Research Results For 'Tanganyika'

LAKES

Lakes are accumulations of water in hollows on the earth's surface. When they are drained by rivers their waters are fresh, but when they have no outlet they are salty, e.g. the Dead Sea, Sea of Aral, etc.
Lakes may owe their origin to:

1. The formation of a barrier across a river.


2. Earth movements.


3. Ice erosion.


4. Volcanic action.

The nehrungs of East Prussia are sand-spits which enclose the shallow salt-water lagoons or halls, such as Kurische Haff. Earth movements cause lake formation when subsidence occurs. This is most easily seen in rift valleys. Examples of rift valley lakes are the Dead Sea, Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika in Africa, and Lake Torrens in Australia. These are all long, narrow, and very deep lakes.
In Cheshire, the removal of underground beds of salt has caused subsidence resulting in the 'meres' of the Weaver Valley. The 'folding' of the earth across the line of a river valley may partially block a river and help to form a lake. The study of a good physical map will reveal the connection between mountain building and the formation of Lake Geneva and Lake Constance in Switzerland. Where there are large areas of depressed lowland wide and shallow lakes are formed in the lowest part of the depression, for example the Sea of Aral in Asiatic Russia, Lake Balaton in Hungary, and Lake Eyre in Australia. Ice sheets and valley glaciers may scoop out hollows to form 'rock basins'. Mountain tarns and corrie lakes in North Wales and Scotland have been formed in this way. Water also accumulates in the hollows of unevenly- distributed glacial drift. Such are the lakes of East Prussia, and also those of the Cheshire-Shropshire borders near Ellesmere. Subsidence of the land surface and consequent lake formation may be directly related to volcanic action. Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is a shallow lake formed by subsidence of this type. Lakes are often formed by the accumulation of water in the craters of extinct volcanoes, for example the Laachersee in the Eifel region of Germany.
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PLATEAU

A plateau or tableland generally denotes a large stretch of highland which is practically the same height above sea-level, and which descends on all sides to lower ground. Some plateaux, however, such as those of Tibet and Bolivia, that are fringed by high mountain ranges which tower above the plateau level, are known as intermont plateaux. Sometimes they are so completely enclosed as to have no outlet to the sea.

A plateau might be regarded as an elevated plain, but there is often a great difference between the surface of a plain and that of a plateau. As a plateau is high, rivers are swift and carve deep, narrow valleys instead of the broad, open valleys of the lower rivers of the plains. Such plateau areas as Wales and the Highlands of Scotland, are broken by deep, narrow valleys, and are termed dissected plateaux. On reaching the top of such an area one has a long view of a series of flat-topped mountain ridges. These ridges are all of approximately the same height, and if one imagines the clouds descending until they touched one ridge, then almost every other ridge would be similarly cloud-capped. Other good examples of plateaux are Tibet in Asia, the Ecuador and Bolivian plateaux in South America, and nearly the whole of the continent of Africa.

The Deccan of India is a plateau that has been tilted so that the western edge is much higher than the eastern edge, and all the main rivers drain eastwards. In many instances plateaux are formed by the denudation or wearing down of higher mountainous areas. Ultimately, such areas may become so low that they are nearly plains, i.e. peneplains, such as the land around Hudson Bay. Millions of years ago lava was forced up through cracks in the earth's crust, and spread out over the land in great sheets which have since hardened to form plateaux of basalt.

Two well-known examples of such plateaux are in Antrim (Ireland), and on the Deccan of India to the east of Bombay. Many of the most extensive areas of plateaux in the world are composed of very hard old rock. The Guiana Highlands, most of Africa, Arabia, the Deccan of India, and the West Australian plateaux are all composed of rocks of similar age. The ancient plateau lands are principally valuable for their minerals, such as the gold of Western Australia; the iron and manganese of the Brazilian Highlands; the gold, copper, and diamonds of the African plateau; and the gold of the Lena plateau in Siberia. Where plateaux are found in tropical areas they are important because, being cooler than the neighbouring lowlands, they offer greater possibilities for successful European settlement and development. The highlands of Brazil, Kenya, and Tanganyika are illustrations of this. Much of the tropical plateau area is covered by savannah grasslands. Most of these areas are not yet developed, but offer possibilities for the production of a large variety of both animal and vegetable products when communications have been developed and further settlement has taken place.
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SOKO

The Soko is a herbivorous mammal closely allied to the chimpanzees. It was discovered living near Lake Tanganyika by David Livingstone.
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HENRY STANLEY

Sir Henry Morton Stanley was a Welsh journalist and African explorer. He was born in 1841 and died in 1904. He was originally James Rowlands, but after going to America at the age of seventeen found employment with a Mr H. M. Stanley and assumed his benefactors name. After serving in the American Civil War he became a journalist and war correspondent. In 1869 he was commissioned to find Livingston, and met him on November 10th 1871 at Ujili on Lake Tanganyika, and returned to the coast at Bagamoyo, bringing with him the traveller's journals and papers.

On his return from the Ashanti expedition of 1873 - 1874 he was provided by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph and New York Herald with funds for a journey across Central Africa, which he commenced from Bagamoyo on November 17th 1874. On this occasion he circumnavigated the Victoria Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika, partly surveyed the Albert Nyanza, and traced the Congo from Nyangwe, the lowest point on the Lualaba reached by Cameron and Livingstone, to the highest point reached from the ocean by Tuckey in 1816, proceeding thence to Banana. He returned to the Congo at the instance of the King of Belgium and remained there from August 1879 until June 1884. His last visit to Africa was in 1887 as leader of the Emin Pasha relief expedition, when he discovered Ruwenzori and the Albert Edward Nyanza.
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RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON

Sir Richard Francis Burton was an English explorer and linguist. He was born in 1821 and died in 1890. He joined the Indian army in 1842, and showed a remarkable facility in acquiring the languages and manners of the natives. In 1853 he went to Arabia, and visited Mecca and Medina disguised as a Muslim pilgrim a sufficiently dangerous journey. After serving in the Crimean War he made a journey to East Africa along with Captain Speke, which led to the discovery of the great lake Tanganyika. He was British consul at Fernando Po, at Santos in Brazil, and from 1872 at Trieste. He visited many countries and published many works, amongst which were Sindh and the Races that inhabit India; Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca; The Lake Regions of Central Africa; The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California; The Nile Basin; The Highlands of Brazil; Ultima Thule, or a Summer in Iceland; The Gold Mines of Midian; The Book of the Sword; translations of Camoens' Lusiads and of the Arabian Nights; etc.
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KING'S AFRICAN RIFLES

The King's African Rifles was a British army regiment formed in 1902 by the union of regular colonial forces in British East Africa. Originally there were six founding battalions: 1st (Central Africa) Battalion; 2nd (Central Africa) Battalion; 3rd (East Africa) Battalion (formerly the East Africa Rifles); 4th (Uganda) Battalion; 5th (Uganda) Battalion; 6th (Somaliland) Battalion.
In 1910 the 6th Battalion was disbanded, only to be reformed in 1917 as the Tanganyika battalion. At the start of the 1960's with independence for many of the contributing African countries the battalions started to be redesignated and in 1964 the regiment was disbanded. During the Great War and Second World War the regiment saw action chiefly in east Africa, but in 1944 also served in Burma.
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TANU

TANU is an abbreviation for Tanganyika African National Union
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TANGANYIKA

HMS Tanganyika was a British Algerine Class minesweeper of 950 tons displacement launched in 1944. HMS Tanganyika was powered by two 3-drum type boilers providing a top speed of 16.5 knots. She carried a peacetime complement of 85 and between 104 and 138 in war. For defence she was armed with one 4-inch dual-purpose gun; four 40 mm anti-aircraft guns and two depth charge throwers.
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AFRICA

Africa is one of the three great divisions of the Old World, and the second in extent of the five principal continents of the globe, forming a vast peninsula joined to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. It is of a compact form, with few important projections or indentations, and having therefore a very small extent of coast-line (about 16,000 miles, or much less than that of Europe) in proportion to its area. This continent extends from 37 degrees 20 minutes North latitude to 34 degrees 50 minutes South latitude, and the extreme points, Cape Blanco and Cape Agulhas, are nearly 5000 miles apart. Erom west to east, between Cape Verde, longitude 17 degrees 34 minutes West, and Cape Guardafui, longitude 51 degrees 16 minutes East, the distance is about 4600 miles. The area is more than three times that of Europe. The islands belonging to Africa are not numerous, and, except Madagascar, none of them are large. They include Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, Fernando Po, Prince's Island, St Thomas, Ascension Island, St Helena, Mauritius, Bourbon, the Comoros, Socotra, etc.

Almost all round the interior of Africa, at no great distance from the sea, and, roughly speaking, parallel with the coast-line, we find ranges of mountains or elevated lands forming the outer edges of interior plateaux. The most striking feature of Northern Africa is the immense tract known as the Sahara or Great Desert, which is inclosed on the north by the Atlas Mountains, the plateau of Barbary and that of Barca, on the east by the mountains along the west coast of the Red Sea, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Sudan. The Sahara is by no means the sea of sand it has sometimes been represented: it contains elevated plateaux and even mountains radiating in all directions, with habitable valleys between. A considerable nomadic population is scattered over the habitable parts, and in the more favoured regions there are settled communities.

The Sudan, which lies to the south of the Sahara, and separates it from the more elevated plateau of Southern Africa, forms a belt of pastoral country across Africa, and includes the countries on the Niger, around Lake Tchad (or Chad), and eastwards to the elevated region of Ethiopia.

Southern Africa as a whole is much more fertile and well watered than Northern Africa, though it also has a desert tract of considerable extent - the Kalahari Desert. This division of the continent consists of a table-land, or series of table-lands, of considerable elevation and great diversity of surface, exhibiting hollows filled with great lakes, and terraces over which the rivers break in falls and rapids, as they find their way to the low-lying coast tracts. The mountains which inclose Southern Africa are mostly much higher on the east than on the west, the most northerly of the former being those of Ethiopia, with heights of 10,000 to 14,000 or 16,000 feet, while the eastern edge of the Abyssinian plateau presents a steep unbroken line of 7000 feet in height for many hundred miles.

The Nile is the only great river of Africa which flows to the Mediterranean, It receives its waters primarily from the great lake Victoria Nyanza, which lies under the equator, and in its upper course is fed by tributary streams of great size, but for the last 1200 miles of its course it has not a single affluent. It drains an area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. The Indian Ocean receives numerous rivers; but the only great river of South Africa which enters that ocean is the Zambesi, the fourth in size of the continent, and having in its course the Victoria Falls, one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. In Southern Africa also, but flowing westward and entering the Atlantic, is the Congo, which takes origin from a series of lakes and marshes in the interior, is fed by great tributaries, and is the first in volume of all the African rivers, carrying to the ocean more water than the Mississippi. Unlike most of the African rivers, the mouth of the Congo forms an estuary. Of the other Atlantic rivers, the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger are the largest, the last being third among African streams.

With the exception of Lake Tchad there are no great lakes in the northern division of Africa, whereas in the number and magnificence of its lakes the southern division almost rivals North America. Here are the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, Lakes Tanganyika, Nyassa, Shirwa, Bangweolo, Moero, and other lakes. Of these the Victoria and Albert belong to the basin of the Nile;
Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and Moero to that of the Congo; Nyassa, by its affluent the Shire,to the Zambesi. Lake Tchad on the borders of the northern desert region, and Lake Ngami on the borders of the southern, have a remarkable resemblance in position, and in the fact that both are drained by streams that lose themselves in the sand.

The climate of Africa is mainly influenced by the fact that it lies almost entirely within the tropics. In the equatorial belt, both north and south, rain is abundant and vegetation very luxuriant, dense tropical forests prevailing for about 10 degrees on either side of the line. To the north and south of the equatorial belt the rainfall diminishes, and the forest region is succeeded by an open pastoral and agricultural country. This is followed by the rainless regions of the Sahara on the north and the Kalahari Desert on the south, extending beyond the tropics, and bordering on the agricultural and pastoral countries of the north and south coasts, which lie entirely in the temperate zone. The low coast regions of Africa are almost everywhere unhealthy, the Atlantic coast within the tropics being the most harsh region to Europeans.

Among mineral productions may be mentioned gold, which is found in the rivers of West Africa (hence the name Gold Coast), and in Southern Africa, most abundantly in the Transvaal; diamonds were found in large numbers at the end of the 19th century in the south; iron, copper, lead, tin, and coal are also found.

As regards both plants and animals, northern Africa, adjoining the Mediterranean, is distinguished from the rest of Africa in its great agreement with southern Europe. Among the most characteristic African animals are the lion, hyena, jackal, gorilla, chimpanzee, baboon, African elephant (never domesticated, and formerly yielding much ivory to trade), hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, quagga, antelopes in great variety and immense numbers. Among birds are the ostrich, the secretary-bird or snake-eater, the honey-guide cuckoo, sacred ibis, guinea-fowl. The reptiles include the crocodile, chameleon, and snakes of various kinds, some of them very venomous. Among insects are locusts, scorpions, the tsetse-fly whose bite is so fatal to cattle, and white-ants.

During the 19th century great areas in Africa were apportioned among European powers as protectorates or spheres of influence. During the 20th century these artificially created countries became independent and terrible civil wars ensued between rival tribes who had been articially forced together by European boundaries.

The name Africa was given by the Romans at first only to a small district in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage. The Greeks called Africa Libya, and the Romans often used the same name. The first African exploring expedition on record was sent by Pharaoh Necho about the end of the seventh century B.C. to circumnavigate the continent. The navigators, who were Phoenicians, were absent three years, and according to report they accomplished their object. Fifty or a hundred years later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a voyage down the west coast and seems to have got as far as the Bight of Benin. The east coast was probably known to the ancients as far as Mozambique and the island of Madagascar. Of modern nations the Portuguese were the first to take in hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, in 1441 reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape Verde, in 1462 they discovered Sierra Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego Cam discovered the mouth of the Congo. In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa Bay. A few years later a Portuguese traveller visited Abyssinia - now Ethipioa. In 1497 Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned to find a route by sea to India, sailed round the southern extremity as far as Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. The first European settlements were those of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the Dutch made a settlement at the Cape. In 1770 James Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the exploration of the interior of Africa, however, little was done before the close of the 18th century.

Modern African exploration maybe said to begin with Mungo Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger between 1795 and 1805. Dr. Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time reached the capital of the Cazembe, in the centre of South Africa, where he died. In 1802 - 1806 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from Angola, through the Cazembe's dominions, to the Portuguese possessions on the Zambesi. In 1822 - 1824 extensive explorations were made in Northern and Western Africa by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, who proceeded from Tripoli by Murzuk to Lake Tchad, and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, in 1826, crossed the desert from Tripoli to Timbuctoo; Caillie, leaving Senegal, made in 1827 - 1828 a journey to Timbuctoo, and thence through the desert to Morocco. In 1830 Lander traced a large part of the course of the Niger downward to its mouth, discovering its tributary the Benue. In the south David Livingstone, who was stationed as a missionary at Kolobeng, setting out from that place in 1849 discovered Lake Ngami. In 1851 he went north again, and came upon numerous rivers flowing north, affluents of the Zmbesi.

In 1848 and 1849 Krapf and Rebmann, missionaries in East Africa, discovered the mountains Kilimanjaro and Kenya. An expedition sent out by the British government started from Tripoli in 1850 to visit the Sahara and the regions around Lake Tchad, the chiefs being Richardson, Overweg, and Barth. The last alone returned in 1855, having carried his explorations over 2,000,000 sq. miles of this part of Africa, hitherto almost unknown. In 1853 - 1856 David Livingstone made an important series of explorations. He first went north-westwards, tracing part of the Upper Zambesi, and reached St Paul de Loanda on the west coast in 1854. On his return journey he followed pretty nearly the same route until he reached the Zambesi, and proceeding down the river, and visiting its falls, called by him the Victoria Falls, he arrived at Quilimane at its mouth on the 20th of May, 1856, thus crossing the continent from sea to sea. In 1858 he resumed his exploration of the Zambesi regions, and in various journeys visited Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, sailed up the Shire to the latter lake, and established the general features of the geography of this part of Africa, returning to England in 1864.

By this time the great lakes of equatorial Africa were becoming known, Tanganyika and Victoria having been discovered by Burton and Speke in 1858, and the latter having been visited by Speke and Grant in 1862 and found to give rise to the Nile, while the Albert Nyanza was discovered by Baker in 1864. In 1866 David Livingstone entered on his last great series of explorations, the main object of which was to settle the position of the water-sheds in the interior of the continent, and which he carried on until his death in 1873. His most important explorations on this occasion were west and south-west of Tanganyika, including the discovery of Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, and part of the upper course of the river Congo (here called Lualaba). For over two years he was lost to the knowledge of Europe until met with by Henry Stanley at Tanganyika in 1871.

Gerhard Rohlfs, in a succession of journeys from 1861 to 1874 traversed the Sahara in various directions, and crossed the continent entirely from Tripoli to Lagos by way of Murzuk, Bornu, etc. In 1873 - 1875 Lieutenant Cameron, who had been sent in search of David Livingstone, surveyed Lake Tanganyika, explored the country to the west of it, and then travelling to the south-west, finally reached Benguela on the Atlantic coast. In 1874 - 1777 Henry Stanley surveyed Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika and explored the intervening country, then going westward to where David Livingstone had struck the Congo he followed the river down to its mouth, thus finally settling its course and completing a remarkable and valuable series of explorations. In 1879 Serpa Pinto completed a journey across the continent from Benguela to Natal, and in 1881 - 1882 Wissman and Pogge crossed it again from St Paul de Loanda to Zanzibar. Around 1900 European knowledge of this part of Africa was rapidly increased through the efforts of travellers, missionaries, and commercial agents, and many European settlements made. By 1906 on the Upper Congo, and on Lakes Tanganyika and Nyaasa there were a number of steamers, and railways extended far into the continent.
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BURUNDI

The Republic of Burundi is a country in east Africa. It has a total area of 27,830 km2. The climate is temperate, warm with the occasional frost in the uplands. The terrain is mostly rolling to hilly highland with some plains. Natural resources are nickel, uranium, rare earth oxide, peat, cobalt, copper, platinum (not yet exploited) and vanadium The religion is about 67% Christian (62% Roman Catholic, 5% Protestant), 32% indigenous beliefs and 1% Muslim. The official language is French with Kirundi and Swahili (along Lake Tanganyika and in the Bujumbura area) also being spoken. Burundi was originally inhabited by Twa pygmies, but during the 13th century was overrun by Bantu Hutus. From the 15th century until 1890 the land was ruled by the Tutsi and was known as Urundi. In 1890 the country became part of German East africa, and following the Great War a Belgian territory, later becoming an independent kingdom in 1962 and in 1966 when the king was deposed, a republic.
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