_Anticipations of Modern Ideas by Defoe_ (Vol. iii., pp. 137. 195.).--It is
a singular fact, to which I do not remember a reference has hitherto been
made, that Defoe, in his _Life and Adventures of Captain Singleton_, has
foreshadowed the discovery by recent travellers of a great inland lake in
the South of Africa. He describes his adventurous hero and companions,
during their attempt to cross this vast continent from Mozambique to
Angola, as having, on the ninth day of their journey, come in "view of a
great lake of water."
"The next day," he adds, "which was the tenth from our setting out, we
came to the edge of this lake, and happily for us, we came to it at the
south point of it, for to the north we could see no end of it; so we
passed by it, and travelled three days by the side of it."--_Life,
Adventures, and Piracies of Captain Singleton_, chap. vi.
According to a rough calculation by one of the party, they were, a few days
before reaching it, 700 miles from the coast of Mozambique, and 1500 from
the Cape of Good Hope. Now Messrs. Murray and Oswell, the enterprising
travellers to whom we owe the discovery of this vast South African lake,
describe it as being in longitude 24° East, latitude 19° South; a position
not very wide apart from that indicated in Defoe's amusing fiction.