and established an order of things which has his sovereign, or his estates are liable to be continued to the present day, through seven utterly confiscated. He must be decorously generations of successors, with little change. dressed in a sort of toga, made from the He was embalmed when he died, his memory pounded bark of the fig-tree, for he is fined is venerated, and his hunting outfit, the dog heavily or killed outright if he exhibits even and the spear, continue to be the armorial a patch of bare leg. What a blessing trouinsignia of Uganda. sers would be to them! These bark cloaks Kiméra left at his death an enormous are beautifully made, and look like the best progeny, to whom his people behaved as ruth-corduroy; they are worn over robes of small lessly as if they had been disciples of Mr. antelope skins sewn together with the utmost Carlyle, or as a hive of some imaginary spe- furrier's art. Every courtier's language must cies of bees might be supposed to treat their too numerous royal grubs. We do not learn what became of the girls, but the boys were sumptuously housed and fed, and when they grew up were royally wived; but they were strictly watched and kept asunder, lest they should intrigue. The most promising youth of the lot was elected king; the two proxime accesserunt were set aside as a reserve in case of accident, and then the people burnt to death, without compunction, every one of the remaining princes. The people have certainly been well ruled under this strict system of artificial selection, and the three Wa-gantic grass huts, beautifully thatched. The huma kings are every one of them more than six feet high. be elegant, and his deportment modelled upon established custom. Even the king is not free; Wahuma taste exacts that whenever he walks he should imitate the gait of a vigilant lion, by ramping with his legs and turning from side to side. When he accepts a present from a man, or orders a man a whipping, the favored individual must return thanks for the condescending attention, by floundering flat on the ground and whining like a happy dog. Levees are held on most days in the palace, which is a vast enclosure full of life. It occupies the brow of a hill, and consists of gi ground is strown with mats and with rushes in patterns, and is kept with scrupulous care. Uganda is described as a most surprising Half-gorged vultures wheel over it, looking country, in the order, neatness, civility, and out for victims hurried aside to execution." politeness of its inhabitants. It would be a The three or four thousand wives of the king pattern even for Zanzibar; but M'tése's reign inhabit the huts and quizzed Spcke's party. is a reign of terror. It is an established cus- There is a plenty to do at these levecs, both tom that there should be one execution daily. in real work and in ceremony. Orders are The ceremonics and rules of precedence of given, punishments adjudged, presents rethe Court of Uganda, as in that of the other ceived. Military commanders bring in the Wahuma courts, are minutely defined, and cattle and plunder they have taken; artisans are exacted under penalty of death. The bring their chefs d œuvre; hunters produce first among the dignitaries of state is the rare animals, dead and alive, Kiméra, the lady who had the good fortune to have acted first king, having established a managerie. as monthly nurse to the sovereign's mother. Pages are running about, literally for their After this Mrs. Gamp, follow the queen's lives, and the band of drummers and peasister and the king's barber. Then come gourd rattlers, and artistes whistling on their governors of provinces and naval and military | £ngers, with the other accompaniments, never commanders; then the executioners (who are busy men in Uganda), and the superintendent of tombs; lastly the cook. ceases to play. The king has, however, some peace. He sets aside three days a month to attend to his religious ceremonies. He posIn a lower grade are juvenile pages to look sesses a collection of magic horns, which he after the women, and tɔ run upon errands: arranges and contemplates, and thereby comthey are killed if they dare to walk. In ad- municates with a spirit who lives deep in the dition to these is an effective band of musi- waters of the Nyanza. He also indulges in cians, who drum, rattle gourds with dry peas the interpretation of dreams. At other times inside them, play flutes, clarionettes, wooden he makes pilgrimages, dragging his wives harmoniums, and harps, besides others who after him; on which occasions no common sing and whistle on their fingers. Every per- man dare look at the royal procession. If son of distinction must constantly attend on any peeping Tom be seen, the inevitable pages hunt him down and rob him of every- if Kenia and Kilimandjaro send any of their thing. Occasionally the king spends a fort- drainage waters to the White Nile, it must night yachting on the lake, and Speke was be by way of the Baringo. Hence, whatever his companion on one of these occasions. snow-water may be contributed to the White M'tése, the king, is a young man of twenty- Nile must be poured into it through the Asua five, who dresses scrupulously well, and uses River. a pocket-handkerchief. He is a keen sportsman, and became a capital shot at flying game, under Speke's tuition. He told Speke that Uganda was his garden, and that no one might say nay to him. Grant, we may mention, had been ill, and remained five months at Karagwé, while his colleague had gone forwards to feel the way. Speke established his position at the court of Uganda by judicious self-assertion and happy audacity. He would not flounder on his belly, nor whine like a happy dog. He would not even consent to stand in the sun awaiting the king's leisure at the first interview, but insisted on sitting in his own chair with an umbrella over his head. The courtiers must have expected the heavens to fall upon such a man, but they did not; and, in the end, M'tése treated him like a brother, and the two were always together. Savage despots have to be managed like wild beasts. If the traveller is too compliant, he is oppressed, thwarted, and ruined; if he is too audacious, the autocrat becomes furious, and the traveller is murdered, like Vogel in Wadai. After Speke and Grant had left the capital of Uganda, they travelled with an escort; Speke diverged directly to the Nile, which he struck fifty miles from the lake. Speke then ascended the river, and traced it to its exit from the Nyanza, and afterwards returned down its stream in canoes. We pass over the particulars of his journey, though it was, personally, eventful to him. His boats were unexpectedly attacked, while he was still in Uganda, and he forced his way through considerable dangers. Finally, he reached the capital of Unyoro, the third and last of the great Wahuma kingdoms. His reception by the king was unfriendly. The Unyoro people are sullen, cowardly, and disobliging, and their habits afford a disagreeable contrast to the sprightly ways and natty dress of their neighbors in Uganda, whom Speke compares to the French. He and Grant spent many dreary months at Unyoro, in lat. 1 deg. 40 min. N., before they were allowed to proceed. The king would never permit them even to enter his palace : he was always at his witchcrafts. They were first threatened by the Unyoro people Though Speke was treated with the utmost and then by their Uganda escort, who enfriendliness at Uganda, living entirely at the deavored to take them back. Half of their king's expense, his movements were narrowly porters deserted them. It would weary the constrained, and he never seems to have left reader to follow the travellers' narrative of the immediate neighborhood of the palace, their truly African miseries in this inhospitexcept on the one occasion when he was able land. They were felt the more acutely yachting with M'tése, who would not allow because the bourne of their journey was close him to explore the lake more thoroughly. at hand, and many things denoted the neighHe was detained month after month, accord-borhood of the races and localities known to ing to the usual fate of African travellers, travellers from the north. Negroes were and finally effected his departure with diffi- seen in Unyoro, speaking an entirely new culty. Other reported facts on the geogra- class of languages, which Speke's own interphy of the land had now transpired. The preters could make nothing of. One single southern end of the Lake Luta Nzigé was one language in modified dialects, had carried hundred or one hundred and fifty miles due the travellers the whole way from Zanzibar west of the northern end of the Nyanza, and to Unyoro; now they were on the frontier therefore on the equator; and another small of the northern tongues. These new races lake, the Baringo, was described due cast of were barbarians, absolutely naked in their the Nyanza, and so far connected with it that own land, and wearing a mere scrap of cloththe canoes of the Uganda people sailed there ing in Unyoro, out of deference to Wahuma for salt. Its outlet was said to be the Asua, habits. Rumors reached the travellers of a small river which joins the Nile above Gon-white traders at no great distance from them, dakoro, near the farthest point reached by on the river, and they chafed at their detenMiani. It would appear from the map, that' tion. They sent forward the chief of their Zanzibar men, Bombay by name, who has stride in one great leap from Khartûm to the already figured in Burton's and Speke's sources, without any description of the interwritings. He returned firing his gun, frantic vening land, unless we except Strabo's, which with delight, and dressed in new clothes. is as follows, if we understand it aright. After clearly describing all the Nile, down He said he had been to the Turks, who were to the Athara and Blue River, he says, "But encamped eight marches south of Gondakoro. the Astapus is said to be another river which At length, after daily anxieties and heart- issues out of some lakes in the South, and sickness, a partial permission came for their this river forms nearly the whole of the Nile; departure, and the explorers made a joyful it flows in a straight line, and is filled by the When we speak of geoescape. It was impossible for them to follow summer rains." the river, for a brother of the King of Uny-graphical discovery, ve rarely, if ever, mean the first sight of what no human eye had oro occupied its banks, and was at war with previously seen, but the visit of men who him; they took a direct line, across country, could observe geographically, and describe to Gondakoro, which led them along the what they saw, so as to leave no obscurity as chord of that bend of the Nile, to which we to their meaning. These conditions had never have already alluded. When they again previously been satisfied as regards the Nile; struck the river, they found themselves in a for geographers, working with the fairest intentions upon the same data, came to diverse Turkish camp, at 3 degs. 10 min. N. lat. It was an ivory station, made by men in the them bore other than a rude and childish reconclusions, and no map made by any one of employment of Debono, and established a semblance to what is now ascertained to be short distance south of the farthest point the truth. reached by Miani. They were rapturously The first person Speke saw when he reached. received, and Speke's men abandoned care Gondakoro was his old friend Baker, who had and got drunk for a week. The Turks were just arrived there, bound on a self-planned preparing to start for Gondakoro, with the journey of exploration and of relief to Speke. ivory they had bartered, and Speke waited toxicated them both with joy. Baker gave The interview, to use Speke's own words, intill they were ready, for he was absolutely him his return boats, stored with corn, and unable to get on without assistance. The supplied him with every delicacy he could Bari people among whom they were residing, think of, and thus the journey ended. Mr. are so disunited, that no village possesses a Consul Petherick, who had been furnished body of porters sufficient in number to travel with £1,000, the proceeds of a private subsecurely by themselves; nor could they be scription to hear relief to Speke, and who had spared to go, for if they attempted to do so, undertaken to arrive at Gondakoro a year the comparative weakness of the villagers who previously, had wholly failed in his mission. staid at home would invite the attack of their Strangely enough, he too arrived at Gondaneighbors. The Turks moved in a great car-koro, previous to Speke's departure from that avan; they wanted some 2,000 porters, so place, but not in a condition to render that they exacted a certain quota from every vil- succor which Baker had so happily and gralage, by which means they got their men, tuitously afforded. and the balance of power among the natives Gondakoro does not seem to be quite such was not disturbed. In this despotic, effec-a desert as Petherick had represented, where tive way, Speke was enabled to reach Gondakoro. He was, however, thoroughly shocked by the recklessness with which stolen cattle and plundered ivory were bought, and with the exactions and terrorism that are made to administer to the demands of the Turkish ivory trade. The Arab traders of Uniamesi were perfect gentlemen compared to these Turks whose conduct was inhuman to the last degree. He thoroughly confirms what has been so often repeated of late by various travellers to Gondakoro. The discovery of this great river springing from two lakes, does certainly confirm the belief that the ancient knowledge of the Nile was more advanced than that of recent times; but the want of circumstantial precision with which the ancient accounts are conveyed, left an impression adverse to their truth. They Speke must necessarily have starved had no expedition been directed to meet him. On the contrary, a polished Circassian Turk, Koorschid Pasha, had been governor of the place for fourteen months: he instantly gave the travellers a dinner of a fat turkey, concluded with claret and cigars. Thus closes the tale of a journey that involved a walk of 1,300 miles through the equatorial regions of Africa, and has solved almost the only remaining geographical prob lem of importance. It has been the Matterhorn of the Geographical Society, the grandest feat and the longest delayed. If Speke himself, or Baker, would cross from the Luta Nzigé to the Atlantic, and if some Gregory or Stuart would traverse Western Australia, the great secret chambers of the habitable earth would all be unlocked. From The N. Y. Evening Post, 10 Nov, THE political life of the Union has reached a crisis, the turn of which will soon indicate its fate. Are we to remain the American nation, or yield to rising powers and be shattered to fragments? If the result depended solely on the issue of a war between North and South it could be predicted with confidence; but other elements must be considered. Political dreams of dominion in Mexico become the basis of the American poliey of the French emperor; they have led him to abandon the hereditary and friendly policy of France towards the United States, and to embark in schemes of conquest which he considers inimical to us. He believes that but for the rebellion in the United States his armies would not now be in Mexico, and that if the Union were restored they might not be able to remain there. The emperor, therefore, no longer desires the preservation of the Union which France helped to establish, but is willing to aid in its dissolution, that it may be neutralized and made powerless. The growth of this new policy has been retarded by the slow progress of the French army; but now that the conquest of Mexico is accomplished (it is so considered), we may look for a rapid development of his new line of conduct toward us. Few men have been deceived by the repeated and strong denials of intention of permanent conquest and territorial aggrandizement which the French proclamations in Mexico have promulgated, but all may not have reflected on the magnitude of the designs intended to be concealed by these denials. France was once enterprising and successful in colonies, and held vast territories with flourishing settlements in America. The arms of England deprived France of her colonies in the north, and she parted with those in the south and west for a sum of money, and to prevent their falling into English hands. Her fleets not long after were destroyed by her enemies and she was driven from the seas; the long wars of Napoleon I. exhausted her wealth and her people, and she was everywhere beaten in the field. Thus turned back on herself from all points, discouraged and feeble, she has lain for half a century dormant or convalescent. But she has recovered. The great lines of steamers recently established in the Indian Seas and the Atlantic, and the large additions, show signs of new life and strength, while the condition of England naturally suggests to France that all she wants to raise her commerce and maratime status to the first rank is colonies abroad or larger domain at home. There is no room, however, for her expansion in Europe; Africa is uncongenial in soil and climate, and Asia is impracticable. America alone remains to tempt the revived ambition of power; internal strife always tempts the ambitious, while it destroys the power of defence and exposes the country to conquest. If the exigencies of the first Napoleon led to the loss of French possessions abroad, why should not the exigencies of others lead the third Napoleon to recover those possessions or their equivalent? Be that as it may, France has recovered her ancient strength, and now contemplates recovering her ancient dominion. Mexico by its geographical position commands two sens; it comprises fertility of soil, and climate and minerals that present the elements of infinite wealth; it is the natural seat of empire terrestrial, maratime and commercial, and, occupied by a military race intelligent and active, and skilled in the industrial arts, should fulfil that destiny. The rebel States of the Union are less favored by nature than Mexico, but absolute government based on slavery, which dishonors labor and drives the ruling race to idleness or to the service of the State, presents a condition of things that has always produced the elements of firstclass military powers. But what interest in common should create sympathy and alliance between the French emperor and the rebellious slaveowners? That question is readily answered. The course of the war in the valley of the Mississippi has resulted in the conquest of that river and its recovery to the Union; it cuts the rebel States in two; it is a line which can be held by gunboats and forts forever; and it is conceded that in a military sense the river commands the whole situation. If the rebel States cannot stand united there is no possibility of a government sustaining itself in either half. The rebel leaders perceive their desperate condition, and their last hope now is in obtaining foreign aid. If it be asked what they can offer in exchange for that aid, the reply is that, should the French emperor propose to recover (to himself) the ancient boundaries of Mexico, and bring back | discovery that a government appears unequal Texas, New Mexico, and even California, to its work-especially if it has something the rebel leaders would not hesitate agreeing useful and important to do. It is rather a comto aid in accomplishing it, in consideration mon spectacle at all times and in all counof aid to retain or recover the Mississippi tries, and the complaint need only excite a and to establish their independence in the smile if the gravity of the occasion would large territory still left them? Would that admit of it. Was there ever, indeed, a govscheme be impracticable? The alliance of ernment or cabinet, thwarted at every step ambition with despair is common; it is by open and secret treason, while struggling always formidable and often successful. That with the fluctuating events of a rebellion, the rebel agents are now pressing this plan that was not pronounced by the hasty and there is no room to doubt; it is openly impatient, incompetent? spoken of in Paris, and even advocated by men in position whose language is often but the premonition of the coming imperial policy; and indeed the language of circumtances all around confirms this interpretation. There may, indeed, be indications of incompetence, but judgment which is formed after the events should be cautious and lenient, and before all, be careful not to be misled by illusive appearances. It is observable in these times that the results of industry, art, and genius have so augmented the elements of national power, both physical and moral, among the chief nations, that individual men are dwarfed by the contrast. No man and no cabinet, in any country, probably, is able at the present time to wield those vast elements so as to produce he utmost results of which they are capable. During the Crimean war the experienced and able government of England looked feeble in comparison with the magnitude of its task, and the enormous resources of the nation at the disposal of the government, in excess of its ability to manage them, ran to waste. With such neighbors established on our southern and western borders, and others scarcely less sympathetic on the north, the preservation of the institutions we cherish would become impossible; the Union, with its great domain and small army, its large dependence and light taxes, its unequalled prosperity and just hopes, must pass away. We must shrink to small territorial limits and accept stringent institutions adapted for military defence; we must hear up with a load of debt and taxes, while deprived of the room for recovery and growth. The Republic would thus continue to exist, but only because it had been shattered by mutual If the government of Mr. Lincoln, standjealousies or the contempt of powerful neigh-ing in the immediate presence of the great bors. events it has to deal with and the great eleEven patriotic men who appreciate their ments it has to wield, presents to the ardent country and desire to preserve it, persist in and impatient the usual discouraging condoing that which leads to sure destruction. trast, what is the remedy? Other men in In presence of the enemy and in the midst of their place would present the same contrast. a war to suppress the rebellion against the There is but one remedy, and that is unity; government, they insist on retaining their the real power of the government is in prousual license in criticising and condemning portion to the support of the people; the the government in whose support lies their union of the nation with the executive is the only chance of success. They do this hastily, only method of rendering the ability, and caand of necessity upon a one-sided and partial pacity of the individual men composing the knowledge of facts which is incompatible government equal to national emergencies. with a sound and safe opinion. They appear Let every man submit to the necessities of to be frantic with fear that if for a moment the occasion, suppress personal and party they cease speaking they will lose their free-animosities, rebuke hostile criticism, accept dom of speech, and, rather than submit to a self-imposed and discreet silence for a time, they prefer to risk the permanent loss of the Union. They do not so much charge the government with dishonesty, as incompetency. There is nothing novel or alarming in the the demands and policy of the government and yield it a cordial and generous support. Drive the enemy from the door, dispel the dreams of imperial ambition and re-affirm the boundaries of the republic; there will then be opportunity for the inferior work of discussing party policy and adjusting the distribution of place and power. |