Present Arrangement and Accessibility.

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guardian of all public documents comprised in the enumeration already given; and gave him power (under certain restrictions) to demand the surrender of them from the officers previously in charge of them, or (in the case of accruing records, i.e. of those that continually arise out of the proceedings of the courts or from other sources) to order their transfer to his care after the lapse of a certain time; the interval in each case being regulated by the requirements of the business of the particular office or court in which they were originally produced. Since the passing of the Act, the concentration of all the different collections at the general repository on the Rolls Estate has been gradually effected; those at the Tower, the Rolls Chapel (the greater portion of the sacred edifice itself had hitherto been encumbered by the accumulation of the documents) and the Chapter House, were united in 1840; and the final addition, that of the State Paper Office, was completed in 1862.

We have in the Reports before us, abundant evidence that much remains to be done before full and legitimate use can be made of the treasures whose character and history we have been considering. Many years must necessarily elapse before the neglect and mismanagement of centuries can be repaired—much labour and much patience will be required before the arrears thus produced can be surmounted-and the ever-increasing nature of the subject-matter will always be, even in more commodious buildings than the nation now possesses for the purpose, a trying test of their capacities for convenient arrangement; and will tax the energies, perseverance, and ability of a more numerous staff of officials than that of the present establishment. On the other hand, the Reports show us that much has already been done. We find that our archives are now for the most part stored in a repository, whereof every chamber is fireproof and free from damp, and over the condition and safety of which the most careful and incessant watch is kept both by the department itself and by the police; we find that, as far as is at present possible, their arrangement for purposes of reference and study is complete, so that almost any required document can be at once produced and consulted; and such facilities are now offered to the student by the courteous and liberal provision of the authorities, that a personal acquaintance with the original sources of our national history is placed within the reach of all.

ART. III.—Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries; and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864. By DAVID and CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. 8vo. pp. 608. London: Murray.

ABOUT three centuries ago the Portuguese attempted to cross the continent of Africa, and thus connect their eastern and Western settlements; but to this day the feat has been accomplished by only one European, and that an Englishman, Dr. Livingstone, whose marvellous journey ended in May, 1856, at the mouth of the ZAMBESI, whence he sailed for the Mauritius on his way to England. From the Kongone mouth of this river, he commenced a new series of explorations in May 1858. His object was to test the navigability of the Zambesi in a small steamer, in the hope that it would be a highway for commerce to the heart of Africa, and then to examine its principal affluent, the SHIRE, which, flowing from the north, was supposed to be connected with a lake that in our school days figured in the maps of Africa as Lake MARAVI. HOW the lakes SHIRWA and NYASSA (the real Maravi and no mistake) were reached, the book will tell. A few months before Dr. Livingstone had reached the borders of Nyassa, Messrs. Burton and Speke, journeying from Zannibar, had discovered Lake TANGANYIKA, the southern extremity of which is probably not more than 300 miles from the northern shores of Lake Nyassa. It is also worthy of remark, that the subsequent journeys of the late lamented Speke, and of Grant and Barker, connect the previous discoveries of Burton and Speke with the NILE, the long hidden sources of which appear to have been traced to the Lakes NYANSA and NZIGE, and that this last-mentioned lake is situated not far to the north of Lake Tanganyika, and is probably connected with it. Thus the map of Africa is filling up; and to add to our knowledge of Eastern Africa, Dr. Livingstone is once more dedicating his life and energies.

"The Government have supported the proposal of the Royal Geographical Society made by my friend Sir Roderick Murchison, and have united with that body to aid me in another attempt to open Africa to civilizing influences, and a valued private friend has given a thousand pounds for the same object. I propose to go inland, north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavour to

commence that system on the East which has been so eminently successful on the West Coast; a system combining the repressive efforts of H.M. cruisers with lawful trade and Christian Missions-the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river North of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the Northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the Southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa. In so doing, I have no wish to unsettle what with so much toil and danger was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather to confirm their illustrious discoveries."-Pp. vi. vii.

The feelings of a native of the temperate north, when landing for the first time in the tropics, are compared to those which the first man may have had on his entrance into the garden of Eden." Everything is new; trees, animal life, and "the very sky itself, glowing with colours, or sparkling with constellations never seen in northern climes." The productive power of tropical lands is, however, in this utilitarian age, the measure of their importance and value. This delta of the Zambesi, "the whole of the fertile region extending from the Kingone canal to beyond Mararo, some eighty miles in length and fifty in breadth, is admirably adapted for the growth of the sugar-cane, and were it in the hands of our friends at the Cape, would supply all Europe with sugar."* Proceeding up the river, SENA and TETTE, the head settlements of the Portuguese, were visited; the former contains a few large houses, sundry ruins, and an old cross on the site of a church no longer existent. It is surrounded by a stockade of living trees, its defence against the natives."

"Tette stands on a succession of low sandstone ridges on the right bank of the Zambesi, which is here nearly a thousand yards wide (960 yards). Shallow ravines, running parallel with the river, form the streets, the houses being built on the ridges. The whole surface of the streets, except narrow foot-paths, were overrun with self-sown indigo, and tons of it might have been collected. In fact indigo, senna, and stramonium, with a species of cassia, form the weeds of the place, which are annually hoed off and burned. A wall of stone and mud surrounds the village, and the native population live in huts outside. The fort and the church, near the river, are the strongholds: the natives having a salutary dread of the guns of the one, and a superstitious fear of the unknown power of the other. The number of white inhabitants is small, and rather select, many of them having been considerately sent out of Portugal for their country's good.' The military element preponderates in society; the convict and incor

P. 21.

rigible" class of soldiers, receiving very little pay, depend in great measure on the produce of the gardens of their black wives; the moral condition of the resulting population may be imagined. Even the officers seldom receive their pay from Government; but, being of an enterprising spirit, they contrive to support themselves by marrying the daughters or widows of wealthy merchants; and trade in ivory by means of the slaves, of whom they thus become the masters."-P. 45.

The Kebrabasa rapids, about 100 miles beyond Tette, impede the navigation of the Zambesi, and the steamer proving, unfortunately, unfitted for the nature of the work required, Dr. Livingstone's attention was directed to the Shire: for the sake of geographical unity, however, we may refer in this place to his subsequent journey from 1860 to January 1861, in which the course of the Zambesi was followed as far as the VICTORIA FALLS. We meet with names and places in this journey made familiar to us by the published" Missionary Travels" of 1857, but we must first satisfy our readers by a description of these remarkable Falls, called by the natives "Mosi-oa-tunya," or "smoke sounding," which, on the authority of Mr. Charles Livingstone, excel Niagara in grandeur and beauty, and even in volume of water when the Zambesi is in flood!

"We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls. On reaching that lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us.

"It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in words, since, as we remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter, even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help to the conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed by a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls; and, during a long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad, deep, and pretty straight trough in front. It goes on wearing back daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river-the St. Lawrence-flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls. The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or symptom of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed of the river thus rent asunder; consequently, in coming down the river to Garden Island, the water suddenly disappears, and we see the opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we sail. The first crack

is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over 1,860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of us lay with his head over a projecting crag, and watched the descending calico, till, after his companions had paid out 310 feet, the weight rested on a sloping projection, probably 50 feet from the water below, the actual bottom being still further down. The white cloth now appeared the size of a crown-piece. On measuring the width of this deep cleft by sextant, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more. Into this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya or the Victoria Falls.

"Looking from Garden Island down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the Falls to our right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly right angles to its previous course, to our left; while the other half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming towards our right. Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling whirlpool, and find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of the Falls. This outlet is about 1,170 yards from the western end of the chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end; the whirlpool is at its commencement. The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or thirty yards wide, rushes and surges south, through the narrow escape-channel for 130 yards: then enters a second chasm somewhat deeper, and nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom of the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of large trees, it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a promontory, with the escape-channel at its point, of 1,170 yards long, and 416 yards broad at the base. After reaching this base, the river runs abruptly round the head of another promontory, and flows away to the east, in a third chasm; then glides round a third promontory, much narrower than the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm; and we could see in the distance that it appeared to round still another promontory, and bend once more in another chasm towards the east. In this gigantic, zigzag, yet narrow trough, the rocks are all so sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from beneath, and that this probably took place, when the ancient inland seas were let off by similar fissures nearer the ocean.

"The land beyond, or on the south of the Falls, retains, as already remarked, the same level as before the rent was made. It is as if the