THE COUNTRY EAST OF THE JUNCTION OF SABI AND

ODZI RIVERS.

By the Right Rev. G. W. H. KNIGHT-BRUCE.

THE accompanying map represents little more than a route-survey made by me during a walk through the country to the south of Umtali. The

interest lies in the ground apparently never having been mapped before. In character it is much the same as the corresponding country on the north of the Mashonaland plateau, but far more beautiful, and apparently far more fertile. Some parts of the country are quite the most beautiful that I have seen in Africa, and the natives secm fully alive to the

capabilities of the ground. The position-between the Matabele and the Gaza people, and at some distance from both-may have saved them from hostile raids and the destruction of their labours; and this may account for the very large herds of cattle that are seen in the neighbourhood of the villages along the River Sabi. The people consist of many tribes. In this especial walk I passed seven. Their occupations are somewhat different to the people on the uplands. They are fishermen ; they get salt from their saltpans and rivers; in places their customs seem affected by the coast people.

The trees and general herbage seem much the same as in the Zambesi Valley, in some of the lower ground the sickly-looking yellow "fever-tree," as it is called on the East Coast, being very common. The baobab grows in as great profusion as in the Zambesi Valley.

A marked feature of the country is the succession of small valleys in much of the country to the east of the junction of the Odzi and Sabi, the path going for miles over a succession of saddles and through small valleys, a feature I have not seen in any other part of Mashonaland. The nights here in August were hot and sultry, while in Umtali they were cold and bracing. Though the people were very hospitable, I should say that the country of higher Mashonaland, i.e., the country to the north and west, was more fitted to Europeans.

NOTE. The map is a reproduction, on a reduced scale, of Bishop Knight-Bruce's sketch-map, adapted to Mr. Swan's positions and survey as published in the R. G. S. Proceedings, May, 1892. All the remainder of the map contains entirely new work.

A GERMAN COLONIAL ATLAS.*

THE great extension of the colonial possessions of Germany during the past few years has been so rapid, that the necessity for some such atlas. as that which has now been published by the well-known firm of Deitrich Reimer, is fully recognised. The maps have been prepared under the superintendence of Dr. Richard Kiepert; they are five in number, and consist of a map of the world on Mercator's projection, showing the colonial possessions of European Powers, with smaller maps to illustrate the extent of the German consular and diplomatic services, and the lines of German mail steamers. This is followed by maps of Western Equatorial Africa, with an inset on an enlarged scale of the Cameroons; German South-West Africa; Equatorial East Africa,

* Deutscher Kolonial Atlas, fur den amtlichen Gebrauch in den Schutzgebieten, von Richard Kiepert. Begleitender Text von Dr. Joseph Partsch. Berlin, 1893. Geographische Verlagshandlung. Dietrich Reimer.

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with an inset plan of Dar-es-Salaam; and the German possessions in the Pacific Ocean. All of these maps are fine specimens of cartography, and, having been carefully brought up to date, are valuable, not only as showing the extent and position of the German colonial possessions, but also for general purposes of reference with regard to any country within the area they embrace. The letterpress which accompanies the maps is by Dr. Joseph Partsch, and contains statistical information and notes on the climate, products, &c., of each of the countries over which the German sphere of influence extends, whilst the value of the atlas is increased by the copious index with which it is supplied.

BRAZILIAN EXPLORATION IN THE AMAZONS VALLEY. THERE exists at the Aix Seminary, in the French department of Bouches-duRhône, a Latin manuscript containing the description and itinerary of an ancient journey performed by Jesuit missionaries from the River Orinoko to the River Plate, through South America. Father Nicolino, a Brazilian, while studying at Aix, found, in the document referred to, the description of vast plains to the south of the Tumuk-Humak Range, and of British, Dutch and French Guiana, in the Amazons Valley. In this manuscript a tribe of White Indians is spoken of, which was also found there by Monsieur Coudreau in 1885.

Guided by the Aix Manuscript, Father Nicolino started on November 20th, 1876, from the Lower Trombetas or Oriximina, the affluent of the Amazons above Obidos, got a view of the plains at the base of the Tumuk-Humak on January 25th, 1877, but did not find any Indian village, and had to turn back for lack of provisions. He tried to return the following October traversing the forest, but was again obliged to retrace his steps. In 1882, whilst engaged in a third expedition, Father Nicolino died of yellow fever.

The River Trombetas, beyond the confluence of the Kuminyan, is very little known. Within the last twenty years some five or six expeditions, besides those we have mentioned, set out from Obidos to explore it, but never returned. The River Trombetas appears to be formed by the confluence of two considerable systems, one to the north-west, the other to the north-east. The higher system, that to the north-west, was explored in 1885 by M. Henri A. Coudreau, starting from the Rio Branco (confluent of the Rio Negro). The farthest branch is, in this direction, the Kurukuri. An affluent almost parallel with the Kurukuri, the Apiui, connects the Trombetas, and therefore the Amazons Valley, with the Essekibo, which runs northward, and, as is well known, discharges near Demerara, as in like mauner the Rio Negro, the next largest affluent of the Amazons, communicates, farther west, with the Orinoko, by means of the Casiquiare.

In 1890 a vast overflow of the Amazons devastated the plains whereon the cattle of the Obidos district are reared. The government of the Brazilian province of Pará thought, at that time, to re-discover the means of communication with the plains found in ancient times by the Jesuits, and it dispatched an expedition under the engineer Gonçalves Tocantins. On October 6th, 1890, the expedition set out from Obidos to reach the mouth of the River Trombetas, ascended this river as far as the mouth of the Kuminyan (the Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian orthography is Cumina, Cuminhan and Cuminã). The first section of the Kuminyan is of almost

impossible navigation on account of the rocks and waterfalls, whereon the expedition's canoes were broken up. They then journeyed through the forest until able to construct a canoe from the bark of the Tapari tree. In this they travelled by way of the Urukuriana (an affluent of the left margin of the Kuminyan) for a period of ten days. The banks of that river are covered with dense forests, and colossal trees which had fallen across the stream had frequently to be cut away with hatchets to enable the expedition to advance. As fever began to assert itself, the expedition returned as far as the Kuminyan, which it continued to ascend. Then it was that, on the left bank, they saw an Indian village, the inhabitants of which fled as they approached. The expedition left presents for them and withdrew. When it returned the presents had been secured, but the Indians continued hidden. In the village there were tools, evidently obtained from the Dutch colony of Surinam to the north.

On November 28th the expedition at length arrived at the sought-for plains. Adjoining the Kuminyan, and rising 1300 feet above it, was a hill, from the summit of which could be seen grassy plains free of forest for a great expanse. To the north the Tumuk-Humak Range was seen to stretch east and west; to the south the forests extended as far as the Amazons, and eastward the plains seemed boundless.

Senhor Tocantins judges them to stretch as far as the Rivers Aporuna, Arapuari, Ausapá, and Oyapok, that is, as far as the slopes whence rivers flow direct to the Atlantic. Westward, also, the confines could not be discerned, and Senhor Tocantins believes the plains to stretch beyond the Rio Branco. On these highlands several treeless but grassy hills rise. The entire plateau is watered by numerous streams. At this point the Kuminyan is 820 feet wide, and is perfectly navigable, being intercepted by no waterfalls. At the period of Senhor Gonçalves Tocantins's journey northerly winds were prevalent, the climate was temperate and, to all appearance, salubrious. The plains appeared to be suitable for the rearing of enormous herds of cattle.

THE GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA.*

By Professor THEOBALD FISCHER.

THE Iberian Peninsula is a region of contrasts, and although it is surrounded by the sea for seven-eighths of its borders, it possesses in the main the features of a country having little connection with the occan, and a climate which, although wonderfully varied, is preponderatingly continental, in spite of the fact that the country only extends over eight degrees of latitude. The peninsula includes districts with a rainfall as great as any in Europe; with forests and meadows green in summer; the inhabitants of which drink cider: and also regions with a smaller rainfall than any in the world, where a harvest is only possible with the aid of artificial irrigation, and where the sugar-cane and date-palm flourish close beside the most fiery wines. Shut off from the outer world the peninsula, by virtue of its surface formation, possesses such marked contrasts in landscape with corresponding economical and ethnical contrasts, that it appears incapable of being welded into a political unity. The principal physical characteristic of the peninsula is the Iberian

*Report of a paper read before the Geographical Society of Berlin on March 4th,

1893.

table-land, which is composed of archaïc and palæozoïc rocks, and which at the end of the carboniferous period was "folded" together into a gigantic mountain-range of Alpine character, of which to-day only the ground-work remains. To this have been added later two formations, widely different in plan and style, viz., the Andalusian "fold" system in the south and the Pyrenean-Cantabrian in the north. It is almost as if two side-wings had been added to an old regular Doric temple in the shape of two elaborate Gothic domes. The precipitous and narrow coast border which has no adjacent islands or opposite coasts, and the shallow highland streams of which do not afford any means of communication with the interior, is unable to produce a good sea-faring population, except in Catalonia and on the Balearic Islands. The maritime trade has been naturalised by the outside aid of Genoese ship-builders and seamen. As early as the beginning of the fourteenth century the nautical training of the people was systematically taken in hand by far-sighted rulers in Portugal with the assistance of Italian captains and pilots.

The high central region, which is almost completely encircled by mountain walls, exercises in summer an influence through its heat upon the climatic conditions of the whole peninsula, and gives the latter in short a tone which reminds one of Asia. The districts situated on the edge of the peninsula, with the exception of those in the south-east, viz., Valencia and Murcia, have a maritime climate, while the interior regions have a continental climate, a hot summer, a cold winter and excessive drought. These climatic contrasts serve to intensify those of the surface formation. In the outer territories where the rock formations are more diverse, the well-fed rivers and streams have an extraordinary power of erosion, owing to the steepness of the mountain slopes; in all directions the country is intersected by deep, narrow valleys; the relief of the land is so full of variety that, for example, in Asturia, the surveyors found great difficulty in securing a level tract mile long for measuring a base for the triangulation of the country. On the tableland, on the other hand, there is but little erosion, owing to the small rainfall and the very slight variations of level; this region is a series of monotonous plains, over which one might, as in La Mancha, travel for hundreds of miles without varying one's height above the sealevel more than 150 feet. In the outer regions there are murmuring brooks, green meadows, cool forests of beeches, oaks, ashes, chestnuts, and fern-covered rocks overgrown with ivy; in the interior we find shallow, sluggish streams, which possess no eroding power, and at times lose themselves in swamps. On every piece of rising ground are mounted the classic windmills of Don Quixote by way of compensation for the want of water power; in some places there is a complete absence of trees, and the bare gypsum and salt steppe prevails; in others the plain is covered with low thickets, which although poor in foliage, can boast of fragrant and beautiful flowers. These contrasts are found generally so close to each other that their effect is all the more striking.

The marginal districts are everywhere the seat of a flourishing agriculture which has reached a high state of development, but which, being carried on mostly with the hoe, on the numerous small properties or farms, partakes rather of the character of gardening; in the coast territories along the Mediterranean a wonderfully developed system of artificial irrigation is very largely employed. The diversity of the vegetables cultivated, the abundance of fruit-trees of the most varied kinds, give one the impression that the country is one huge garden, and stamp the outer regions of Catalonia, as far as Andalusia, as a girdle of "Huertas." The attention paid to manuring the soil with every kind of refuse obtainable reminds one of China. In Murcia the irrigated territory is thirty-seven times greater in extent than the non-irrigated; the value of the land is as much as £16 an acre, while for orange gardens in the coast plains of Valencia £300 to £400