Through Jungle and Desert. Travels in Eastern Africa

Abstract

BRITISH East Africa and the adjoining parts of Africa, which are included in the spheres of influence of Germany and Italy, consist of a series of zones which run approximately parallel to the coast. Along the shore of the Indian Ocean is the low narrow coastal plain. In the interior are the high grass plains of Masailand, the dense forests and plantations of Kikuyu and Mau, and the thickly populated and well-watered basin of the Nyanza. Between these fertile zones lies a broad tract of barren, sandy, scrub-covered plains, occupied only by herds of game which follow the rains across it, or by small colonies of people who live along the banks of the rivers, or on the tracts of lava that form oases in the desert. This barren Nyika offers few attractions for man or beast, and both native traders and European explorers have hastened over it by the easiest routes to the richer countries of the Central Basin. Hence although the region of the Victoria Nyanza has been fairly well explored since first visited by Speke, the country to the north of the available routes to it has been largely left unvisited. Teleki in 1888–89 followed the great rift valley northward to Lake Rudolf; while Piggott, Peters, Hobley, and others made known the main points in the topography of the Tana Valley. But to the north of the Tana, and to the east of the Rift Valley, was a vast region of which nothing was known, except what could be gathered from the rough records of various Arab and Suahili traders, whose itineraries had been published by New and Denhardt.

Through Jungle and Desert. Travels in Eastern Africa.

By William Astor Chanler 8vo. Pp. xiv + 535. With 85 illustrations and 2 maps. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1896.)