his followers into so many roaring lions, tigers, leopards, and other wild animals. So that when the wonder of electric shocks, Bengal lights, and artificial rainbows is quite exhausted, the tra- velling company, as a last resource, can suddenly throw off their personal identity, and come forth in grand style as Demons of the Desert.
This is really the secon I attempt which has been made in Parka ; for the celebrated Robert Houdin was sent out to Algeria by the French Government, to see what effect his exhibition of sleight-of-hand would have upon the Arab sorcerers. He suc- ceeded in his mission, and extended his own art. Houdin learned among other new feats, how to insert a knife into the corner of his eye without any mischievous results. His achievements in natural magic sorely discomfited the Marabouts and their be- lievers. The expedition had a most favourable effect ; and probably these successes in practical statesmanship prompted the invitation which Robert Houdin received from M. Mani to join the new Nilotic Administration; but the Prince of Prestdigitators declined.
Perhaps this masquerading is the greatest novelty that has been added to the resources of the geographical discoverer since the time when Cook introduced cleanliness, lime-juice, and other enemies of the scurvy into vessels engaged in long voyages. But, although new to geography, the histrionic apparatus is not alto- gether a novelty to the leaders of expeditions and enterprises: we have known it in politics ; and it is only under the latest in- spirations of "Progress" that the newest iaea has been started, of letting diplomacy be something better than a farce of " Masks and Faces." It seems that the bugaboo style of statesmanship is descending to Negroland.
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