John Scott Keltie

“ In all the countries through which he travelled his memory is cherished by the native tribes who, almost without exception, treated Livingstone as a superior being; his treatment of them was always tender, gentle and gentlemanly. By the Arab slavers whom he opposed he was also greatly admired, and was by them styled “the very great doctor.” “In the annals of exploration of the Dark Continent,” wrote Stanley many years after the death of the missionary explorer, “we look in vain among other nationalities for a name such as Livingstone’s. ”

“ But if the poet may take his colours from that nature by which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives, Kalewala possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Iliad, and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side by side with the Ionian songs, with the Mahábhárata, the Shahnámeh, and the Nibelunge.” The Kalewala is concerned entirely with the mythology or folk-lore of the people. ”

“ The next two years Livingstone spent in travelling about the country to the northwards, in search of a suitable outpost for settlement. During these two years he became convinced that the success of the white missionary in a field like Africa was not to be reckoned by the tale of doubtful conversions he could send home each year—that the proper work for such men was that of pioneering, opening up and starting new ground, leaving native agents to work it out in detail. ”

“ The intricate archipelago of islets and granite and limestone rocks in the Bothnian gulf renders the navigation extremely dangerous. The lakes occupy about 12 per cent. of the area, the marshes 20 per cent., so that Finland is more abundantly supplied with water than any other country in the world. The land appears to have been formerly a sea-bed, which was gradually elevated and is still rising at the rate of about 3.4 feet on the Gulf of Bothnia, and 1.9 feet on the Gulf of Finland in a hundred years. ”

“ In spite of his sufferings and the many compulsory delays, Livingstone’s discoveries during these last years were both extensive and of prime importance as leading to a solution of African hydrography. No single African explorer has ever done so much for African geography as Livingstone during his thirty years’ work. ”

“ Almost continuous wars between Russia and Sweden were the result of the conquest of Finland by the latter. In 1323 it was settled that the river Rajajoki should be the boundary between Russia and the Swedish province. After the final conquest of the country by the Swedes, they spread among the Finlanders their civilization, gave them laws, accorded them the same civil rights as belonged to themselves, and introduced agriculture and other beneficial arts. ”

“ T. R. H. Thomson, the surgeon, published, in two volumes, ‘A Narrative of the Expedition sent by H.M.'s Government to the River Niger in 1841.’ In 1849 he travelled through Syria and Palestine, and published the results in two volumes (1855) under the title of ‘The Dead Sea, a New Route to India, with other Fragments and Gleanings in the East,’ in which he advocated the construction of a canal between the Mediterranean and Red Sea by the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea, entering into elaborate comparison between that route and the proposed Suez Canal by the Nile. ”

“ The results of his labours were published in two large quarto volumes, entitled A Voyage to Terra Australis, with a folio volume of maps. The very day (July 19, 1814) on which his work was published Flinders died, at the early age of forty. The great work is a model of its kind, containing as it does not only a narrative of his own and of previous voyages, but masterly statements of the scientific results, especially with regard to magnetism, meteorology, hydrography and navigation. ”

“ History.—It was probably at end of the 7th or beginning of the 8th century that the Finns took possession of what is now Finland, though it was only when Christianity was introduced, about 1157, that they were brought into contact with civilized Europe. They probably found the Lapps in possession of the country. The early Finlanders do not seem to have had any governmental organization, but to have lived in separate communities and villages independent of each other. ”

“ The results in geography and in natural science in all its departments were abundant and accurate; his observations necessitated a reconstruction of the map of Central Africa. When Livingstone began his work in Africa the map was virtually a blank from Kuruman to Timbuktu, and nothing but envy or ignorance can throw any doubt on the originality of his discoveries.
On the 12th of December he arrived in England, after an absence of sixteen years, and met everywhere the welcome of a hero. ”

“ The official red-tapeism of the day barred all promotion to the unfortunate explorer, who set himself to prepare an account of his explorations, though unfortunately an important part of his record had been retained by de Caen. ”

“ The two main objects of the expedition were the suppression of slavery by means of civilizing influences, and the ascertainment of the watershed in the region between Nyasa and Tanganyika. At first Livingstone thought the Nile problem had been all but solved by Speke, Baker and Burton, but the idea grew upon him that the Nile sources must be sought farther south, and his last journey became in the end a forlorn hope in search of the “fountains” of Herodotus. Leaving England in the middle of August 1865, via Bombay, Livingstone arrived at Zanzibar on the 28th of January 1866. ”

“ But time and the investigations of subsequent explorers have shown that Abbadie was quite trustworthy as to his facts, though wrong in his contention—hotly contested by Beke—that the Blue Nile was the main stream. ”

“ Even during last, but especially during the present century, there has been considerable literary activity in Finland, so that now books in almost every branch of research are found in the language, mainly translations or adaptations. We meet with, during the present century, a considerable number of names of poets and dramatists, no doubt very minor, as also painters, sculptors, and musical composers. At the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 several native Finnish painters and sculptors exhibited works which would do credit to any country ”

“ Much suffering was endured by nearly all the members of the expedition: a considerable proportion of the men succumbed to disease, and their leader was so reduced by scurvy that his health was greatly impaired.
Flinders determined to proceed home in H.M.S. “Porpoise” as a passenger, submit the results of his work to the Admiralty, and obtain, if possible, another vessel to complete his exploration of the Australian coast. The “Porpoise” left Port Jackson on the 10th of August, accompanied by the H.E.I.C.’s ship “Bridgewater” (750 tons) and the “Cato” (450 tons) of London. ”

“ Livingstone recrossed Tanganyika in July, and passed through the country of the Manyema, but baffled partly by the natives, partly by the slave hunters, and partly by his long illnesses it was not till the 29th of March 1871 that he succeeded in reaching the Lualaba, at the town of Nyangwe, where he stayed four months, vainly trying to get a canoe to take him across. It was here that a party of Arab slavers, without warning or provocation, assembled one day when the market was busiest and commenced shooting the women, hundreds being killed or drowned in trying to escape. ”

“ They met with many difficulties and many adventures, and became involved in political intrigues, Antoine especially exercising such influence as he possessed in favour of France and the Roman Catholic missionaries. After collecting much valuable information concerning the geography, geology, archaeology and natural history of Abyssinia, the brothers returned to France in 1848 and began to prepare their materials for publication. ”

“ Of the whole population, 85 per cent. are Finns proper, 14 per cent. are Swedish-speaking farmers and peasants, chiefly in the governments of Nyland, Åbo, and Wasa, on the coasts and islands; Russians number about 6000, besides the military, mostly in the towns; Germans 1200, in Helsingfors and Wiborg; gipsies about 1000; and, to the furthest north, Lapps 600. Agriculture occupies about 80 per cent. of the population; trade, shipping, and manufactures, 7 per cent.; the professions, 1.5 per cent.; military, 1 per cent. The proportion of men to women is 1000 to 1056. ”

“ He is understood to have been the first to discover the source of such errors (which had scarcely been noticed before) , and after investigating the laws of the variations, he suggested counter-attractions, an invention for which Professor Barlow got much credit many years afterwards. Numerous experiments on ships’ magnetism were conducted at Portsmouth by Flinders, by order of the admiralty, in 1812. Besides the Voyage, Flinders wrote Observations on the Coast of Van Diemen’s Land, Bass’s Strait, &c., and two papers in the Phil. ”

“ ALLEN, WILLIAM (1793–1864) , naval officer, was born at Weymouth in 1793, entered the navy as a volunteer in 1805, and, as midshipman, was present at the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807. Allen was promoted lieutenant in 1815, commander 1836, and captain 1842. ”

“ The diet, which had not met for 56 years, was convoked by Alexander II. at Helsingfors in 1863, and has met every five years since. Since 1860 Finland has been allowed the use of a coinage peculiar to itself. Under Alexander II. Finland has been on the whole prosperous and progressive. The use of the Finnish tongue is everywhere encouraged, though the upper classes mostly use Swedish, and the study of the Russian language was made compulsory in all the state schools in 1872. ”

“ To accompany Livingstone twenty-seven men were selected from the various tribes under Sekeletu, partly with a view to open up a trade route between their own country and the coast. The start was made from Linyante on the 11th of November 1853, and, by ascending the Liba, Lake Dilolo was reached on the 20th of February 1854. On the 4th of April the Kwango was crossed, and on the 31st of May the town of Loanda was entered, Livingstone, however, being all but dead from fever, semi-starvation and dysentery. ”