How different is the neighboring empire of China. Within a stone's throw, almost, of the advancing civilization of Japan, inhabited by a people of marked ability but restricted by race traditions to a condition of inactive conservatism, that seems almost to preclude the possibility of material advance in centuries to come. The population of this empire is so great that the density has been averaged at two and three hundred persons per square mile, and in some districts that it is as great as seven hundred. We can readily conceive the poverty that must exist in such an average population for such an extended area. And we may realize the cries of distress that come from great calamities by the experiences in our own history, even modified as they have been by our superior facilities for affording relief, and the comparative insignificance of the numbers who have required assistance. Recall for a moment one of the great floods of the Yellow river, where thousands have perished and tens of thousands have been rendered destitute within a few hours, and conceive the sufferings, hardships, and greater number that must yet succumb before those who survived the first great rush of the waters can be furnished relief; remembering that the means of intercommunication are the most primitive, and that the immediate neighbors of the sufferers are in no condition to render more assistance than will relieve the most urgent necessities of a comparatively insignificant number. May we not, then, if only from a humanitarian point of view, greet with pleasure the reception of the imperial decree authorizing the introduction in the empire of useful inventions of civilized man, and directing the construction of a great railroad through the heart of the empire, with Pekin as one of the termini. This road will cross the Yellow river, affording relief to this populous district in time of disaster; and it is understood will eventually be extended to traverse the empire, forming a means of rapid communication between distant provinces. We may believe, also, that in time it will be the medium of opening to us a new region for geographic research, not in the celestial empire alone, but also in the rich fields of central Asia that are now being occupied by Chinese emigration.
Doubtless the greatest geographic discoveries of the age have been made in central Africa. It was but a few years ago that we were in doubt as to the true sources of the Nile, and the location of the mouths of great rivers that had been followed in the interior, was as much a mystery as though the rivers had flowed into a heated cauldron and the waters had been dissipated in mist, by the winds, to the four corners of the earth. It was then that grave fears were aroused for the safety of Livingstone, who had done so much, and whose efforts it was hoped would yet solve the great geographic problems his travels had evolved. A man, patient in suffering, and with a tenacity of purpose that overcomes the greatest obstacles, he had endeared himself to those who sought knowledge from his labors, and it was, therefore, with unfeigned regret that men spoke of the possibility that calamity had overtaken him, and that the work of the last years of his life would possibly be lost. The editor of an influential New York journal, sympathizing with the deep interest that was felt, and doubtless actuated to some extent by the notoriety success would bring to his journal, determined upon organizing an expedition to ascertain Livingstone's fate, and thus brought before the world the hitherto obscure correspondent Henry M. Stanley. The rare good judgment that selected Mr. Stanley for the command of such a hazardous expedition was more than demonstrated by subsequent events. The first reports that Livingstone had been succored were received with incredulity, but as the facts became known incredulity gave way to unstinted praise, and Mr. Stanley was accorded a place among those who had justly earned a reward from the whole civilized world.
A few years after his return from his successful mission for the relief of Livingstone, he was commissioned in the joint interests of the New York Herald and London Daily Telegraph, to command an expedition for the exploration of central Africa. Traversing the continent from east to west, he added largely to our knowledge of the lake region and was the first to bring us facts of the course of the Congo. This expedition placed him before the world as one of the greatest of explorers, and it seems, therefore, to have been but natural that, when a great humanitarian expedition was to be organized nearly ten years later to penetrate into the still unknown regions of the equatorial belt for the relief of Emin Pasha, that he should have been selected to command it. How faithfully he performed this task we are only just learning, and our admiration increases with every new chapter that is placed before us. That he was successful in the main object of the expedition is self-evident, having brought Emin Pasha and the remnant of his followers to the coast with him. The expedition has also been fruitful in geographic details, and though we have not as yet the data to change the maps to accord with all the newly discovered facts, we may feel assured of their value. Perhaps the best summary of the more important discoveries can be given in the explorer's own words, which I have taken from one of his recent letters:
"Over and above the happy ending of our appointed duties we have not been unfortunate in geographical discoveries. The Aruwimi is now known from its source to its bourne. The great Congo forest, covering as large an area as France and the Iberian peninsula, we can now certify to be an absolute fact. The Mountains of the Moon, this time beyond the least doubt, have been located, and Ruwenzori, 'The Cloud King,' robed in eternal snow, has been seen and its flanks explored and some of its shoulders ascended, Mounts Gordon Bennett and MacKinnan Cones being but great sentries warding off the approach to the inner area of 'The Cloud King.'
"On the southeast of the range the connection between Albert Edward Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza has been discovered, and the extent of the former lake is now known for the first time. Range after range of mountains has been traversed, separated by such tracts of pasture lands as would make your cowboys out west mad with envy. And right under the burning equator we have fed on blackberries and bilberries and quenched our thirst with crystal water fresh from snow beds. We have also been able to add nearly six thousand square miles of water to Victoria Nyanza.
"Our naturalist will expatiate upon the new species of animals, birds and plants he has discovered. Our surgeon will tell what he knows of the climate and its amenities. It will take us all we know how to say what new store of knowledge has been gathered from this unexpected field of discoveries. I always suspected that in the central regions, between the equatorial lakes, something worth seeing would be found, but I was not prepared for such a harvest of new facts."
The exploration of Africa, however, has not been confined to the central belt. Expeditions have been developing the southern section of the continent; the French have been active in the watershed of the Niger, and in the east there seems to have been a general advance of English, Germans, Portuguese and Italians. The latter, it is stated, have acquired several million square miles of territory in Mozambique, an acquisition that would indicate our maps have heretofore given this particular division of territory an area much too insignificant.
We also learn that Capt. Trevier, a French traveler, has crossed the continent by ascending the Congo to Stanley Falls, thence southeasterly through the lake region to the coast at some point in Mozambique, in a journey of eighteen months; a journey that must bring us a harvest of new facts.
On the western hemisphere there has been considerable activity in a variety of interest, tending to develop the political, commercial and natural resources.
Four new states have been admitted to the American Union, and measures have been introduced in the Congress looking to the admission of two more. These acts mark an era in the progress of the great northwest significant of a national prosperity that a generation ago would have been deemed visionary. We have also to record a tentative union formed by the Central American states, that at the expiration of the term of ten years prescribed by the compact, we may hope will be solidified by a bond to make the union perpetual. In South America a bloodless revolution presented to the family of nations a new republic in the United States of Brazil. All thoughtful men must at least feel a throb of sympathy for Dom Pedro, who in a night lost the allegiance of his people and the rule of an empire. Sympathy, perhaps, that he does not crave, for history affords us no parallel of a monarch who taught his people liberalism, and knowing it could but lead to the downfall of his empire. It seems to be true, also, that although depriving him of power, the people whom he loved and ruled with such liberality, have not forgotten his many virtues, and that the Emperor Dom Pedro will be revered in republican Brazil as heartily as though his descendants had been permitted to inherit the empire. We cannot tell if the new order of affairs will prove permanent, but the education of the Brazilians in the belief that a republic was inevitable, gives strong grounds to hope the experiment of self-government will not be a failure. The influence the successful establishment of this republic is to exert in other parts of the world is a problem that has already brought new worries to the rulers of Europe, and not without a reason, for a republican America is an object lesson that the intelligence of the age will not be slow to learn.