to Berber, reaching Khartum on November 1, 1868.
The following January he set out along the course of the White Nile,
passed Getina, and examined the vegetation (sudd) which had drifted
down from all the affluents of the White Nile. He prolonged his stay
for three years on the Bahr-el-Ghazel, solely absorbed in scientific
studies, and, unlike his predecessors, he was unconcerned with reforms
and attempts to suppress the slave-trade.

Schweinfurth penetrated so far into the heart of Africa that he reached
the Congo basin and explored the upper waters of the Welle River, and on
his return to Europe he published a work, in 1873, called "The Heart
of Africa." In this book he tried to demonstrate that the area of the
Victoria Nyanza was taken up by a chain of five lakes.

About this time, in the same year, the famous Henry Morton Stanley
returned to London from his adventurous discovery and relief of Dr.
David Livingstone. The distinguished missionary and explorer died not
long afterwards, and the fame of his brilliant discoveries and heroic
life aroused great sympathy and interest in African exploration. The
great river which Livingstone had explored was believed by him to have
been the Nile, but was more correctly thought by others to have been the
Congo River. On account of the interest aroused in Livingstone, the _New
York Herald_ and the _Daily Telegraph_ of London decided to send Stanley
on a fully equipped expedition to solve the many problems relating to
the heart of Africa about which the civilised world was still in the
dark.

Stanley chose the route of Zanzibar, and, landing there, he went up the
course of the river and crossed the country to the Victoria Nyanza by
the way of Unyamwezi. He reached the lake by the end of February,
1875. On March the 8th he set out to explore the shores of the lake, and
mapped the whole region, including its bays, islands, and archipelagoes,
with a considerable amount of accuracy. He also examined Napoleon Gulf,
and reached as far as Ripon Falls, at which point the waters of the lake
flow towards the Albert Nyanza. He then verified the accuracy of Speke's
supposition that the Victoria Nyanza really was the main source of the
White Nile. Stanley set out from Uganda at the end of the year 1875,
and travelled across the country to the Congo. About the same time
three English surveyors, Colonels Purdy, Colston, and Sidney Enser,
made several topographical reports on much of the terri