TO THE CENTRAL AFRICAN LAKES AND BACK.* So far as

the history of English publishing enterprise is con- cerned, 1881 will evidently be known as the year of Africa ; and no higher compliment can be paid to the latest and youngest of our explorers than to say that he and his narrative will com- mand a large share of public attention, in spite of the dis- advantages under which both labour. These disadvantages are obvious and considerable. Not only does Mr. Thomson's book come in the wake of the works of Dr. Holub and Major Serpa Pinto, but of necessity it does not add to our purely scientific knowledge, like the one, or gratify the appetite for the exciting and romantic, like the other. It might be summed up in the three words, Nyassa, Tanganyika, and Lukuga, which Living- stone, and Stanley, Cameron, and Burton, have already made tolerably familiar to us. To "do "—or rather, to re-" do "—these on £1,500 was the utmost that the Royal Geographical Society expected of the late Mr. Keith Johnston, whose early and much-to-be-regretted death gave to an enthusiastic Dum- friesshire student of geology just out of his teens the opportunity of leaping into the front rank of geographical adventurers. Mr. Thomson was able to do more than the Society planned, partly through good-fortune, partly through good management—for his narrative is as much a revelation of Scotch " canniness," as of Scotch enthusiasm, energy, and tenacity—but even he sums up the results of his enterprise with as much truth as modesty, when ho says :-

" I have had the honour of being the first to reach Lake Nyassa from the north, to journey between Nyassa and Tanganyika, to march along tho west side of the latter, and to pass for sixty miles down the Lukuga. Lake Leopold has also been visited, for the first time, and some light has been thrown upon a variety of geographical subjects, such as the rivers Raabe, and Uranga, the mountainous region north of Nyassa, and the interesting question relating to the drainage of the Tanganyika."

Besides, Mr. Thomson has had no training in literary compo- sition ; as an artist of the " graphic " order, he cannot claim to be a rival of Mr. Stanley, or even of Mr. Cameron. It would not have been at all surprising, had his story been dull, and 'even. Dryasdustish.

That it is not so, but the very reverse, is due very largely to the fact that it is the unconscious revelation of a young, fresh, and thoroughly Scotch intelligence. In his second volume, Mr. Thomson presents us with his portrait. It at once suggests vigour, animal spirits, a quick appreciation of the comic, and above all, naIvet6; and, indeed, is a positive contrast to the portrait, in. the first volume, of Mr. Keith Johnston, who looks not so much a Scotchman as a comely Englishman of the middle-class.—resolute, reticent, stoical. The book is precisely what the writer's portrait would lead one to look for. There is an open-eyed, breezy healthiness about it which puts one not a little in remembrance of that other very clever but rather self- conscious young Scotehman, Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. It may be doubted if any traveller ever had such a frisky humour as Mr. Thomson, or showed it in such a variety of ways,—now in winking to the pretty wife of an African chief, now in pouring castor-oil down the throats of rebellious porters ; again, in realistic description, which proves Mr. Thomson to be a countryman of Smollett, as well as of Park and Livingstone,—as he reminds us, perhaps, once too often. Mr. Thomson speaks very modestly of his style, or rather, want of style, and in his preface expresses his obliga-

7 To the Central African Lakes and Back; the Narrative of the Royal Geographical Society's East Central African Expedition, 1878-80. By Joseph Thomson, F.R.U.S. 2 vols. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Atvington. 1881.

tions to his brother, a clergyman in Greenock, who has acted as his editor. The latter might have looked a little better after his brother's poetical quotations,—he need not have let him write, "the long results of time," for instance—but the best service that can be done to Mr. Thomson's writing is to let it alone. We shall, probably, hear more of and from him in the future—he is even now fulfilling a geographical commis- sion from the Sultan of Zanzibar—and our fear is that he may be tempted to become a stylist. Every page shows him to have a strong Celtic susceptibility to Nature, and ho indicates it as it should be indicated, in ejaculations and simple descrip- tions. "Mon, that's graund !" is all that the typical Scotsman can say to a comrade, as on a warm summer day they behold from Richmond Hill the Thames winding into the heart of the Great City, and round the senses of all beholders, as with the beauty of a Dudu, " languishing and lazy." This is Mr. Thomson's present style, and he should stick to it. Let him not become a rhetorician. Let him not imitate Mr. Stanley, or even Mr. William Black.

We have already given the Odyssey of Mr. Thomson's expe- dition in a nutshell, and it is obviously less remarkable for its additions to the sum of human knowledge—the author disclaims having made anthropological discoveries, even more than geo- graphical ones—than for its character and some of its incidents ; and a glance at one of the excellent maps which accompany these volumes will show at once how the expedition proceeded.

A. character of artistic completeness attaches to it, which can- not be claimed for any of its predecessors. It did more than it was asked to do. Mr. Thomson took no lives, and lost only one.

He speaks, on the whole, well of the tribes he came in contact with—his account of the Mahenge, a tribe that borrowed and strutted about in the Zulu costume, fs very lively—and In most eulogistic terms of the fidelity and other admirable qualities of his men ; and, indeed, our only fear in regard to this matter is that the head of Chum a, his really able as well as loyal" headman," may be turned as those of Livingstone's Sus6 and Jacob Wainwright seem to have been. It is plain, in- deed, that what seemed at first certain to be the ruin of the expedition, was a main cause of its success. A lad who bad joined it as a volunteer and out of sheer enthusiasm for geology was suddenly called upon by the death of its leader at Behobeho, and on the very frontier of the Dark Continent, to take his place. Not only did his young spirit rise to the emergency, but it brought out the best and most generous qualities of the subordinate members of the caravan. They rallied round him with the half-pitying loyalty of clansmen round a young chief whom death has unexpectedly appointed to the post of supreme honour and danger. They liked his animal spirits and his trust- ing courage; they tolerated his stripes, though they threatened to desert when he proposed to punish temporary indolence and refractoriness with fines ; and on several occasions they would have fought for him, if it had been necessary. All through, too, Mr. Thomson strikes us as belonging to that happy order of whom Wordsworth says that they,-

" In love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth."

This " genial sense " stood Mr. Thomson in as good stead as Colonel Gordon's strong religious faith did him. Like Gordon, he negotiated unarmed with the savages he met, and his con- fidence was the cause of his success,—a success which contrasts most remarkably with the tragedy associated with the expedi- tion of Captain Carter, with the Jingoism in exploration which the name of Stanley unfortunately now conjures up, and even with the ludicrous failure of poor Abb6 Debaize, a French traveller, on whose track Mr. Thomson fell, and of whom he speaks

thus :— " Our examination of Debaize's stores revealed some strange things. There were twelve boxes of rockets and fireworks, which would require about forty-eight men to carry them, several boxes of dynamite (for what conceivable use, no one knows), two largo barrels of gunpowder, innumerable revolvers and guns, two coats of armour, several boxes of brandy, two loads of penny pop-guns, a load of small bells, large quantities of botanical paper, insect bottles and tubes smashed, surgical instruments, boxes of medicines without labels, photographic apparatus; every conceivable appliance for geographical research, though he was perfectly ignorant of the working of even the most simple instrument. He brought with him also a hurdy- gurdy, valued at 12,000 francs. His intended scheme of progression through hostile countries was truly French, and admirable in its , absurdity. When he came to a village with the natives ready to .oppose his passage, he would try the softening influence of music, on the savage breast by strapping the hurdy-gurdy on a man's back, and with another to turn the handle, march peaceably, as became a priest, against the heathen, If, in spite of this, the savage breast refused to be softened, their blood would then be on their own head ! They would find they had to deal with the Church militant ! With all the ealinness of the French nature he would clothe himself in corn. plebe armour, raise confusion in the enemy's ranks by a discharge of rockets, and march deliberately to victory or death."

Mr. Thomson's narrative is, in fact, largely, if not mainly, valuable as containing directions to African travellers in the future. The more important of these may be thus condensed :- See carefully to your outfit, abstain from alcoholic liquors while travelling, take a plentiful supply of quinine, travel and, if possible, walk off disease, and carefully conceal your arms in the presence of natives. Mr. Thomson did not absolutely escape danger; he very nearly succumbed to fever, and had several hair-breadth escapes from death by violence. But he does not think he would have come back alive to England if ho had not acted, and refrained, as he did ; and most of his readers will agree with him.

From the stand-point of geographical science, the most im- portant portion of Mr. Thomson's journey was his traversing of the Lukuga for sixty miles, and his explanation—on atmo- spherical grounds—of how he found a clearly flowing river in place of what is merely a muddy creek in Stanley's narrative, is very ingenious. Owing to the responsibilities of the position which he was so suddenly called upon to occupy, Mr. Thomson was unable to attend, as carefully and fully as he would have liked, to researches in his own special " lines " as naturalist and geologist. Yet ho has been able to make a beginning of the conchology of Central Africa. The conclusions ho comes to in regard to the Dark Continent as a commercial field are not very encouraging; ivory seems to be the only thing of consequence that can be brought from the interior. Still, if he is right, the suppression of the slave-trade would tend to the development of such more legitimate traffic as is possible. The comparatively humane policy which has been adopted by or forced upon Syed Barghash, the Sultan of Zanzibar, has converted into quiet, trade-loving villagers what in Stanley's time were auspicious and dangerous tribes, living in stockades. Mr. Thomson frankly allows, as we have said, that he had no time to make researches

into the anthropology or religion of Central Africa, but his remarks confirm the general belief that the native of that

region is to all intents and purposes a materialist. It is especially pleasant, too, to find from him that the English missionaries in the Nyassa and Tanganyika districts are doing a good, civilising work, in a quiet and sensible way.