In these depressed regions the comparatively salubrious climates of the uplands become dangerous to the European; the people also are degraded, mostly pirates and water-thieves, as the Nigerian Ibos, the Congoese Musulungus, and the Landim (Amalandi) Kafirs about the lower Zambeze. There is a notable similarity in their productions, partly known to Pliny (v. 8), who notices "the calamus, the papyrus, and the animals" of the Nigris and the Nile. The black-maned lion and the leopard rule the wold; the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and other troglodytes affect the thinner forests; the giraffe, the zebra, and vast hosts of antelopes scour the plains; the turtle swims the seas; and the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and various siluridae, some of gigantic size, haunt the lakes and rivers. The nymphæa, lotus or water-lily, forms rafts of verdure; and the stream-banks bear the calabash, the palmyra, the oil-palm, and the papyrus. Until late years it was supposed that the water-lily, sacred to Isis, had been introduced into Egypt from India, where it is also a venerated vegetable, and that it had died out with the form of Fetishism which fostered it. It has simply disappeared like the crocodile from the Lower Nile. Finally, to conclude this rapidly outlined sketch, all at the present moment happily share the same fate; they are being robbed of their last mysteries; the veil of Isis is fast yielding to the white man's grasp. We can hardly as yet answer the question whether the Congo was known to the ancients. Our acquaintance with the oldest explorations is at present fragmentary, and we are apt to assume that the little told us in our school-books is the sum-total of former exploits. But possibly inscriptions in the New World, as well as in the Old, may confirm the "first circumnavigation" so simply recounted by Herodotus, especially that of the Phoenicians, who set out from the Red Sea, and in three years returned to the Mediterranean. The expression, "they had the sun to the right," is variously explained. In the southern hemisphere the sailors facing west during our winter would see the sun at noon on the right, and in the northern hemisphere on the left. But why should they face west? In the "Chronicle" of Schedel (p. ccxc., printed in 1793, Pigafetta, Pinkerton, xi. 412) we read: "These two, (i.e. Jacob Cam and Martin Behem, or Behaim) by the help of the gods, ploughing the sea at short distance from shore, having passed the equinoctial line, entered the nether hemisphere, where, fronting the east, their shadow fell towards the south, and on their right hand." Perhaps it may simply allude to the morning sun, which would rise to port as they went southwards, and to starboard as they returned north. Again, the "First Overland Expedition" is related by the Father of History with all the semblance of truth. We see no cause to doubt that the Nasammones or Nasamones (Nás Amún), the five young Lybians of