Society (Sir Roderick I. Murchison) clearly indicated this peculiarity,
before it was verified by actual observation of the altitudes of the
country and by the courses of the rivers. New light was thrown on other
portions of the continent by the famous travels of Dr. Barth, by the
researches of the Church of England missionaries Krapf, Erkhardt, and
Rebman, by the persevering efforts of Dr. Baikie, the last martyr to the
climate and English enterprise, by the journey of Francis Galton, and by
the most interesting discoveries of Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza
by Captain Burton, and by Captain Speke, whose untimely end we all so
deeply deplore. Then followed the researches of Van der Decken,
Thornton, and others; and last of all the grand discovery of the main
source of the Nile, which every Englishman must feel an honest pride in
knowing was accomplished by our gallant countrymen, Speke and Grant. The
fabulous torrid zone, of parched and burning sand, was now proved to be a
well-watered region resembling North America in its fresh-water lakes,
and India in its hot humid lowlands, jungles, ghauts, and cool highland
plains.

The main object of this Zambesi Expedition, as our instructions from Her
Majesty's Government explicitly stated, was to extend the knowledge
already attained of the geography and mineral and agricultural resources
of Eastern and Central Africa--to improve our acquaintance with the
inhabitants, and to endeavour to engage them to apply themselves to
industrial pursuits and to the cultivation of their lands, with a view to
the production of raw material to be exported to England in return for
British manufactures; and it was hoped that, by encouraging the natives
to occupy themselves in the development of the resources of the country,
a considerable advance might be made towards the extinction of the slave-
trade, as they would not be long in discovering that the former would
eventually be a more certain source of profit than the latter. The