Abstract
MR. STANLEY'S letter and the map in the Telegraph of Monday enable us to realise somewhat more fully the nature and extent of the discoveries made by the intrepid traveller. Mr. Stanley is bent on calling the great river, so much of which he has explored, by the came of Livingstone. As a rule we think it a mistake to change native geographical names where these can be satisfactorily ascertained. In the case of the Lualaba-Congo, however, the river seems to have quite as many names as there are tribes or villages on its banks, and it would be a happy solution of the difficulty to confer upon it the most memorable name among African explorers. Mr. Stanley himself has taken great pains to obtain accurately the native names of tribes and places, and he animadverts with severity on geographers for crowding the map of Africa with names that probably correspond to nothing. For this they cannot be greatly blamed, neither need he be too hard on previous travellers for misunderstanding the significance of native words.
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African Exploration . Nature 17, 49–50 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/017049a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/017049a0