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Abstract

THIS record of travel in a previously unknown region of north'tropical Africa is published as volume 79 of Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale, although there is nothing scientific about it, and the standpoint of the author, so far from being international, is exclusively and almost obtrusively French. The words “Autourdu Tchad,” which are repeated as the running title of the book, are entirely misleading, for the writer never came into the vicinity of Lake Chad at all, but passed more than 200 miles to the south of it. These are all the adverse criticisms we have to offer. For the rest, the book is lively reading, and has the merits of brevity and point. M. Brunache went out in 1891, as second in command to M. Dybowski, in an expedition for the relief of M. Paul Crampel, who had set out a year before, with small resources, from French Congo, to try to reach Lake Chad. Landing at Loango, the Dybowski expedition went to Brazzaville, on the Congo, and thence up the Mobangi and through a blank area of the map, peopled by Dakoas and N'Gapus, across the watershed between the Congo and Shari systems to nearly 8° N. The place of Crampel's murder was found, and a good deal of punitive fighting was carried on with the Mohammedan negroes; but here, at Crampel Peak, Dybowski found that it was impossible to go farther, and the expedition returned to the French outposts on the Mobangi. M. Brunache is careful to show how much better qualified he was for the command than the appointed leader, of whose wishes he seems not to have been too considerate. On his way to the coast our author met the expedition of M. Maistre, to which he transferred himself, and again crossed the Congo-Shari watershed, made friends of many of the native tribes, obtained treaties in the usual way, and, pushing onwards, in spite of considerable hardships, descended one of the tributaries of the Shari, struck westwards to the Benue, and so returned by the Niger. The expeditions, which were two of the most important of the last few years, did much valuable work in geography and natural history; indeed, M. Brunache insinuates that Dybowski was too much devoted to collecting specimens to make an ideal commander.

Le Centre de l'Afrique. Autour du Tchad.

Par P. Brunache. (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1894.)