A beginning once made, one might not be unduly sanguine in anticipating that the meshes of a pacific and civilizing influence would rapidly spread throughout the country. Already the missionaries are pioneering everywhere, prepared to slay and do their part; and asking no more from the rest of the world than a reasonable guarantee that they should be allowed to live. Already the trading companies are there, from every nationality, and in every direction ready to open up the country, but unable to go on with any confidence or enthusiasm till their isolated interests are linked together and secured in the presence of a common foe. The territories of the various colonies are slowly converging upon the heart of Africa, and to unite them in an informal defensive alliance would not be impossible. With Emin Pasha occupying the field in the north; with the African Lakes Company, the British East African Association, and the German Association, in the east; with the Congo Free State in the west, and British Bechuanaland in the south, a cordon is already thrown around the Great Lakes region, which requires only to have its several parts connected with one another and with central forces on the Lakes, to secure the peace of Africa. V. WANDERINGS ON THE NYASSA-TANGANYIKA PLATEAU. A TRAVELLER'S DIARY. With a glade in the forest for a study, a bale of calico for a table, and the sun vertical and something under a billion centigrade, diary-writing in the tropics is more picturesque than inspiring. To keep a journal, however, next to keeping his scalp, is the one thing for which the consistent traveller will go through fire and water; and the dusky native who carries the faded note-books on the march is taught to regard the sacredness of his office more than if he drove the car of Juggernaut. The contents of these mysterious note-books, nevertheless, however precious to those who write them, are, like the photographs of one's relations, of pallid interest to others, and I have therefore conscientiously denied myself the joy of exhibiting such offspring of the wilderness as I possess to my confiding reader. But as the diary form has advantages of its own, I make no apology at this stage for transcribing and editing a few rough pages. Better, perhaps, than by a more ordered narrative, they may help others to enter into the traveller's life, and to illustrate what the African traveller sees and hears and does. I shall disregard names, and consecutive dates, and routes. My object is simply to convey some impression of how the world wags in a land unstirred by civilization, and all but untouched by time.