We venture to forecast a fortune for Mr. Ewart S.
Grogan. He is the latest African explorer, and he read on Wednesday to the Royal Geographical Society an account of his journey from the Cape to Cairo which, if his book is one half as good as his paper, will fascinate millions. He has seen places and tribes never seen before, and he can write about them with a literary skill which was not given to Livingstone. He has passed by both the sources of the Nile, has seen a tribe near the Albert Lake distinctly nearer to the brute than any tribe yet observed, "with the long arms, pendant pouch, and short legs of the ape, pronouncedly microcephalous and prognathous," has traversed the vast sea of reeds which covers the country between the Rohl, Bahr-el-Ghazal, Bahr. el-Djebel, and Bahr-el-Zaraf, and has killed elephants for the starving Balegga to eat. Here is an example of Mr. Grogan's powers of vivid description :—" Stark naked savages, with long greased plaits of hair hanging down to their shoulders, were perched on every available inch of the carcase, backing away with knives and spears, yell. ing, cursing, and munching, covered with blood and entrails ; old men, young men, prehistoric bags, babies, one and all gorged or gorging, smearing themselves with blood, laughing, and fighting. Pools of blood, strips of hide, vast bones, blocks of meat, individuals who had dined not wisely but too well lay round in bewildering confusion, and in two short hours all was finished. Nothing remained but the great gaunt ribs, like the skeleton of a ship's wreck, and a few disconsolate vultures perched thereon."
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