What the chartographers of Homer’s time illustrated of geographical knowledge succeeding chartographers effaced, and what they in their turn sketched was expunged by those who came after them. In vain explorers sweated under the burning sun, and endured the fatigues and privations of arduous travel: in vain did they endeavour to give form to their discoveries, for in a few years the ruthless map-maker obliterated all away. Cast your eyes over these series of small maps, and witness for yourselves what this tribe has done to destroy every discovery, and to render labour and knowledge vain. There _is_ a chartographer living, the chiefest sinner alive. In 1875, I found a bay at the north-east end of Lake Victoria. A large and mountainous island, capacious enough to supply 20,000 people with its products of food, blocked the entrance from the lake into it, but there is a winding strait at either end of sufficient depth and width to enable an Atlantic liner to steam in boldly. The bay has been wiped out, the great island has been shifted elsewhere, and the picturesque channels are not in existence on his latest maps, and they will not be restored until some other traveller, years hence, replaces them as they stood in 1875. And young travellers are known to chuckle with malicious pleasure at all this, forgetful of what old Solomon said in the olden time: “There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.” [Illustration: AFRICA IN HOMER’S WORLD.] So, though it is some satisfaction to be able to vindicate the more ancient geographers to some extent, I publish at the end of the series of old maps the small chart which illustrates what we have verified during our late travels. I do it with the painful consciousness that some stupid English or German map-maker within the next ten years may, from spleen and ignorance, shift the basin 300 or 400 miles farther east or west, north or south, and entirely expunge our labours. However, I am comforted that on some shelf of the British Museum will be found a copy of ‘In Darkest Africa,’ which shall contain these maps, and that I have a chance of being brought forth as an honest witness of the truth, in the same manner as I cite the learned geographers of the olden time to the confusion of the map-makers of the nineteenth century. In the little sketch of ‘Homer’s World,’ which I have taken the liberty of copying, with a few others, from Judge Daly’s[13] learned and valuable contribution to the knowledge of ancient geography, it will be seen that the Nile is traced up to an immense range of mountains, beyond which are located the pigmies.