tory between
the Bahr-el-Ghazel, the Shari, and the Nile. Later on, in 1876, General
Gordon sent Romolo Gesei, an Italian in the service of the khedive,
to navigate and to explore Lake Albert Nyanza. In the following year
Colonel Mason, an American, surveyed the lake, of which he made an
accurate topographical chart.

In the year 1880, Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, an eminent geographer, made some
valuable surveys of eastern equatorial Africa, which had the effect
of inciting the Royal Geographical Society to send out, in 1882, an
expedition under Joseph Thomson, a brilliant young African explorer, in
order to find out a direct route to the Victoria Nyanza. Thomson set out
from Momhasa early in the year 1883, but he never succeeded in realising
the purpose of his mission.

Emin Pasha, as we have seen, was the governor appointed by the khedive
to rule the Egyptian equatorial provinces. He made a few discoveries,
such as the Semliki River, which was called by him Divern. Whilst he
was engaged in travelling through the Bahr-el-Ghazel district, the
revolt of the Mahdi occurred, and Emin Pasha was isolated from the outer
world. In the year 1886 Doctor Junker returned to Europe from Emin, and
roused great interest by his account of the adventures of the pasha,
whom most people had believed to have died, but whom they now learned
had set up an independent sovereignty in the heart of Africa, awaiting
anxiously the advent of a relief expedition. Then Henry M. Stanley
volunteered to go out on a relief expedition to bring Emin Pasha home.

Stanley avoided the route through the German colony on the East, and
started upon his ever memorable relief expedition by the Congo
route. The veteran adventurer succeeded in relieving Emin Pasha, and,
furthermore, he discovered the Mountains of the Moon, called by the
natives Ruwenjori, on May 24, 1888. He also traced to its sources
the Semliki River, and explored Lake Albert Edward and a gulf of the
Victoria to the south-west. The remainder of this famous journey,
for the success of which he was knighted as Sir Henry M. Stanley, was
outside the basin of the Nile, and is recorded in his book, "Through
Darkest Africa."

In 1900, Dr. Donaldson Smith, an American, made an important journey
through the countries between the north end of Lake Rudolf and the
Mountain Nile.

[Illustration: 290b.jpg EXAMPLES OF PHOENECIAN PORCELAIN]

CHAPTER VI--THE DECIPHERMENT OF THE HIEROGLYPHS*

*The ea