GEOGRAPHICAL EXPEDITIONS.
ITHE world seems inclined to try a new method of geogra- phical discovery. In the eighteenth century, and the first half of the present one, though . maritime discovery was prosecuted more or less ardently by great States employing adequate means, the work of exploring the interior of unknown
countries was usually left to individuals, who spent whole sections of their lives in exploring countries or provinces which had, for any reason or no reason, attracted them. Sometimes a savant, some- times a Missionary, sometimes a man brimming over with the de- sire of adventure, the traveller entered the unknown country, wan- dered in its villages, became thoroughly familiar with its people, and either perished obscurely or emerged laden with his additions to human knowledge. Almost all our knowledge of the interior of Africa and China was acquired in that way, and to this moment it is the only plan pursued in the explorations of those Northern countries of Asia of which, in spite of Russian progress, the world still knows so little. Dr. Livingstone was one of the greatest of these soli- tary explorers, and he may possibly prove to have been the last of them. A traveller here and there, urged by the desire of knowledge, may enter an unexplored region, but the world has decided that it wishes to acquire its knowledge of the planet without the waste of time involved in reliance on individual energy. It has discovered that in almost all places, and especially in Africa, an Expedition learns much more in much less time than any solitary traveller, and its learning is much more easily transported homewards. When a State wishes to reach the Pole, it despatches a little fleet; when a Geographical Society wishes to find a lost traveller, it sends an armed party ; when a religious society decides to establish k mission, it sends its preachers as well equipped as officials; and when newspaper pro- prietors desire to reveal the secret of the Nile, they forward a little armed brigade—with a yacht in parcels—to the African lakes. When the Governments and Societies are reluctant to move, private individuals take their place ; but they adopt the same method, and Lieutenant Armit and his companions will probably precede any individual Englishman in the exploration of New Guinea.
Prima fade, the new system would appear to have all the advantages on its side, and as far as geographical knowledge is concerned, it may be accepted as unquestionably the best. A large party of explorers, well commanded and thoroughly equipped, can traverse savage districts at a pace no individual can attempt, can choose its route in accordance with its objects instead of its wants, and can set the most formidable of all obstacles—the hostility of natives—almost at defiance. It can employ animals, can convey skeleton boats, and even yachts, can transport provisions, and can even, though only for a cer- tain number of hours, dispense with water. It can cross distances which would appal an individual in reasonable time, and can employ the apparatus necessary for accurate observations of many kinds at once. Mr. Stanley, the Central-African Correspondent of the Herald and the Telegraph, may not be the equal of Dr. Livingstone in any respect, except daring and a kind of dogged fidelity to the work he has set himself, but Mr. Stanley at the head of adequate force will in two years do as much for geographical knowledge as the Scotch Missionary did in his whole life. He can go on with his followers where Livingstone must have re- coiled. If the jungle is impassable, he can cut a path. If the desert is barren, he can carry provisions. If the marsh is deadly, he can lose a few followers. If the natives are hostile, he can compel a peace by a resolute and victorious little war. His progress is that of an invading force, only to be stopped by defeat ; and he sails everywhere upon Lake Nyanza, the Inland Sea of Africa which Livingstone could only gaze at ; cross it, and coast it, and traverse it, when Livingstone could only wander on its banks ; and make observations as extensive as he pleases, in a tranquillity as great as that of Greenwich. If he is not stopped by some frightful epidemic, we shall when he returns know as much about the Lake system of Central Africa and the origins of the Nile and Congo as if they were in Europe, and a great deal more than the Egyptians, who ought long ago to have known all about their own river, have ever succeeded in acquiring. We do not know that the ob- ject of the Expedition—which, after all, is the advertising of two newspapers—though a perfectly justifiable, is a very ennobling one ; nor have we an enthusiastic appreciation of its leader, whose character, like that of most successful "correspondents," "tra- vellers," and daring adventurers, strikes us as "kinder mixed ;" but there can be no question that he will do what geographers want to have done as no traveller, even if he had the enterprise of Belzoni, or the pertinacity of Lander, or the self-sacrifice of Livingstone, could possibly accomplish. His expedition will be a landmark in the history of geographical discovery.
The one thing we shall probably not get from Mr. Stanley is a full account of the nativeS through whose territories he mast pass.
The old explorer beat the "Expedition" leader there. He had to wander among the people, to live with them, to be nursed by them, to acquire their language, and if possible to impress them by exhibiting his own acquirements; and if he was not clubbed, or burned, or eaten, he learned in the process to know them as no Expedition ever can. Mr. Stanley will know the Lakes, but he will not know the people by the Lakes as Lander knew the people on the Niger, or Bruce the Gallas, or Hue the Thibe- tans, and still less as Gifford Palgrave knew the Wahabees of Yemen. The elder traveller talked of "the people," the "villagers," the tribes, but to an Expedition all distinc- tions save friendliness and hostility are merged in the gene- ral appellation of natives." The leaders have no particular reason to know individuals, or to court tribes, or to draw care- ful diplomatic distinctions. Their only care is to ascertain whether the folk in the distance are "friendly" or " hostile "— which means, very often, we fear, cowardly or spirited—to count their numbers, to calculate their position, and then to go on, either fighting or at peace. The separatenesses, so to speak, of the nations they plunge among are of little more importance to them than the details of a French uniform to a Prussian advancing brigade. They are so many, and therefore will be such an obstacle, or will not be, and whether they talk Bre- hon, or the patois of Auvergne, or Parisian is a matter of irrelevant curiosity. This loss, though inevitable, is important, if only because Englishmen are always slightly hostile to coloured persons without clothes, whom they do not understand, and in- clined to lump all negroes together as persons to be managed only by regulated severity, and therefore to treat them in a way which is sure sooner or later to raise the question whether we have any right to explore when exploration is so certain to lead to a large killing of Blacks. To our minds, that question ulti- mately admits of only one reply, namely, that it is for the benefit of mankind, the Blacks included, that Central Africa should be explored ; that they are in no way compelled to resist parties so ob- viously on the march, and that if they will resist by the only method known to them, they must take the consequences. The world cannot advance without the ascendancy of the more enlightened, and if the unenlightened will resist its advance by murderous methods, they must be driven out of the way. But it is vain to deny that the question does arise, or that it does on one or two points present most serious difficulties. That an expedition has a right to march quietly through the territories of the Wavuma or any other tribe does not admit of question, and is as clear as their right to march through England in the same way, if they want to. An attack on them for so marching is a violence, in native opinion as well as English opinion, and gives them, as it would give Wavumas in England, if similarly attacked, the right of self- defence, which in Africa, where an attack means murder, involves killing by firearms. But it is very nearly impossible for an expedition to make long marches without requisition- ing food, which food those who own it may not be willing to part with even for fair payment. They may want it them- selves, and to take it by force and then kill them for resisting is a proceeding it requires some casuistry to defend. Never- theless, that is an event which must occur, if not on this expedition, then on others ; and we confess the friend who, on this ground, roundly condemned all exploration through expeditions, slightly pn7zied us for a reply. We suppose the true reply is the old one,—that the right to food is included in the right of self-defence, and that a tribe offered payment by starving men is bound to share what it has at any risk ; but we confess the answer is not perfectly satisfactory. The English should suffer as well as the tribe, and being the stronger, they won't. As far as we understand African travelling, this par- ticular crux never occurs, the villagers accumulating great stores of food ; but difficulties about cattle and transport do occur, and are the usual commencement of campaigns of the glory of which the less said the better. Fortunately for all parties, the leader of an expedition of the kind can never, except in extreme cases, be anxious for a campaign— which may embarrass his advance, and must embarrass his return—is desirous not to lose men, and careful about his bag- gage, and we may therefore rely on it that when he fights it is because he finds a necessity for fighting. All the same, the less fighting there is the better, and the less crowing in newspapers over victory the better, lest expeditions right and praiseworthy in themselves degenerate into buccaneering enterprises. We have never questioned the right of conquest, which is frequently the only means by which whole races can be improved ; but to justify conquest the conquerors must govern, and exploring Ex-
peditions do not intend government. Geographical Expeditions, in plain English, are very 'audible and interesting enterprises, which help on the work of the world ; but their members have no right to slay except in strict self-defence, of which, we suppose, but suppose very reluctantly, the taking of food for payment must be held to be part.
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