NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IX, Issue 2520, 22 February 1872, Page 2

NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE.

The New Ttorh Herald is apt to blow its own trumpet with too shrill a blast; but after all, it really is one of the most enterprising newspapers in the world. It has correspondents almost everywhere; and it spareß neither expense nor assurance to obtain the fullest and earliest information. But its latest achievement deserves universal recognition. The proprietary of the A'cio York Herald have done what the British Government failed to do. They have sent a special agent, and a well-equipped party, on the track of Dr. Livingstone, and with every prospect of success. The agent chosen is a gentleman well inured to the hardships of Eastern travel, and who acted as " Herald " special" with the British army in Abyssinia. The Herald publishes a letter from its correspondent, dated Kwihara, district of Unyanyembe, July 4, 1871 ; and it thus refers to the subject in a leading article on the following day:—

From Bagomoyo, on tbe east coast of Africa, near Zanzibar, to Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, where Dr. Livingstone is supposed to be, tlio distance is some nine hundred miles, straight into the heart of the Continent. At Kwihara, in Uuyauyembe, our expedition had accomplished five hundred and twenty-five miles of this distance. It had reached that vast and lofty tableland which stretches from the great equatorial lakes of the Nile down to the diamond fields of South Africa—that elevated plateau from which the rivers flow eastward into the Indian Ocean, westward into the Atlantic, or northwardly into the Nile. But this tableland abounds in lakes, like the plateau of Minnesota, with its countless lakes, which are the sources of the Mississippi, flowing south, and the Red Eiver of the North. The African lakes of the region at tho head of the Nile and southward are not so numerous as those of Minnesota, but they are larger, approaching in their dimensions our great lakes. Lake Tanganyika is indeed reported to be from six to seven hundred miles in length, with a width vnrying from twenty to sixty inileß. And here we come to the question which it has been the special object of Dr. Livingstone to settle in this long sojourn of his at TTJiji and thereabouts on Lake Tanganyika, it is tho question whether this lake is discharged through the Nile into the Mediterranean, or through tho Congo into the Atlantic.

Dr. Livingstone has expressed the opinion, we believe, thut said lake is discharged into the Nile. If so, it adds six or seven hundred miles to the already ascertained length of that glorious river, and makes it the longest in the world. 'Ihe great lake in question has an outlet somewhere, for it is fresh water. If it had no outlet, it would be salt water. If its outlet, then, is through the great lake Albert N'Yanza into the Nile it is probable that our explorer will come out by that route. Writing at Kwihara on the 4th of July, his information concerning the Doctor is in support of the theory that ho still lives, and is at or near

Ujiji. Sheik h Amir Bin Bultan says that about a year .ago the Doctor "crossed the Tanganyika Lak." and accompanied some Arabs to La'ker Maniei na (probably the Albert N'Yanza), which, I am told, is a very great lake, much larger than Tanganyika." Our explorer says (July : —"lf the Doctor 13 at Ujiji, in one month mo r0 a °d I shall see him, then the race for home "will beginbut that " until I hear more of him, or see the longabsent old man faco to i.' ace i I bid you a farewell. But wherever ho ia be sure I shall not give up the chase." Go words these from a trusty man. Now, holding to the idea thai Lake Tanganyika is discharged into the Nilt'> wo bave a theory that both Dr. Livingstone our explorer in search of him will come bai/k ' nto the civilised world by the same outlet f rom the heart of savage Africa. Our theory is \.' J at when our traveller reaches Ujiji he will leai' a that Dr. Livingstone has gone northward to join an expedition that had come up to that other big lake from Egypt. We refer to the splendidly equipped army expedition sent up tlie Nile, a year or more since, by Ismael Pacha, under that king of African explorers, Sir Samuel Baker, to annex the whole valley of the Nile, including its great lakes, to the viceroyalty of Egypt. We have a report that Sir Samuel was shot in a mutiny of his troops on the Upper Nile, but we think it a fiction of the Arabs. He may have finished his upward journey and may have been at Lake Albert N'Yanza in time not only to rescue Dr. Livingstone by an expedition sent to hunt him up, but we hope that Sir Samuel was still within striking distance from our African explorer from CTjiji. Should this theory be confirmed, especially in reference to the outlet of Tanganyika La<e, the enterprise of the New York Herald in this African expedition will be associated, in the solution of the mysteries of the Nile, with the names of Bruce, and Speke, and Grant, and of Baker, and Benton, and Livingstone. In any event, we may, without vain boasting, claim that our example in the African adventure can hardly fail to give a new impulse to such enterprise in that vast and interesting Continent, with its abounding resources awaiting the development of civilisation.

The British Government, in our judgment, ha 9 been too slow and too penurious in its feeble attempts in behalf of Dr. Livingstone. Prom what our representative in this African journey has already accomplished with his small force we aresure that a properly equipped exploring expedition of five hundred men from the British Government could traverse without difficulty the whole breadth of Equatorial Africa from sea to sea ; and we are confident that an expedition of this character would soon be followed by the active development of the boundless resources of savage Africa, East and West, compared with which those of Australia are few and scanty. It may be months before we hear again from our courageous African traveller, but we are strong in the hope not only that we shall hear from liim again, but that we shall hear of the complete success of his great undertaking, both in regard to Dr. Livingstone and the outlet of Like Tanganyika. And so, from year to year, we gather in the bounteous harvest for our readers "from the rivers to the ends of the earth."