The Portuguese and Their Early Knowledge of Central African Geography
1916; Wiley; Volume: 47; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1779302
ISSN1475-4959
Autores Tópico(s)Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
ResumoTHERE appeared in the January number of the Geographical Journal some remarks of Sir Francis Fox, pursuant to Sir Charles Metcalfe's address on Railway Developments in They were to the effect that there exists in the keeping of the Library at Capetown a remarkable map, presumably of Dutch draughtsmanship in the seventeenth century, showing the extent of Portuguese knowledge of the African interior in those times. Sir Henry Stanley is supposed to have remarked on seeing this map that had he known of its existence he might have been spared the hardships attendant on his revelation of the Congo mystery. I cannot help thinking he must have said this sardonically and with a twinkle in his eye, for I am practically certain that the map referred to by Sir Francis Fox is nothing more than the usual labyrinth of rivers and lakes communicating with one another to an extent which, even with the knowledge of the connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon systems and between that of the Benue and the Shari, nevertheless staggers the imagination as never possible at any time in the geological history of Africa. I remember vaguely having seen the map to which Sir Francis Fox alludes on a visit to the Capetown Library many years ago. I cannot say, then, that it struck me as being any different from the type of Dutch maps of Africa published in the second half of the seventeenth century. I have one of these maps at home dated 1676. It differs slightly from an earlier version of the same map in the first edition of the same Dutch book pub? lished in 1627. In it the geography of Central and Southern Africa is detailed enough, but is of course utterly false. The Nile is shown rising from twin lakes of large size which should be situated somewhere in the North Nyasa and Central Congoland regions, and from these lakes flow equally most of the rivers of south-west and south-east Africa. The geo? graphical names attached tothe Nile lakes and to the branches of the Nile were shown by the late E. G. Ravenstein long ago to be simply names of Abyssinian geography; in short, Mr. Ernest Ravenstein, with the most acute criticism and well-sustained research, long ago placed on a right footing the*extent of Portuguese recorded knowledge of African geography. We all know that the source and, roughly speaking, the course of the Blue Nile and the main features of Abyssinian and Ethiopian geography were made known to the Portuguese world by the missionaries Francisco Alvares, Pedro Paez, and Jeronimo Lobo, in the last half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, by Paez and Lobo especially. The information they collected found its way to the industrious Dutch seekers after knowledge, and by them was grossly
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