Thanks, partly, to the recent seizure by Portugal of the little Zambesi steamer belonging to the African Lakes company--on the plea that vessels trading on Portuguese waters must be owned by Portuguese subjects, and fly the Portuguese flag--and to influential deputations to head-quarters on the part of the various Missions, the Foreign Office is beginning to be alive to the state of affairs in East Central Africa. The annexation of Matabeleland will be a chief item on the programme with which it is hoped the Government will shortly surprise us; but, what is of greater significance, it will probably include a declaration of the Zambesi as an open river, and the abolition or serious restriction of the present customs tariff. Important as these things are, however, they affect but slightly the two supreme English interests in East Central Africa--the suppression of the slave-trade and the various missionary and industrial enterprises. The most eager among the supporters of these higher interests have never ventured to press upon Government anything so pronounced as that England should declare a Protectorate over the Upper Shiré and Nyassa districts; but they do contend, and with every reason, for the delimitation of part of this region as a "Sphere of British Influence." Granting even that the shadowy claims of Germany and Portugal to the eastern shore of Lake Nyassa are to be respected, there remain the whole western coast of the Lake, and the regions of the Upper Shiré which are reached directly from the waters of the Zambesi without trespassing on the soil of any nation. These regions are not even claimed at present by any one, while by every right of discovery and occupation--by every right, in fact, except that of formal acknowledgment--they are already British. It will be an oversight most culpable and inexcusable if this great theatre of British missionary and trading activity should be allowed to be picked up by any passing traveller, or become the property of whatever European power had sufficient effrontery at this late day to wave its flag over it. The thriving settlements, the schools and churches, the roads and trading-stations, of Western Nyassa-land are English. And yet it is neither asked that they should be claimed by England, annexed by England, nor protected by England. Those whose inspirations and whose lives have created this oasis in the desert, plead only that no intruder now should be allowed to undo their labor or idly reap its fruits. Here is one spot, at least, on the Dark Continent, which is being kept pure and clean. It is now within the power of the English Government to mark it off before the world as henceforth sacred ground. To-morrow, it may be too late. X. A METEOROLOGICAL NOTE.