the marsh lands and tangled jungle by the river-side, combined | Since that period the most notable journeys of exploration that have been undertaken on the western side of Africa have been the travels of M. Paul B. du Chaillu in 1856-59 in the equatorial tract watered by the Gaboon River, in which is the country of the cannibal Fans and the powerful gorilla; and in 1863-4 in Ashango Land and the country of the Ashiras, where he met with a race of dwarf negroes measuring from four feet to four feet and a-half in height, and having skin of a lightbrown colour. In 1845-46 the great desert Sahara, which forms the barren centre of Northern Africa, bordered on the north and south by a broad fringe of fertile country, teeming with luxuriant vegetation, was explored by James Richardson, who visited the Touaricks and other wandering tribes of the people of Sahara, and has given a full account of the cities of Ghat, Ghadames, and Mourzuk, and the fruitful, well-watered oases in which they stand. In 1849 he again set out to explore Central Africa, as the leader of an expedition fitted out by the Foreign Office. To this expedition Drs. Barth and Overweg were attached. Having reached Tripoli towards the close of the year, they spent some time in making the necessary preparations for the journey, starting on their passage across the Sahara on March 23, 1850. In the fall of the year they reached Damergu, and at this point they separated, each traveller to pursue his explorations alone, and to meet his companions once more at Kukawa, the capital of Bornou, in the following year. Richardson died on his way thither, at Unguratura, and Barth and Overweg were left to continue their explorations alone. This they did with considerable success, but often at great personal risk, exploring Lake Tchad and the rivers Shary and Yeou that enter it on the south and west, and traversing Bornou, Baghirmi, Kanem, and other districts that lie grouped around the lake. On September 27, 1852, Dr. Overweg died, and Dr. Barth proceeded by way of Sockatoo to Timbuctoo, which he reached on September 7, 1853. Here he remained until May in the following year, making inquiries into the resources, commerce, and statistics of the surrounding country, when he quitted the city, in which he had spent eight months, and travelling along the left bank of the Niger as far as Say, he made his way once more by Sockatoo to Kukawa, and thence across the desert to Tripoli, arriving in England in 1855, after an absence of six years. A young German, Dr. Edward Vogel, who was sent out in 1853 to join Dr. Barth, was not so fortunate. He did not fall in with Dr. Barth, and while pursuing his explorations in Waday, a district lying to the east of Lake Tchad, he is supposed to have been assassinated by order of the Sultan of that country. Linyanti in June, 1853, accompanied by Sekeletu, the chief of the Makololo, and a number of his people, Dr. Livingsto..e proceeded to explore the upper course of the Zambesi, which is called the Leeambye above the Victoria Falls, a cataract not far from its junction with the Chobe. In his first journey from Linyanti he went northwards as far as the junction of the Leeba and the Leeambye, passing on his way Nariele, the chief town of the Barotse. In his second expedition from Linyanti, in November, 1853, he ascended the Leeba, reaching its source, a small lake called Dilolo, in February, 1854. This lake is also one of the sources of the river Congo, or Zaire, whose principal headstream is the Kasai. From this point Livingstone struck out in a north-west direction for St. Paul de Loanda, on the west coast of Africa, which he reached at the end of May. Leaving St. Paul de Loanda at the commencement of autumn, and following the course of the Coanza for a considerable distance, Livingstone and his party of Makololo arrived once more in the neighbourhood of Lake Dilolo in June, 1855, and reached Linyanti in the following September. From this point he resolved to make his way down the course of the Zambesi to the coast, and he started on his new journey on November 3, 1855, and arrived at Quilimane, on the north mouth of the river, in May, 1856, after travelling for nearly four years through the heart of Southern Africa from coast to coast. Dr. Livingstone then repaired to England, but after a brief rest he returned to Africa once more, to take command of an expedition that had been set on foot for the purpose of exploring more thoroughly the country watered by the Zambesi and its tributaries. In this expedition he was accompanied by his brother, Charles Livingstone, Dr. Kirk, Mr. Thornton, Mr. T. Baines, and other Europeans. The chief result of their explorations was the discovery of the lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, from the latter of which issues the river Shire, one of the northern tributaries of the Zambesi. After traversing the country watered by the Shire, and proceeding up the stream of the Zambesi as far as Victoria Falls, an attempt was made to explore the Rovuma, a river a little to the north of Cape Delgado, which failed. A second attempt to ascend the river in September, 1861, was more successful, some rocky rapids being reached, about 160 miles from the mouth of the river, which prevented further progress. After spending some time in retracing his steps over districts that he had already traversed, Dr. Living. stone returned to England in 1864. While Livingstone had been busily engaged in South Africa, other travellers, as we will show presently, had discovered the large fresh-water lakes Albert Nyanza and Victoria Nyanza on the equator, and Lake Tanganyika, the northern extremity of which is about 100 miles to the south of the first named of these lakes. As it is doubtful whether Lake Tanganyika may not be the most southern of the great reservoirs which discharge their surplus waters into the Mediterranean through the channel of the Nile, Dr. Livingstone set out on another expedition in order to discover whether this were really the case or not, and to explore the country between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika, leaving the coast on his way inland in March, 1866. In the following year some deserters from his party spread a report that he had been murdered on the west side of Lale Nyassa, near its northern extremity. The researches of an expedition sent out from England for the purpose of making in uiries into his fate, have disproved the assertions of the men who aban Few travels in Africa, in the present century, have been attended with such important results, by way of extension of our geographical knowledge of that continent, as the journeys of Dr. Livingstone in South Africa, from 1849 to the present time, although it may be many years before our trade and commerce may derive any perceptible benefit by the establishment of com-doned him; and it is possible that the traveller has been enmercial relations with the natives of those countries through which he has passed. Some years previous to commencing his explorations Dr. Livingstone had been residing at Kolobeng, on one of the head-streams of the river Limpopo, as a missionary among the Bechuanas; and his visit to Lake Ngami, in 1849, seems to have created in him that zest for travel which has led him to traverse so large a portion of South Africa on foot, undeterred by the perils that beset the explorer on all sides, or the long years that he must frequently pass without meeting a single human being who speaks the same language, or is even of the same colour as himself. Two years afterwards he pushed his way northwards as far as Linyanti, the chief city of the district inhabited by the Makololo, situated on the Chobe, one of the southern affluents of the river Zambesi. On his return from this journey he determined to send his wife and children to England, and having accompanied them as far as Cape Town he once more turned his steps towards the interior. Starting from gaged in exploring the coasts of Lake Tanganyika and 'ollowing This, however, did not prevent Burton and Speke from prose eating their explorations; and in June, 1857, they set out on an expedition inland from the coast of Zanzibar, having received instructions from the Royal Geographical Society to proceed westward along the 6th parallel of south latitude, in search of some of the great lakes in the interior that were said to be in or near that latitude. Eight months later, in February, 1858, they stood on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, about 600 miles from the coast; and from the report of a native, who said there was a large river running northwards out of the northern extremity of the lake, they believed they had reached the source of the Nile. This fact, however, they were not in a condition to prove, and finding themselves exhausted by illness, fatigue, and privations, and harassed by the natives, they were compelled to leave the question in doubt, and retrace their steps to the coast. On their way back to Zanzibar, Speke left Burton at Kazeh, and travelled northwards. His solitary journey resulted in the discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, and to Speke belongs the honour of being the first Englishman whose eyes had rested on the broad expanse of the lake which is perhaps the largest, though not the only lake that helps to swell the waters of the Nile. In 1860-63 Captain Speke, accompanied by a brother officer, Captain Grant, travelled along the northern coast of the lake Victoria Nyanza and countries in its vicinity, and found a large stream, now known as the river Somerset, issuing from the lake at a point situated nearly in the middle of the north coast, and falling at a short distance from its point of exit from the lake over a broad ledge of rocks, forming a cataract which has been named Ripon Falls. Had the travellers been able to trace the Somerset northwards through the whole length of its course, they would have found that it was only a head-stream of the Nile, and not the Nile itself; and they would have discovered the Albert Nyanza, the lake from which the Nile really issues, about forty miles northward of the point where the Somerset enters the lake. Satisfied, however, that the sources of the Nile were discovered, they quitted the course of the river and proceeded northwards to Gondokoro, where they met Sir Samuel and Lady Baker on their way to the south. It was Sir Samuel Baker that ascertained in 1864 that the main stream of the Nile issued from the north of Lake Albert Nyanza, of which he is the discoverer. Worn out by illness and fatigue, he reached the edge of a precipitous line of cliffs towering above the lake, one bright and beautiful morning, and beheld its waters spreading before him in every direction, with a background of blue mountains in the western distance. impossible," he writes, "to describe the triumph of that moment. Here was the reward for all our labour; for the years of tenacity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the sources of the Nile!" "It was With a brief mention of Mr. Petherick (who has resided for some years as consul at Gondokoro, and has explored a considerable part of the country west of the Nile between Gondokoro and the Albert Nyanza) and Dr. Charles Beke (who has travelled through Abyssinia, and who must be considered, for the present at all events, the chief authority on that country), as an intimation to the reader of sources from which he may derive much useful and accurate information on the Nile countries, we close our historical sketch of the progress of geographical discovery from the earliest years to the present date. LESSONS IN DRAWING.-XIII. OUR next subject in these lessons will be the theory and practice of drawing foliage; by this we do not mean merely the leafage of trees, but we include all herbs and plants that enrich the ground, and add so materially to the effect of a picture by their variety of form, their colour, and wild luxuriant growth; all combining to make the meanest subject interesting. It is not in the forest alone that we must look for beauty; a common without a single tree has its charms; its uncultivated and undulating surface varied with patches of purple heath, yellow furze, and ferns, its many irregular gravel-pits, over the sides of which grow untrained and uncared-for the bramble, the wild rose, the honeysuckle, the foxglove, with the broad-leaved dock-plant, will compose a picture in which all lovers of nature must delight. Each season of the year makes its own demands upon our attention, each brings with it the changes of condition to which the vegetable world is subject, so that the mind of the observer must be fully prepared at all times to note down the peculiarities which influence the growth of trees and vegetation of all kinds and under all circumstances. When trees are stripped of their leaves we have the advantage of studying the course of their growth. Trees in winter are not to some such interesting objects as they are when clothed with their summer foliage, but to the student they offer, perhaps, even a stronger claim to his attention, as they present many features which an uninterested eye would pass over as less worthy of regard. It is at this season that we have before us the skeleton or framework upon which depends the strength and proportion of the whole; to understand a tree thoroughly we must be fully acquainted with its anatomy, that is, the character and disposition of its branches. Trees individually differ as much in this respect as they do in their foliage, and therefore we are equally capable of distinguishing any particular tree in winter as we are in summer. Compare the branches of the oak with those of the poplar, the willow, or the cedar. The disposition of the oak, in a general way, is to send out its branches at right angles with the parent stem from which they spring (Fig. 98); the poplar collects its branches closer together, and lifts them upwards parallel with the main trunk; the willow droops; and the cedar spreads out its branches horizontally. In short, each tree has its own marked characteristics in its ramifications, and is worthy of as much attention and study in winter as when covered with its fresh summer leaves. To draw a tree successfully we must divide our attention between two important considerations. First, the trunk and its branches; second, the foliage. We repeat, that the first lesson to be received from nature is at the time when the branches are totally bare of leaves, as then we can study to very great advantage the dispositions of the trunk and boughs of every kind of tree separately, which, as we have remarked, may be called the skeleton framework of the tree, and it is evident, therefore, that the disposition of the foliage very materially depends upon the disposition of the branches. We must now again recommend our pupils to follow out the first instructions we gave respecting the drawing of a line, by first marking in with a point the place where the tree rises from the ground; then observe the inclination of the trunk, and place another point at that part of the main trunk from which the first, and in most cases the largest branches start off; then observe the proportion that the remainder of the tree, as a whole, bears to the part already marked in, and with a few additional points determine the general size of the tree and the space it has to occupy upon the paper; then return to the points which are arranged for the commencement of the branches from the trunk, and mark in their courses and extent; join these points by lines, and lastly go through the same process with regard to the minor branches. All this is a preparation for the completion of the drawing, and for where it will be necessary to follow out the method still further for the more receding branches; in short, we must allow nothing to pass unnoticed in the arrangement that has the stamp of individuality upon it; after this the drawing will prove to be comparatively easy. When the places for the trunk, the most prominent boughs, and other branches are settled, the attention will only have to be directed to the form that each successive part presents. We will remind our pupils that there is a good moral maxim which we must follow in arranging the characteristic parts of a tree, as well as in anything else, as it contains a principle applicable to drawing that should not be disregarded: let each line individually be so placed that it may afford every advantage to its neighbour, and not take up the smallest space which does not belong to it, or cause an adjoining line to be pushed out of its proper place, or appear to claim for itself greater consideration than it justly deserves. The next important step towards drawing a tree is the foliage: in this we must be guided principally by the light and shade; when we look at a tree, the eye does not rest upon leaves singly, but upon foliage collectively. The pupil may have remarked-if not, the observation we are about to make will induce him to consider it— that when we look at any object, but at trees especially, the eye first rests upon the parts in light. They are the first to attract the eye, and therefore, with regard to trees, it is the branches in light upon which the eye rests, and it requires an effort to look into the shadows; it consequently follows that in drawing a tree we must be especially careful to distinguish the lights, and of course this is done by adding the shadows, but the shadows must be made subservient to the lights, that is, they must be worked about the lights in such a way as to relieve them, and throw out their forms clearly. The first practical example we will give is Fig. 98, and relates to the drawing of the trunk and branches. As we have already given the principles which are to guide the pupil in first arranging the trunk and branches, and afterwards drawing them, we will proceed to the foliage; and here we advise him to practise many times the examples from Fig. 88 to Fig. 97. The first four are merely masses of foliage, and it will require a considerable amount of repetition to secure a free and flowing manner of accomplishing this first difficulty in drawing foliage. Each example must be done, not by continued lines, but by broken touches, the only way to arrive at that light appearance peculiarly characteristic of foliage. The pencil may be allowed to press a little heavier on the under parts on the opposite side to the light, and it must be held almost perpendicularly, because in that position the pencil can be guided upwards, downwards, or to the right and left with equal ease and freedom; a tolerably soft pencil, say a B, will be the most suitable. To relieve the lights straight lines may be drawn at first, as in Figs. 92, 94, and afterwards the manner of Fig. 96 may be employed for the parts of the tree in shadow; but before attempting Fig. 96 let Fig. 97 be mastered, as the former is but a combination of the latter. Fig. 98 is the same tree as Fig. 99; one represents the branches as in winter, the other when covered with foliage, as in summer; and we advise the pupil to make his drawing of the branches first from Fig. 98, and then arrange the foliage from the other example. We again repeat, all this will require a great deal of patient perseverance, for no one can expect to overcome the difficulties without to execute slowly and carefully the first trials, and not on any making many failures; but we particularly recommend the pupil account to attempt a sleight-of-hand kind of treatment, from a supposition that a rapid movement of the pencil is necessary to accomplish the task. LESSONS IN FRENCH.-XXV. SECTION XLIV.-USES OF REFLECTIVE AND UNIPERSONAL VERBS [Sect. XXXV.]. 2. Elles se scnt trompées [Sect. 1. A qui vos sœurs se sont-elles adressées ? 3. Ne se sont-elles pas adressées à moi. 5. Vous êtes-vous XXXVII. 1]. 4. Elles se sont trompées. 6. Je ne m'en suis pas aperçu. 7. aperçu de votre erreur. 8. Nous nous y sont-elles ennuyées chez vous? Vous êtes-vous ennuyés à la campagne? sommes ennuyés [Sect. XXXVII. 4]. 9. Ces demoiselles se 10. Elles s'y sont ennuyées. 11. De quoi vous êtes-vous servie pour écrire, Mademoiselle: [Sect. XXXVIII. 2.] 12. Je me suis servie d'une plume d'or. 13. Ces écolières ne se sont-elles pas servies de plumes d'acier? 14. Elles se sont servies de plumes d'argent. 15. La Hollandaise s'est-elle assise? 16. Elle ne s'est point assise. 17. Lui est-il arrivé un malheur ? 18. Il ne lui est rien arrivé, elle ne se porte pas bien. 19. Ne s'est-elle pas donné [§ 135 (1)] de la peine pour rien? 20. Cette soie ne s'est-elle pas bien vendue? 1. THE reflective or pronominal verb always takes être as its 21. Elle s'est très-bien vendue. 22. N'a-t-il pas fait beau temps auxiliary [§ 46]. toute la journée ? 23. Non, Monsieur, il a plu, il a neigé et il a grêlé. 24. N'est-il rien arrivé aux deux dames que nous avons vues ce matin ? 25. Non, Madame, il ne leur est rien arrivé. EXERCISE 84. 1. Has it rained to-day? 2. It has not rained, but it has hailed and snowed. 3. Has anything happened to your little boy? 4. Nothing has happened to him, but he is sick to-day. 5. Did your sister sit down at your house? 6. She did not sit down, she was sick. 7. Did that cloth sell well? 8. It sold very well, we have sold it all. 9. Did you perceive your error? 10. We perceived it. 11. Were not your sisters mistaken in this affair? 12. They were not mistaken. 13. Were not your cousins weary of being in the country? 14. They were weary of being at my brother's. 15. What have you used to write your exercises? 16. I used a gold pen, and my brother used a silver pen. 17. Have you used my penknife? 18. I have used it. 19. What has happened to you? 20. Nothing has happened to me. 21. Has your mother been well? 22. She has not been well. 23. Did your brothers apply to their studies at school? 24. They applied to their studies, and have finished their lessons. 25. What weather was it this morning? 26. It was very fine 5. Faire [4, ir.] used unipersonally, and y avoir, to be there, weather. 27. Has your sister taken much trouble in this affair? take the auxiliary avoir. Was it fine weather last month? Were there many people there? A-t-il fait beau temps le mois passé? Y a-t-il eu beaucoup de monde ? 6. The past participle of a unipersonal verb is always invariable [§ 135 (6)]. Les pluies qu'il y a eu cet été, The rains which we have had this 28. She has taken much trouble for nothing. 29. Did the Dutch ladies walk? 30. They walked this morning. 31. How far did they walk? 32. They walked as far as your brother's. 33. Have you given each other the hand? 34. We shook hands. 35. Those ladies flattered themselves very much. LESSONS IN ARITHMETIC.-XXIII. THE MEASURES OF WEIGHT. 12. THE smallest weight in use is called a grain, and by Act of Parliament is defined in the following manner:-A vessel, of which the capacity is a cubic inch, when filled with distilled water at a temperature of 62° (Fahrenheit's thermometer), has |