gums and ivory, got as far as Belenia, beyond the fourth
degree, but had to return in ill-health to Karthoum, where
he died in 1857.

Neither Dr. Penney--the head of the Egyptian medical
service, who, in a small steamer, penetrated one degree
beyond Gondokoro, and then came back to die of exhaustion
at Karthoum--nor Miani, the Venetian, who, turning the
cataracts below Gondokoro, reached the second parallel--
nor the Maltese trader, Andrea Debono, who pushed his
journey up the Nile still farther--could work their way
beyond the apparently impassable limit.

In 1859, M. Guillaume Lejean, intrusted with a mission
by the French Government, reached Karthoum by
way of the Red Sea, and embarked upon the Nile with a
retinue of twenty-one hired men and twenty soldiers, but
he could not get past Gondokoro, and ran extreme risk of
his life among the negro tribes, who were in full revolt.
The expedition directed by M. d'Escayrac de Lauture
made an equally unsuccessful attempt to reach the famous
sources of the Nile.

This fatal limit invariably brought every traveller to a
halt. In ancient times, the ambassadors of Nero reached
the ninth degree of latitude, but in eighteen centuries only
from five to six degrees, or from three hundred to three
hundred and sixty geographical miles, were gained.

Many travellers endeavored to reach the sources of the