The Light and Dark of such Adventures. 167 majestic grace, and carried us next to the Geraffe branch of the Sobat river, the second affluent, which we found flowing into the Nile with a graceful semi-circular sweep and good stiff current, apparently deep, but not more than fifty yards broad. Next in order came the main stream of the Sobat, flowing into the Nile in the same graceful way as the Geraffe, which in breadth it surpassed, but in velocity of current was inferior. The Nile by these additions was greatly increased; still it did not assume that noble appearance which astonished us so much, immediately after the rainy season, when we were navigating it in canoes in Unyoro. Next to be treated of is the famous Blue Nile, which we found a miserable river, even when compared with the Geraffe branch of the Sobat. It is very broad at the mouth, it is true, but so shallow that our vessel with difficulty was able to come up it. It had all the appearance of a mountain stream, subject to great periodical fluctuations. I was never more disappointed than with this river; if the White river was cut off from it, its waters would all be absorbed before they could reach Lower Egypt. 'The Atbara river, which is the last affluent, was more like the Blue river than any of the other affluents, being decidedly a mountain stream, which floods in the rains, but runs nearly dry in the dry season. 'I had now seen quite enough to satisfy myself that the White river which issues from the N'yanza at the Ripon Falls, is the true or parent Nile; for in every instance of its branching, it carried the palm with it in the distinctest manner, viewed, as all the streams were by me, in the dry season, which is the best time for estimating their relative perennial values. Since returning to England, Dr. Murie, who was with me at Gondokoro, has also come home; and he, judging from my account of the way in which we got ahead of the flooding of the Nile between the Karuma Falls and Gondokoro, is of opinion that the Little Luta Nzigé must be a great backwater to the Nile, which the waters of the Nile must have been occupied in filling during my residence in Madi; and then about the same time that I set out from Madi, the Little Luta Nzigé having been surcharged with water, the surplus began its march northwards just about the time when we started in the same direction. For myself, I believe in this opinion, as he no sooner asked me how I could account for the phenomenon I have already mentioned of the river appearing to decrease in bulk as we descended it, than I instinctively advanced his own theory. Moreover, the same hypothesis will answer for the sluggish flooding of the Nile down to Egypt.' Το many who read this brief and imperfect analysis of Captain Speke's expedition, it may appear to have been, in practice, a twenty-eight months' tour, presenting all the indescribable charms of savage life. The young and adventurous may think that the unlimited range which the travellers had over the face of nature, the pleasure of roving through woods, jungles, and ravines, viewing lakes, animals, and scenery altogether new to them, was an excitement that compensated for the perpetual fatigue, the anxiety, and the danger to limb and life. But they who draw this conclusion from our epitome of the work would be undeceived in carefully perusing these two ponderous volumes. No doubt there is an intense excitement, and an ever-recurring hope rising up in the minds of those who proceed on voyages of discovery; but he who travels in Africa travels with his life in his hand. He may lose it at any time in an ambuscade, by treachery, stealthily, or in fair fight, or he may lose it by an accident, or by becoming the prey of wild beasts. The people are a strange and savage people, and few of their chiefs or rulers are to be trusted. A man ought to have a fearless heart, a firm will, a constitution of iron, and a temper even and imperturbable, who travels in Africa. Captain Speke had all these. Though often opposed by the most pettifogging and quibbling obstacles on the part of the Kings or Chiefs, and occasionally by his own porters and servants, he went resolutely on, and finally accomplished the mission he had undertaken. Following the example of Captain Cook, he husbanded his health, and proceeded slowly, that he might proceed surely. Undaunted by wounds received in his former journey, he proceeded to undertake a third, and successfully accomplished his purpose. The record of his last journey is, it must be said, diffuse, and inartistically drawn up. There is not the vigour or rich colouring of Bruce, the picturesqueness of Mungo Park, the liveliness and versatility of Burton, or the luminous generalization of Livingstone; but there is a plain and somewhat rough and rugged journal of personal experiences, always valuable, though not always graphically told. On his return to England, Captain Speke was hailed with high honour. He and Grant were received by the Royal Geographical Society with a most cordial welcome. Sir R. Murchison, in presenting them to the body over which he presided, spoke of the important results achieved in enthusiastic terms. The medal of the Society was awarded to the discoverers, and Her Majesty the Queen congratulated the Society on the success which had attended an expedition aided, though not very munificently, by Government funds. The King of Italy also forwarded gold medals to the explorers; and Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons, added his tribute to the discoverer of the Source of the Nile. The death of great discoverers, however, any more than the death of great men, is not always proportioned to their lives. Hannibal, as Juvenal tells us, did not perish by a javelin or a sword, while Bruce died by a fall down stairs, and Mungo Park was miserably drowned. In the midst of fresh encomiums in his own native Somerset, Captain The New Pharaonic Tablets of Memphis and Abydos. 169. Speke went out for a day's field sport, and accidentally shot himself on the 21st of September. But death, whether it comes slowly by 'pale decay,' or suddenly, or by accident, can only destroy the 'tenement of clay.' The nobler achievements, the good and the great deeds and discoveries of men, survive the body, and last on. Thus, though Speke did not live to receive the reward to which he was entitled, a greater honour will be attached to his name; for now and hereafter he must be known as the discoverer of the Sources of the Nile. ART. VII.-(1.) Revue Archéologique, ou Recueil de Documents et de Memoires relatifs a l'Etude des Monuments, a la Numismatique et a la Philologie de l'Antiquité et du Moyen Age. Publiés par les Principaux Archéologues Français et Etrangers et accompagnés de Planches Gravées d'apres les Monuments Originaux. Nouvelle Série. Paris, 1859-64. (2.) Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde. (Journal for the Egyptian Language and Archeology.) Herausgegeben von HEINRICH BRUGSCH, in Berlin. Jahrgänge I. and II. Leipzig: 1863-64. 4to. 8vo. (3.) Ueber die Zwölfte Aegyptische Königs - Dynastie. (On the Twelfth Dynasty of the Egyptian Kings.) Von R. LEPSIUS. Berlin: 1853. 4to, pp. 30. (4.) Etude sur la Série des Rois inscrits a la Salle des Ancêtres de Thouthmes III. Par M. E. DE SAULCY, Membre de l'Academie Imperiale de Metz, et de Plusieurs autres Societés Savantes. Metz: 1863. 8vo., pp. 102. (5.) Melanges Egyptologiques, comprenant onze Dissertations sur differents Sujets. Par F. CHABAS, Membre Honre. de l'Institut Egyptien, V.P. de la Societé d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Chalon-sur-Saone, Correspondant de la Societé Imperiale des Antiquaires de France, de la Societé Archéologique de Langres, etc. Chalon-sur-Saone: 1862. Pp. 120, 8vo. (6.) Les Papyrus Hieratiques de Berlin, avec un index geographique et deux planches de fac simile. Par F. CHABAS. Chalon-sur-Saone : 1863. Pp. 94, 8vo. (7.) Melanges Egyptologiques. IIme. Serie. Par F. CHABAS, comprenant des Articles de M. M. C. W. GOODWIN, Dr. EDW. HINCKS, et Dr. S. BIRCH, le tout formant 14 Dissertations et un Glossaire avec Planches. Chalon-sur-Saone: 1864. Pp. 344, 8vo. (8.) An Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. By the Right Hon. Sir GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS. London: 1862. 8vo. (9.) Sir G. C. Lewis on the Decipherment and Interpretation of Dead Languages. By P. LE PAGE RENOUF. From the Atlantis. Vol. IV. London: Williams and Norgate. 1863. 'IT never rains but it pours,' says the old proverb. The most recent history of Egyptian discovery exemplifies in a remarkable manner this trite generalization of the home-spun philosophy. When this article was undertaken, not many weeks ago, the writer's hopes of being able to enkindle some few sparks of interest in a subject which, unfortunately, only deserves to be popular, were mainly based on his having it in his power to communicate to the readers of the BRITISH QUARTERLY a piece of archeological news of the utmost moment, and to point out some of its bearings on the solution of the great problem of the Pharaonic history and chronology. The allusion is to a monumental Tablet engraved in the reign of Ramses the Great (B.c. 1269-1203), and containing the royal scutcheons of a far more complete series of Egyptian kings than is exhibited on either the fragmentary Tablet of Abydos, -which, in spite of its lamentable lacunæ, is one of the most priceless gems of the British Museum,-or on the now scarcely less broken series with which Thothmes the Great (B.C. 1516-1469) formerly adorned the Chamber of his Ancestors at Karnak, and whose debris still lie scattered about, awaiting rearrangement in the new buildings of the Bibliotheque Imperiale at Paris. The publication of the text of the new Tablet of Memphis, as it was at first called by its finder, Mariette Bey, in a brief and somewhat tantalizing, because vague, and indeed misleading, account of his discovery, forwarded at the time to the Rerue Archéologique, has long been looked for by Egyptologers with a hungry eagerness of expectancy of which outsiders can form but a faint idea. For four long years, however, the famished savans were kept on the tenterhooks of unsatisfied desire. Successive numbers and volumes of the Revue Archéologique-the organ through which it was known the publication would take place, whensoever the Bey of the new Boulaq Museum should deem fit-were ransacked in vain for some fresh scintilla of information as to the contents of this wonderful Tablet. But although from time to time other important discoveries made by Mariette were ventilated there -we may mention in particular those resulting from the extremely interesting excavations at Tanis, or Havaris, the Zoan of the Bible, the stronghold of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings-about the Memphis list of Pharaohs no further driblet of news was given to quench our thirst. The oracle was provokingly dumb, and the secret was as well kept as that of Mrs. Reserve in making known the Memphis Tablet. 171 Abraham Plymley's receipt for making gooseberry wine. It was not until last summer, on the return of the Vicomte De Rougé from a short scientific tour to Egypt, of which, as Professor of Egyptology in the College de France, he gave some account in a course of lectures delivered from his chair, that something more satisfactory than had hitherto appeared was suffered to ooze out. Even then, however, the revelation was made with the most praiseworthy caution. The system of prudent reserve was gallantly maintained to the last; and the black-board of the lecture-room felt it a positive relief when the successor of Champollion chalked the hitherto unknown Royal names of the Tablet in honest Roman letters, instead of hieroglyphical signs. This self-restraint on the part of the noble and accomplished Professor, is doubtless to be ascribed to his chivalrous sense of what was due to the discoverer. It is not necessary to imagine that Mariette Bey had imposed on his illustrious friend and former chief in the Conservation of the Egyptian Museum at the Louvre any positive pledge of secrecy. But noblesse oblige. In whom was vested the right of first presenting to the world the original text of this important Monument could not be matter of controversy; and this right the French Academician, even if M. De Rougé had not been at the same time a French nobleman, of course could not fail to respect. If before an audience comprising, besides a [score of Roman Catholic priests and as many learned ladies, professed Egyptologers of mark, both French and foreign-amongst the latter may be instanced Dr. Brugsch, of Berlin, and Professor Lauth, of Munich-the effect of this unscientific piece of mystification was almost painfully ludicrous, the fault was not the Lecturer's own. In every other respect the course was all that could be desired. Happily, too, the strange comedy of hide-and-seek, in which this eminent savant played, we may sure an unwilling part, is now at an end. In the September issue of the Revue Archéologique we at last find an admirable lithographic delineation of the Tablet of Sakkarah, as the Monument is now rechristened by its discoverer, from the modern name of the locality where it was found. That it has been executed with the utmost possible fidelity, we have a sure guarantee in the fact of that the work has been superintended by M. Theodule Deveria, Conservator Adjutant of the Egyptian Museum at the Louvre, who is fortunately both an accomplished Egyptologer and a skilful artist. This invaluable plate will be thankfully accepted by all Egyptian scholars as the next best thing to, and indeed the only tolerable substitute for, an autopsy of the stone text itself. That text we can be |