Abstract
IN our article last week on “Old Maps of Africa” we said that even if it were the case that the great lakes and rivers of Central Africa were known to early Portuguese missionaries and traders, it would not in the least detract from the glory of modern African explorers. Even if the work of those early travellers had not been clean forgotten, it was done so imperfectly that in any case it would have had to be done over again; their work bears about the same relation to that of modern explorers that the observations of an ancient Chaldean shepherd watching with powerless eyes the march of the stars, while he tended his flock on the hill-side, do to those of a modern astronomer armed with all the instruments of an observatory. It scarcely needs a perusal of these two volumes to convince us that it would be simply absurd to attempt to deprive Mr. Stanley of the glory of being the first white man whose keel has cleaved the broad bosom of the Upper Congo. He has done his work in such a way that there is no chance of it being ever forgotten.
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THE DARK CONTINENT 1 . Nature 18, 175–179 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/018175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/018175a0