(From the Bombay Times, republished in The Daily News)

Captain Burton and Lieutenant Speke left on Monday by the Elphinstone for Zanzibar, to commence a series of explorations, into the interior, for which two years have been assigned to them. They expect to be joined by Dr. Steinhauser from Aden, and this completes the arrangements of the expedition, It is not supposed likely that the travellers will be able to remain more then a twelvemonth at a time in the interior; when they find their supplies and resources begin to fail them , they will probably visit Zanzibar, and make a fresh departure inland. Their object is make for the shores of the Great Lake or series of lakes in Central Africa, which twenty years ago were only known by imperfect rumour, and from time to time were washed from or replaced on the map, as our supposed knowledge regarding them waxed or waned. We have every reason to believe that sheets of fresh water of large expanse exist in Central Africa just under the line, and so far south as the twentieth parallel, or probably over a space nearly as large as the peninsula of Hindostan. That this is a continuous inland sea we have no sufficient ground for believing. That the lakes are united is more than probable; that some of them are of vast magnitude is almost certain; but not only are we ignorant of their size, their connexions, width, and relations to each other, but we are not so much as aware whether or not they form a great independent lake and river system unconnected with the ocean, or whether they may not send off a portion of their waters to the sea. Captain Burton is of opinion that from some of them the Nile derives its supplies. And the travellers from Zanzibar are not without hope of meeting the great exploring party, now proceeding southward from Egypt and so between them solving a problem which has formed the mystery of the past twenty centuries. The Greek geographer, Ptolemy. speaks of two existence lakes which owe their existence to the melting snow on the mountains of the Moon as feeders of the Nile. These he describes as 6 and 7 south and 57 and 65 east. If we subtract the correction of ten degrees required by all Ptolemy’s observations, this will place them three or four north. According to Ptolemy, when the correction just referred to has been applied, the Mountains of the Moon are very nearly under the lie, and this is the position now assigned to the Great Snowy Range. It is to these he wonderful regions that the eyes of geographers in all parts of the world are at present directed and thitherward two bodies of bold adventurers, one from Cairo, another from Bombay, are at present direction their steps, with an enterprise before them, laborious and dangerous as it is, often paralleled in labour and in danger, but never certainly surpassed in interest. The marvel is, that a field of such achievement should have been left to the present day nearly unimproved.