this river in the winter of 1887 and 1888, and solved the problem so long discussed, of the outlet of the Welle. The expedition left the Kongo in the steamer "En Avant," October 26, 1887. It passed several rapids, and steamed to 21° 55' east longitude, when it was stopped by the "En Avant" running on a rock, and the opposition of hostile natives. Here it was only 66 miles from the westernmost point on the Welle reached by Junker, and in the same latitude, each stream running in the same direction, leaving no room to doubt that the two waters unite. The Little Kibali, which rises a little to the west of Wadelai in the mountains of Sudan, is the initial branch of this river, which bears successively the name of "Kibali" "Welle" and "Doru," and empties into the Kongo under the name of "Obangi," after a course of 1,500 miles. The discharge of water from the Kongo is only a little less than that from the Amazon, and is said to be three times as great as the discharge from the Mississippi. Grenfel, the English missionary and traveler, says there is no part of the Kongo basin more than one hundred miles from navigable water. What the railroad does for America, the steamboat will do for the Kongo Free State on its seventy-two hundred miles of navigable water. APPROPRIATION OF AFRICA BY EUROPE. The English, French, Germans, and Belgians have within a few years planted colonies in Africa. They believe it is more for their interest to colonize Africa than to permit their surplus population to emigrate to America. These countries realize the necessity of creating new markets, if they are to continue to advance. In Africa the colonies must depend upon the home country, and open new fields for manufactures and commerce. They know that in equatorial Africa there are more than 100,000,000 people wanting every thing, even clothes. The whole coast of Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans from the Red Sea to the Isthmus of Suez, is claimed by European nations, with the exception of two or three small inhospitable and barren strips of coast. England occupies Egypt, and will hold it for an indefinite period. France has its colonies in Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, and on the Atlantic coast its factories in Senegambia. It seeks a route from Algiers across the desert to Lake Chad, and from Senegambia up the Senegal by steamer, thence across the country by rail to the head of navigation on the Niger, and down that river to Timbuctu. England occupies Sierra Leone, the Gold and Slave Coasts, the delta and valley of the Niger, and its branch the Benue. It has factories on these rivers, and small steamers plying on them, and seeks Timbuctu by the river Niger. It controls almost the entire region where the palm-oil is produced.