Seconda Spedizione Bottego L'Om Viaggio d'Esplorazione nell' Africa Orientale

Abstract

THE Erythrean Rift Valley has been proved continuous across forty degrees of latitude from the Jordan to the south of Kilima Njaro, except for a possible break of about 250 miles between Lake Rudolf and the basin of the Hawash. Whether the valley is broken in that district depends on the course of the Omo and its relations to the river known as the Nianam, which flows into the northern end of Lake Rudolf. The name Omo was introduced into geography by Léon des Avanchers in 1858, for a river which drains part of the southern slope of Abyssinia, a little to the west of Menelik's capital at Addis Abeba. The river had been known long before, for it is the Zebé of the seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries. The upper part of its course was described by Ludolf in his “New History of Ethiopia” (1681) from information supplied by the Abba Gregorius. But the lower course of the river was quite unknown. Ludolf believed that it flowed eastward and entered the Indian Ocean near Mombasa.

Seconda Spedizione Bottego. L'Om. Viaggio d'Esplorazione nell' Africa Orientale.

By L. Vannutelli C. Citerni. Pp. xvi + 650; 11 plates, 9 maps, and numerous illustrations. (Milano: Hoepli, 1899.)