emy, and not from actual observation. When the
two great French cartographers Delisle and D'Anville determined
not to insert anything on their maps for which they had not some
evidence, these lakes and mountains disappeared, and thus it has
come about that maps of the seventeenth century often appear to
display more knowledge of the interior of Africa than those of the
beginning of the nineteenth, at least with regard to the sources
of the Nile.

[Illustration: DAPPER'S MAP OF AFRICA, 1676.]

African exploration of the interior begins with the search for
the sources of the Nile, and has been mainly concluded by the
determination of the course of the three other great rivers, the
Niger, the Zambesi, and the Congo. It is remarkable that all four
rivers have had their course determined by persons of British
nationality. The names of Bruce and Grant will always be associated
with the Nile, that of Mungo Park with the Niger, Dr. Livingstone with
the Zambesi, and Mr. Stanley with the Congo. It is not inappropriate
that, except in the case of the Congo, England should control the
course of the rivers which her sons first made accessible to
civilisation.

We have seen that there was an ancient tradition reported by Herodotus,
that the Nile trended off to the west and became there the river
Niger; while still earlier there was an impression that part of
it at any rate wandered eastward, and some way joined on to the
same source as the Tigris and Euphrates--at least that seems to be
the suggestion in the biblical account of Paradise. Whatever the
reason, the greatest uncertainty existed as to the actual course
of the river, and to discover the source of the Nile was for many
centuries the standing expression for performing the impossible. In
1768, James Bruce, a Scottish gentleman of position, set out with
the determination of solving this mystery--a determination which
he had made in early youth, and carried out with characteristic
pertinacity. He had acquired a certain amount of knowledge of Arabic
and acquaintance with African customs as Consul at Algiers. He went
up the Nile as far as Farsunt, and then crossed the desert to the Red
Sea, went over to Jedda, from which he took ship for Massowah, and
began his search for the sources of the Nile in Abyssinia. He visited
the ruins of Axum, the former capital, and in the neighbourhood of
that place saw the incident with which his travels have always
been associated, in which a