Lake Nyassa.  A telegraph through Egypt has been projected to the South African colonies of Britain, passing by Nyassa and Shire.  An Italian colony on a large scale has been projected in the dominions of Menelek, king of Shoa, near the Somali land.  Any statement of the various commercial schemes begun or contemplated would probably be defective, because new enterprises are so often appearing.  But all this shows what a new light has burst on the commercial world as to the capabilities of Africa in a trading point of view.  There seems, indeed, no reason why Africa should not furnish most of the products which at present we derive from India.  As a market for our manufactures, it is capable, even with a moderate amount of civilization, of becoming one of our most extensive customers.  The voice that proclaimed these things in 1857 was the voice of one crying in the wilderness; but it is now repeated in a thousand echoes.

In stimulating African exploration the influence of Livingstone was very decided.  He was the first of the galaxy of modern African travelers, for both in the Geographical Society and in the world at large his name became famous before those of Baker, Grant, Speke, Burton, Stanley, and Cameron.  Stanley, inspired first by the desire of finding him, became himself a remarkable and successful traveler.  The same remark is applicable to Cameron.  Not only did Livingstone stimulate professed geographers, but, what was truly a novelty in the annals of exploration, he set newspaper companies to open up Africa.  The New York Herald, having found Livingstone, became hungry for new discoveries, and enlisting a brother-in-arms, Mr. Edwin Arnold and the Daily Telegraph, the two papers united to send Mr. Stanley “to fresh woods and pastures new.”  Under the auspices of the African Exploration Society, and the directions of the Royal Geographical, Mr. Keith Johnston and Mr. Joseph Thomson undertook the exploration of the country between Dar es Salaam and Lake Nyassa, the former falling a victim to illness, the latter penetrating through unexplored regions to Nyassa, and subsequently extending his journey to Tanganyika.  We can but name the international enterprise resulting from Brussels Conference; the French researches of Lieutenant de Semelle and of de Brazza; the various German Expeditions of Dr. Lenz, Dr. Pogge, Dr. Fischer, and Herr Denhardts; and the Portuguese exploration on the west, from Benguela to the head-waters of the Zambesi.  Africa does not want for explorers, and generally they are men bent on advancing legitimate commerce and the improvement of the people.  It would be a comfort if we could think of all as having this for their object; but tares, we fear, will always be mingled with the good seed; and if there have been travelers who have led immoral lives and sought their own amusement only, and traders who by trafficking in rum and such things have demoralized the natives, they have only shown that in some natures selfishness is too deeply imbedded to be affected by the noblest examples.