dispute his judgment, was there ever anything more absurd and illogical than the inference that he draws from it, viz., that being ignorant of Chaucer, I could know nothing about Shakspeare? Surely Mr. Furnivall is the last person in the world to contend that, because a man has displayed an extraordinary amount of ignorance in one department of literature, he is necessarily ignorant in every other. Let us consider this for one moment. For instance, when "classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek," presented himself in Albemarle Street, and suggested the publication of one or other of his great works, if our friend, Mr. Murray, had addressed him, "Sir, your Pindar criticism does not tempt me to ask your help with regard to the Middle Ages, our Constitutional History, or the Liberation of Europe. Good morning,""-even my critic himself would admit such an answer to be as deficient in logic as in courtesy. I could refer Mr. Furnivall to a more recent and more remarkable case, in which a gentleman, of whom he has, I believe, the highest opinion, committed a blunder unparalleled almost in the history of literature; but I agree with what Johnson says in one of his Prefaces, "There are higher laws than those of criticism;" so, as the gentleman is still living, I say nothing more on that subject beyond my satisfaction that this unhappy slip has not prevented the literary world from asking and accepting his help in other literary matters.

But as I write it has occurred to me that there is probably a subtle irony in the passage on which I am commenting, which in my obtuseness I have missed. For, many years ago, I paid a good deal of attention to Shakspeare; and I suspect what time my critic was

With shining morning face, creeping like snail,
Unwillingly to school,

I was employing myself in what was then rather a novel inquiry, namely, the light which the writings of German scholars and antiquaries threw upon our early national literature and popular superstitions; and I suspect I had read Tieck's 'Shakspeare's Vorschule,' and his 'Alt-Deutsches Theater,' before my critic could have lisped the name of our great dramatist.

But it was not until 1840, when I was invited, under very flattering circumstances, to write a paper 'On the Connexion between the Early English and German Drama,' that I ventured to trespass upon the attention of the public with any Shakspearean speculations. I afterwards printed in your columns some articles on the Folk-lore of Shakspeare, illustrated in some measure from the writings of Grimm and other continental antiquaries. These, and a paper in which I suggest an affirmative answer to the inquiry, "Was Shakspeare ever a soldier?" constitute, I think, my slight contribution to Shakspearean literature. They form altogether a small volume, published in 1865, under the title of 'Three Notelets on Shakspeare.' That this volume is open to criticism, I cannot doubt. But Mr. Furnivall goes beyond that; and herein lies the subtle irony of the reasons given by him for excluding me from his New Shakspere Society, which are intended to imply:-"Mr. Thoms's Chaucer criticism is bad, but his Shakspeare criticisms are so much worse as to be absolutely beneath notice."

Perhaps, after all, I am doing my critic injustice, and his comments are capable of a more kindly interpretation, and he only meant to "let me down easy." Be it so.

But enough of controversy. Worthless to others as may have been my labours on Chaucer and Shakspeare, they have been to me a source of great enjoyment. They have led me to the conviction that the more profound our knowledge of their noble and humanizing works, the warmer and deeper will be our sympathies with our fellows; and though the infirmity which compelled me to resign the Secretaryship of the Camden Society, after being honoured by re-election to it for thirty-four years, must necessarily exclude me from taking any active part in any similar Society, no one can desire more earnestly than myself the success of every honest and well-considered scheme for bringing home to

all classes the writings of these great masters, and so spreading abroad in all hearts the ennobling spirit which breathes in their every line. WILLIAM J. THOMS.

OUR OXFORD LETTER.

Oxford, Feb. 23, 1874.

THE air is full of rumours of University Reform. Of course, the warning given in Mr. Gladstone's Greenwich manifesto has, for the present, missed fire. But Royal Commissions report independently of the fate of ministries, and Mr. Gladstone's University legacy will scarcely be less tempting to his successors than his anticipated surplus. It is already announced by a weekly contemporary that our Tory Chancellor will contribute to the programme of the new Cabinet a scheme of University Reform. The announcement is probably premature, but, taken in conjunction with the new Premier's declared hostility to Professors, it is enough to make even Tory Reformers tremble. It is hard if the lash of harassing legislation is to be laid on the Universities at a moment when the country is about to enter on a period of tranquillity and repose. We are still smarting under the burden of Mr. Gladstone's Commission, and time is needed to heal the sore. The movements of change and re-organization already set on foot within the University are neither few nor insignificant, and a Conservative Parliament may well be asked to allow them time to develope and mature. The Act of 1854, which gave Oxford a new life, and opened to her Colleges a new sphere, has not yet been twenty years in operation. There is no lack of reforming energy either in the University or in the Colleges; indeed, so completely have some Colleges transformed themselves, that the Ordinances, framed under the Act for their government, are now as obsolete as the Statutes which they withheld so jealously from the original Commission of Inquiry. The rate of progress has in some cases been so rapid, that Lord Salisbury has been credited with applying a salutary restraint through the agency of the Privy Council: it will be matter for some regret if the late re-adjustment of the balance of political power should result in the substitution for this restraint, indiscriminately applied as it may have been, of the disturbing stimulus of a new Reform.

That the University has not of late years been slow to move in the directions indicated by public opinion, may be easily shown by a reference to the recent history of the question of University Extension. In November, 1865, an influential meeting of Graduates took place in Oriel College Hall, "to consider the question of the extension of the University, with a view especially to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admission into the Christian ministry." Under the resolutions passed at the meeting, a Committee was nominated, which appointed Sub-Committees to consider and report upon various plans of University extension. Some of these Sub-Committees confined themselves to the special object proposed at the Oriel meeting, while the others addressed themselves to the more general question of University Extension. They reported as follows: 1. On the Foundation of a New College or Hall. 2. On adapting existing Colleges and Halls to the object of University Extension. 3. On allowing Undergraduates to reside in lodgings, whether with or without connexion with Colleges, through their whole time. 4. On allowing Undergraduates to reside in lodgings after keeping eight Terms in College. 5. On extending University Education to persons intended for the profession of Medicine. 6. On the extension of the University by the affiliation of other places of a liberal education. Of these Reports, only one, the second, has failed to bear fruit; it proposed to extend the Colleges by grants of money from the University, and as no such grants were forthcoming, the scheme necessarily fell through. The fifth Sub-Committee proposed to secure the objects proposed to it through the agency suggested by the sixth, and though no affiliation of other places of liberal education has as yet taken place, yet it is under

stood that at this moment the authorities of King's College, London, are anxious to transfer their allegiance from the University of London to that of Oxford. If the pending negotiation be brought to a satisfactory issue, it is to be hoped that the example of King's College may be followed by similar institutions in other parts of the country. The object of the first Sub-Committee has been completely realized by the establishment and rapid success of Keble College; while that of the fourth has been fulfilled and extended by the entire adoption of the scheme proposed by the third. This scheme was adopted by the University at the instance, it is believed, of the late Lord Derby, who, as Chancellor, urged his friends and sup porters voluntarily to accept a plan which would otherwise be thrust upon them by Parliament through the agency of what was known as Mr. Ewart's Bill.

A Statute was passed by the University in 1868, which not only allowed Students attached to Colleges to reside, under certain conditions, in lodgings throughout their whole time, and thus enabled the Colleges to extend themselves indefinitely, but created an entirely new class of students unattached, scholares non ascripti, who were placed under the control of Delegacy, and were admitted to the privileges of matriculation, study, and graduation without being attached to any College or Hall. Since the Statute was passed the Delegates have entered 326 names on their books; of these, 247 matriculated as Unattached Students, and 79 (or just over 21 per cent. of the whole) were received by migration. The total number on the books of the Delegacy at the end of the year 1873 was 171; of these, 2 are Masters of Arts, 15 Bachelors of Arts, and 154 Undergraduates. The system has grown gradually but steadily since its first establishment, and it is obviously capable of indefinite extension, though the competition of the Colleges is severe, and the large rewards for exceptional merit which the Colleges can offer, in the shape of Scholarships, Exhibitions, and other prizes, manifestly give them a great advantage in the race. Yet, in spite of all disadvantages, the Unattached Students hold their own. The University has voted to the Delegacy the sum of 2001., "to assist them in the formation of a Library, consisting of the more costly books which are required by Students preparing for examinations in the several Schools." A handsome present of theological works has been made to this Library by Canon Liddon; and it should be added that, within the last few weeks, Mr. Gladstone, entirely unsolicited, has made a present to the Library of upwards of 100 volumes of Divinity, Classics, and History. Lectures on various subjects connected with the University examinations are arranged by the Delegacy, and the Students are admitted to the lecture-systems of several Colleges, in some cases gratuitously, and in others on very advantageous terms. The Students, independently of the fostering care of the Delegacy, are not without an internal organization of their own. With the sanction of the Delegates and the Proctors, they are about to establish a club to secure the advantage of common and economical meals, and a co-operative store, where they may purchase grocery, wine, and other articles for private consumption in their own lodgings. It needs little foresight to predict that the system of Unattached Students will form a by no means insignificant feature in the University of the future; and at a moment when, in default of more stirring topics, the attention of both parties in the State is being directed to the Universities, it may not be amiss to point to the efforts which Oxford has made to adapt itself to popular demands.

The Rev. J. W. Nutt, Fellow of All Souls, and Sub-Librarian of the Bodleian, has in the press a work, entitled 'Fragments of a Samaritan Targum, containing parts of Leviticus and Numbers, published from a Bodleian MS., with an Introduction containing a Sketch of Samaritan History, Literature, and Dogma.' The MS. was, in all probability, written before the tenth century, while the Samaritan dialect was well known, and had not yet been replaced by Arabic: it is, therefore, older

by several centuries than the only other MSS. of this Targum-the Barberini and the Vatican, both in Rome-extant in Europe. The publication will be a great boon to Semitic scholars, who for many years have in vain endeavoured to procure old and trustworthy MSS. from Nablus, now the sole remaining home of a Samaritan community; and the Introduction will sustain Mr. Nutt's already well-established reputation for Semitic and general learning. Nor does Mr. Nutt stand alone in the earnest prosecution of Semitic studies in Oxford. The labours of his Bodleian colleague, Mr. Neubauer, in the same field were mentioned last term. In addition, it may be noted that Mr. Mathews, of Exeter College, is publishing an unedited commentary of the famous Abraham Ibn Ezra on the Canticles; the Hebrew text, compiled from a collation of the Bodleian and Paris MSS., will be accompanied with an English translation; and Mr. Driver, Fellow of New College, has nearly finished his elaborate work on the Hebrew Tenses. The labours of the present generation of scholars will well sustain the ancient reputation for Semitic learning of the University of Pococke and Lowth. T.

Literary Gossip.

IN confirmation of the report that it is Mr. Gladstone's present intention to retire, for a time at least, from the leadership of the Liberal party, we may mention that the late Premier has written to Prof. Max Müller, and told him that it is his (Mr. Gladstone's) purpose to devote his attention to philology.

THE report which has been going the round of the papers that Mr. Tennyson has written a poem in honour of the Duchess of Edinburgh, is, to say the least, premature; but it is not impossible, we believe, that the Laureate may produce something in celebration of the wedding.

DR. LIVINGSTONE'S body probably arrived at Zanzibar on the 13th. There it will remain until the new Government, with whom the decision rests, determine whether it shall be brought home. Dr. Livingstone had with him two Christianized negroes, who had travelled every step of the way with him since he entered Eastern Africa, in April, 1866, one named Suzi, the other Chumah, or, as Lieut. Cameron, whom we followed last week, spells the name, Chumoi. Jacob Wainwright, to whom reference was made at the meeting of the Geographical Society last Monday, is one of the party of six boys who were sent from the college at Nassick, near Bombay, to accompany Dawson early in 1872, and who went up to Livingstone with the supplies furnished by Mr. Stanley in June, 1872. It is much to be wished that two or more of these faithful fellows may be sent with the body to England. The narrative of their adventures could not fail to be highly

interesting.

remedied. More than thirty years have elapsed since the Society published the last catalogue of its library. During that period, the additions have been very numerous and important. The issue of a new general catalogue would be a great boon to the Fellows of the Society.

'TAKEN AT THE FLOOD,' the novel contributed by Miss Braddon to the columns of several provincial newspapers, will shortly appear in the orthodox three-volume shape. The experiment of issuing an original novel in newspapers published simultaneously in different parts of the kingdom is said to have ferent parts of the kingdom is said to have answered expectations. Miss Braddon has undertaken to follow up the completion of 'Taken at the Flood' with another novel.

THE financial panic in America has caused the withdrawal of the proposals made to many English men of letters who were invited to deliver lectures in the United States. The high prices offered were tempting, and it seemed for a time that a new source of emolument was opening up to a not over-paid profession. The Zoo, on the other hand, will profit by the panic; for American competition was forcing up the price of animals at a rate sufficient to alarm even a wealthy Society like that which has its gardens in the Regent's Park, and a rhinoceros or tapir was becoming a fearfully costly purchase.

'QUATREVINGT-TREIZE,' which we have reviewed in another column, is the first of his novels which M. Victor Hugo has published at his own expense. The enterprising Frenchman who is said to have given 16,000l. for L'Homme qui Rit' was not ruined by the bargain, as might have been expected, but he lost money by it, and his example has not encouraged the others. The heavy price demanded for the German translation frightened away the publishers on the other side of the Rhine, and the German version is brought out by a Strasbourg house.

MR. HENRY BLACKBURN is to be the Art editor of the new illustrated paper, the Pictorial World, which will be of the same size as the Illustrirte Zeitung. Mr. Blackburn proposes to give etchings as well as woodcuts.

IN speaking of the death of Dr. Binney, the daily papers have mentioned the improvements he introduced into the musical services of his chapel. We believe that the late Mr. Chorley was the first writer in the press to call attention to these reforms, of which he highly approved. This he did in our columns some forty years ago. The influence of Dr. Binney's proceedings on the mode of worship adopted in Nonconformist chapels has been consider

able.

known."

WE beg to call the attention of the Royal Society to a defect that might as well be

MR. GEORGE CARTER STENT has in the press a collection of songs, ballads, &c., translated from the Chinese. It will be published under the title of 'The Jade Chaplet, in Twenty-Four Beads.'

WE are sorry to hear of the death, in his seventy-second year, of Mr. Robert White, the author of a history of the battle of Otterburn, and of a similar work on that of Bannockburn. The latter work we reviewed in No. 2311. Mr. White also published a volume of poems.

"My attention has been drawn to your reviewer's statement that the scenery in 'Two Little Wooden Shoes' has been described from reading, not observation. This remark is one of those unfortunate personalities, based on ignorance, which have begun to disfigure the English press like the American. Every step of the country described I have trodden myself in many a sketch that I' made on the spot. The fame of Ary summer day; of the little lane itself I have an oil Scheffer needs no defence of mine; but I should be surprised to find an artist or connoisseur without interest in the works of that master." -We simply meant that "Ouidà" did not use her eyes; that, although she saw the places she describes, she drew a great deal more from books than her own observation. This is hardly a "personality." Ary Scheffer's reputation has been nil in France for the last twenty years.

THE archæological world of Madrid has been lately shocked out of its propriety by the report that the Ayuntamiento of Zamora had

decided to demolish the classic walls which surround that city, the Ocellum Duri (the calyx of the Duero) of the ancients. Fernando el Magno (1035) has the credit of completing them: river, town and walls are immortalized in a dozen of the old romances of 'The Cid':

Zamora's walls are strong and wide,
Before no host she falls:
Laved by deep Duero's sluggish tide,
Stanch massive towers dot her walls.

Zamora was proverbially for centuries impregnable, hence the old refrain :—

A Zamora no se ganó en una hora

(Zamora cannot be gained in an hour). It

is to be feared that the "Haussman" of Zamora will be victorious, and that the walls will be demolished, for sanitary purposes some say, and others for good building material.

WE may shortly expect the appearance of a second and revised edition of the 'Synoptical History of England,' brought down to the General Election of 1874. The work, which which has been for some time out of print, has been already noticed in our columns, and will be published by Messrs. Lockwood & Co.

PROF. VAMBÉRY is now in London. The learned Hungarian is going to deliver lectures in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bradford, Edinburgh, and other towns.

A MEMBER of the Legislative Council of Ceylon, Mr. Mutu Coomára Swámy, is about to publish (with Mr. Trübner) two interesting translations of Pali works. The one is 'The Dáth' A'vanso; or, the History of the ToothRelic of Gotama Buddha'; the other is, 'The Sutta Napita; or, the Dialogues and Discourses of Gotama Buddha.'

'LE Dahomé, Souvenirs de Voyage et de Mission,' is the work of a French missionary, M. Lafitte, and may be interesting on account of the excitement caused by the Ashantee

war.

M. FRANCISQUE MICHEL has been lecturing at Golspie, 'On the Scot in France; and on the Formation of the Scottish Language, illustrating the Rise and Progress of Civilization in Scotland.'

THE study of modern languages is making progress in Bavaria. Herr M. Bernays has been appointed the first ordinary Professor of Modern Languages in the University of Munich. Similar chairs are to be founded at Würzburg and Erlangen. It is said that King Louis has been active in bringing about this reform.

THE Bulgarian literary movement was greatly promoted by the publications, of the English and American missionaries. In the beginning of the new year, O. S., the Levant Times daily English newspaper, which has successfully established a French edition, began the publication of a weekly Bulgarian edition. As this is on the English model, and really a collection of the news of the world in a practical shape, it gives the Bulgarians the best vernacular newspaper in Turkey, and is calculated to do much good.

Of course it fosters the antagonism with the orthodox Greeks, and stimulates the rivalry of the Bulgarians to the Hellenes social in movements.

SCIENCE

DR. LIVINGSTONE AND THE NILE.
Dulwich Wood, Feb. 25, 1874.

THE early career of Dr. Livingstone is so well known from his delightful book, 'Missionary Travels,' that it is needless to recapitulate his journeys up to the time of its publication in 1857, which would be to describe how he crossed and recrossed the African continent, and opened up a new world of thought with the complicated river systems, and their varied and numerous peoples then first made known. Nor is it necessary now to follow him with Bishop Mackenzie on the Shiré, nor in the exploration of his Nyassa Lake. These travels alone place his name far in advance of all African explorers; and whether we look at the singleness of heart which led him to undertake these tasks for the amelioration of the African and the advancement of our knowledge, or to the firm and indomitable will which carried him through all the difficulties of travel and the terrors of climate, we must place him amongst the greatest benefactors of the human race.

The remarks I have now to make will be confined to the object of his last and most important journeys.

Dr. Livingstone says, in his 'Missionary Travels,' p. 673, "I view the end of the geographical feat as the beginning of missionary enterprise"; and he undertook a noble task in 1865, when he left his home with the intention of solving the ancient problem of the Nile source as the commencement of his higher aims. It will be a very remarkable conclusion to this great man's career if the highlands of Lobisa, where he ended it, should prove to contain the arcanum magnum, the ancient Nile

mystery, which hitherto has eluded all attempts at its solution. There are some links in the chain of evidence wanting, which would entirely establish the fact; but if the question should rest as it does in the present uncertainty, I think that the balance of testimony must incline to the conviction that when Dr. Livingstone determined that the streams entered Lake Liemba, in latitude 8° 42′ S., he had really demonstrated that here was the great southern watershed of Africa. At the same period

he opened an entirely new field of African geography by tracing the streams which commence

with Dr. Lacerda's Chambezi River of 1798 into the wonderful lake and river system, which it is almost certain forms the upper course of the second great African river, the Congo.

Unfortunately, some of the most important observations which have been made in connexion with this subject, those by Mr. Petherick and Sir Samuel Baker, were published since Dr. Livingstone's departure, or with the knowledge of what they had determined it is probable that he would have devoted more time to the final solution of what is, and must remain for the present, a mystery.

At the risk of being prolix, I will just allude to the state of our knowledge at the end of 1865, when Dr. Livingstone formed the determination, which he kept entirely to himself, of going to seek for the sources of the Nile, in a position 300 or 400 miles south of where the most extended views placed them. Capt. R. F. Burton discovered, or rather was the first European to see, the Lake Tanganyika, on February 18th, 1858. Capt. Speke, his companion, took the observations for elevations, &c.; and from a singular but unsuspected source of error, made them throughout his journey to be considerably less than the reality; and they showed that from the high eastern plateau of Africa they had descended continually, until Ujiji was only 1,844 feet above the sea. This was a severe blow to the leaders of the expedition, as it seemed scarcely possible that such a height could give sufficient fall for its waters to reach the known parts of the Nile. Capt. Burton had ascertained from intelligent Arab traders (whose correct knowledge is in direct contradistinction to that given by the negro), that Lake Tanganyika extended southward to lat. 8° 40′ S. It was subsequently much curtailed on their map, to avoid all chance of exaggeration; but it is exactly the latitude assigned to Lake Liemba by Dr. Livingstone in 1867. Burton and Speke visited the north end of Tanganyika, at Uvira, on April 26th, 1858, and saw the lake closed in by mountains ten or fifteen miles north of the hill on which they stood. The general result of this expedition was, that they inferred that the Marungo River ran into the south end, and the Rusizi River into the north end, the waters of the lake being perfectly fresh, and with no known or probable outlet. Capt. Speke's second expedition, in company with Capt. Grant, May, 1859, to February, 1863, added nothing to our knowledge of the regions in question; but it subsequently furnished us with the means of making an important correction to the elevations obtained in both expeditions. Capt. Speke's book was published at the end of 1863, and in it he gave an account of a lake to the north of Tanganyika, which he called the Little Luta Nzige. This was afterwards visited by Sir S. Baker, and named by him Albert Nyanza. Capt. Speke also heard of another lake between the two lakes, the Rusizi Lake, in lat. 1° to 2° S., and he made the Tanganyika to drain southward into the Nyassa of Dr. Livingstone. This was the state of our knowledge when Dr. Livingstone left in 1865.

As I had much to do with Captains Burton and Speke's observations, and did not coincide with some of their views, I had several conversations with Dr. Livingstone upon what I thought was the weak point of their theories about that lake. When the news was brought of his death by his Johannese attendants, and a long period had elapsed without hearing anything further, at the instigation of Sir Roderick Murchison I claimed

*

for Dr. Livingstone that he had demonstrated that the Nile rose in the Sierra Muchingua, and that all Speke's elevations were 1,002 feet lower than the truth, making Lake Tanganyika to be 2,846 feet above the sea, instead of 1,844 feet.t When Dr. Livingstone's dispatch, dated February, 1867, told us that he had found that the chief sources of the Nile were between 10° and 12° S., I felt that the problem was virtually solved. This was still further confirmed by his dispatch to Lord Clarendon of July, 1868, in which he tells us that on April 2nd, 1867, he discovered the beautiful Lake Liemba, embosomed in mountains, and 2,800 feet above the sea, but continuous with Tanganyika.

The elevation puzzled him, but I was rejoiced to find my speculations confirmed. Thus there were two grand points gained as to the possibility of this being the head water of the Nile.

Between this period and May, 1869, he was, as is well known, from his brief dispatches and letters, occupied in tracing that immense labyrinth of rivers and lakes to the west of Tanganyika, of which the world had never heard or dreamed. This certainly is the most wonderful of all his journeys. After a few weeks' rest at Ujiji, he again started for Manyuema, west of the great lake, and, after many adventures, returned to Ujiji in October, 1871, when Mr. Stanley joined him.

In all this western exploration, he was buoyed up by the belief that he was tracing up the Nile; but Dr. Behm has almost conclusively shown that it must be the Congo. Both these journeys, and one in continuation of them to the northward by his kind friend, Mahommed Bogharib, which extended to the Balegga Mountains, clearly point to one inference that they encountered no river which could be taken as a western outlet to Tanganyika, or he certainly would not have sought a northern effluent with Mr. Stanley. As regards an eastern outlet by the Rufiji, or other stream, there is the great difficulty that all the known country on that side is from 1,500 to 2,000 feet higher than the lake.

But all testimony points to the northward as the outlet; and thus the only conclusion we can come to is that it is the southern reservoir of the Nile. First, we have the important evidence related by Dr. Livingstone himself, when at the extreme south he learned that it was continuous with Sir S. Baker's Albert Nyanza. Next, he wrote to Sir T. Maclear, at the Cape of Good Hope, under date Ujiji, 17th of November, 1871 :-"I watched for three months the majestic flow of the Tanganyika to the north by means of miles of confervæ and other aquatic plants, by the waters of inflowing rivers being at once bent away in the same direction, by the water of shut-in bays having a river at their ends being distinctly brackish, while out in the stream it is quite sweet." This would be thought quite conclusive; it was written the day before he started with Mr. Stanley to examine the north end of the lake; and yet the account given by Mr. Stanley ('How I Found Livingstone,' pp. 504-5) is in direct opposition to it, and is also utterly incompatible with what Burton and Speke saw on April 26th, 1858. Briefly it stands thus, Stanley says the Rusizi, running into the lake at its north-east angle, is a stream of three branches, six, ten, and eight yards wide respectively. The centre one is very rapid, but only two feet deep; that just within the entrance it spreads out into myriads of channels, plainly showing that the land and the lake are on the same level. Dr. Livingstone makes the head of the lake to be in lat. 3° 19' S. Captains Burton and Speke say that they saw continuous water for ten or fifteen miles from Uvira, and this was within five miles of Stanley's dry land.

How this is to be explained I know not, and I can only suggest that the southerly winds blowing when Capt. Burton was there might have inundated this low land, and made the tiny Rusizi

* See Journal R G.S., Vol. xxxvii., p. 193, 1867.

In the Cape Monthly Magazine, November, 1873, are given Sir Thomas Maclear's calculations of Dr. Livingstone's observations at Ujiji, which make Lake Tanganyika 2,816 feet above the sea; and Sir S. Baker's Albert Nyanza, 2,720 feet.