339.
It is probable that, besides settling on the coast, the Portuguese from time to time made explorations into the interior.

At any rate, in some maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth century there is shown a remarkable knowledge of the course of the Nile.

We get it terminated in three large lakes, which can be scarcely other than the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and Tanganyika.

The Mountains of the Moon also figure prominently, and it was only almost the other day that Mr.Stanley re-discovered them.

It is difficult, however, to determine how far these entries on the Portuguese maps were due to actual knowledge or report, or to the traditions of a still earlier knowledge of these lakes and mountains; for in the maps accompanying the early editions of Ptolemy we likewise obtain the same information, which is repeated by the Arabic geographers, obviously from Ptolemy, and not from actual observation.