Could not carrier pigeons be put to practical use in
East Africa? One grand difficulty with which European enter- prise has to contend there is that of getting intelligence from the interior to the coast. The distance, seldom as much as five hundred miles, is practically insurmountable ; and Mr. Stanley, for example, has disappeared for so long a time as to excite the gravest fears. It is im- possible to put up telegraphs until we can punish those who steal the wires, and messengers cannot be relied on. They can cover twenty miles a day ; but sometimes they are killed, sometimes they are frightened, and sometimes—very often—they loiter for weeks at the villages, unable to com- prehend why white men should be so punctilious about time. There are years before them, why hurry? The consequent intermissions of information impede all enterprise, and make every enterprise a leap into the dark. If a pigeon-post could be established, as it might be, for instance, with Emin Pasha, it would make news fairly certain.
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