GENERAL NOTES
AFRICA.
—Mr. Grattan Guinness honorable director of the Livingstone Congo Inland Mission, has published a grammar and dictionary in the language now spoken by the natives.
—The Bible in the Basuto language, has been issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society at a cost of $20,000. This is the ninth completed Bible in the native languages of Africa.
—Both roads from the coast to the level of the Upper Congo, that on the north side of the river and that on the south, are reported to be now open all the way. The vast basin of the Upper Congo, with its 900,000 square miles of territory and its 150,000,000 of idol worshippers may therefore be said to be overcome.
—Between the Zambesi River and Lake Bangueola a Missionary station is to be established by M. Ceillard, a French Missionary, and his wife, who have recently gone there for that purpose.
—Seven different nations are embraced by the Berlin Missionary Society in the area of their South African Work, which extends 1000 miles in length by 500 miles in width. They have forty-two stations within this boundary.
—Great Britain has twenty-three times as much trade with Africa as the United States has, and France fifteen times as much. Great Britain’s commerce on the West Coast alone amounts to over twenty millions of dollars, and that of France to over fifteen millions.
—The C. M. S. has recently sent six men to the Nyanza Mission. They were accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Lane and Miss Havergal, who went out to be married to the Rev. A. D. Shaw. The same steamer took out a large party of missionaries for the London Missionary Society’s mission on Lake Tanganyika, and the two parties together formed a considerable majority of the passengers.
—News has been received from Zanzibar of the death of Rev. Charles Albert Janson, University College, Oxon, a member of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. Mr. Janson died near Lake Nyassa, making the nineteenth death among the members of this mission.
—The Council of the Royal Geographical Society have decided on equipping an expedition to Eastern Africa for the exploration of the snow-capped mountains, Kenia and Kilimanjaro, and the country between them and the eastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza. Mr. Joseph Thomson is to be the commander, and, according to present arrangements, he will leave England for Zanzibar to organize his party early in the ensuing year.
—The African Lakes Company, which was formed not so much with a view to financial profits as to co-operate with various missions in furnishing stores for them, is developing the legitimate trade of the country. The 2,000 miles of coast, river, and lake, which this company are endeavoring to keep open, reaches from Quillimane up the Kwakwa River to the Zambezi at Mazaro; from Mazaro up the Zambezi and the Shire to Katwnga, then on towards Blantyre and Matope on the southern shore of Lake Nyassa. Here the small steamer “Ilala” (which is to be purchased by the company) takes goods, etc., to the north-east of the lake, from which point Stevenson’s Road is to be constructed, and thus unite Lake Tanganyika to this extensive line of communication.