than the world in general is inclined to admit, and, indeed, can only be properly appreciated by those who have been employed in the same way. The shelves of our libraries groan under the ponderous volumes of collections' and compilations;' too many of which are mere bundles of extracts in gross, first filed upon wires, like so many bills of parcels, and then printed off in the way that the worthy emeritus professor of the University of Salamanca used to send his two monthly volumes into the world.

At the remotest period of authentic history, the whole of the northern coast of Africa appears to have been well known: profane history may, in fact, be said to date its origin from northern Africa. But of the interior, the ancients possessed only a very limited and imperfect knowledge. The Great Desert was the boundary of their discoveries; all within it, and beyond it, was a terra incognita which never ceased to inspire emotions of wonder and curiosity, mingled with sensations of terror.

'It was the region of mystery, of poetry, of superstitious awe. The wild and strange aspect of man and nature, the immense tracks abandoned to wild beasts, the still more immeasurable deserts of sand beyond, and the destruction which had overwhelmed most of those who attempted to penetrate; all these formed, as it were, a fearful and mysterious barrier, drawn round the narrow limits occupied by the civilized nations of this continent. Every object which appeared through the veil tended to heighten this impression-the human race under an aspect and hue no where else seen on the globe; animals of strange form and magnitude; forms of society altogether uncouth and peculiar. Imagination, kept always on the stretch, created wonders, even where nature ceased to present them. No part of the interior was ever explored with such precision, as to deprive that active faculty of full scope for exertion; and the whole region was in a manner given up to fable.'

6

The rise of the Mohammedan power, and the irruption of the vast hordes of Saracens which poured into Africa, effected a complete revolution in the moral and political aspect of that continent. The commercial habits, the zeal for science, the migratory spirit of the Arabs, enabled this patient and abstemious people to overcome, for the first time, the difficulties of the desert, that barrier which deterred all former approach.' Its naked and desolate appearance had no horrors for the wandering Ishmaelite; it was but the copy of his native country on an enlarged scale; and its moving sands and naked surface of clay, sprinkled with flint, were equally familiar to himself and to his camel. Some of these enterprizing men, attracted by the gold of Ghana and Wangara, and others, flying before the arms of the Saracens, crossed the great sandy desert, and established themselves on the banks of the Nile of the Negroes. Of the numerous kingdoms formed by these people about the tenth and eleventh centuries, Ghana was the most splendid and

powerful.

6

powerful. The king's palace is described by the Arabian writers as a solid structure, adorned with paintings and sculpture, and having the rare luxury, at that time, of windows of glass. A mass of native gold, neither cast nor wrought by any instrument,' says Edrisi, but shaped by Divine Providence only, of the weight of thirty pounds, was fitted as a seat for the royal throne;' and tamed elephants and camelopardales are mentioned as among the accompaniments which swelled the pomp of the sovereign's equipage.' It would seem, that China is not the only country in the world where justice is demanded by beat of drum. Every morning,' says Edrisi,the captains of the King of Ghana come to his house, and one that bears a drum never ceases beating of it till the king comes down to the palace gate, mounts his horse, and all who are oppressed or grieved present themselves before him.'

Ghana, however, does not appear to have long maintained its superiority. At the period of Leo Africanus' travels in central Africa, some very important changes had already taken place. Ghana was become subject to the kingdom of Tombuctoo, founded, we believe, in the year of the Hegira 610 (A. D. 1215.) No very exalted notions can be formed of the splendour or magnificence of its celebrated capital, so long and so vainly sought, from the description of Leo; which, on the whole, agrees with those of more doubtful authority collected by modern travellers;-hovels built in the shape of bells, with walls of stakes or hurdles plastered with clay, and covered with roofs of reeds. Yet an extensive accumulation of huts like these scattered over a sandy plain, along the banks of a muddy river, and dignified with the name of city, is still an object of such anxious research, that neither difficulties, nor danger, nor personal privations, nor sufferings, have been able to deter a succession of daring adventurers from following up those attempts, in which their predecessors have not only failed, but generally perished. Impelled by a thirst of fame, or by an ardent desire to gratify curiosity-in short, by a resolution to do something that has not yet been done-perils and difficulties serve only to inflame ardour into enthusiasm. Tombuctoo, however, is, at least, a real object.-But a zeal not less ardent and unwearied, and enterprizes not less daring, distinguished the early career of the Portugueze. An imaginary personage of the name of Prester John, whose origin, abode and history appear to have been equally unknown to them, was the great moving power that gave activity and energy to their expeditions. The glory of the Portugueze name, the discovery of new worlds, even the opening of the sources of golden wealth, were all considered as subordinate to the higher aim of discovering the abode of a person, who was known in Europe under the uncouth appellation of Prester John?'

It may neither be uninteresting nor unamusing to bring together a summary account of the proceedings of English travellers, or those sent under the auspices of England, and particularly of the more daring adventurers for the hitherto prohibited city of Tombuctoo; and of the attempts of the Portugueze to discover the abode of Prester John; as to those two nations and two objects the world is mainly indebted for the knowledge it possesses of the vast continent of Africa.

The first Englishman who visited the interior of Africa, or, at least, the first of whom we have any account, was neither impelled by a thirst of gain, nor a spirit of curiosity; he was an accidental and involuntary adventurer. About the year 1590 one ANDREW BATTEL, being on board a Portugueze vessel that touched on the coast of Benguela, was left by the crew, as a sort of hostage, among the Jagas or Giagas, a ferocious tribe of the interior, who had come down to the coast, and laid waste the less warlike territory of Benguela. He describes these people as a wandering banditti, without possessions, industry, or arts; living on plunder, and desolating every country through which they pass; who murder their own children by burying them alive as soon as they are born, and recruit their numbers by carrying off the boys and girls of other tribes of thirteen or fourteen years of age, and training them up to their own way of life, which is ‘to make war by enchautments, and take the devil's counsel in all their exploits.' With this savage horde Battel lived for many months; the time being chiefly spent in ‘continually triumphing, drinking, dancing, and eating men's flesh. Battel was a near neighbour of Purchas, and was considered by him as a man worthy of credit: there can be little doubt that he believed what he narrated, and his account of the man-eaters received a sanction from succeeding travellers. Lopez describes these Giagas as inhabiting the mountains behind Congo, and more especially those 'near the lake out of which the Zaire flows;' he mentions their laying waste the whole of the kingdom of Congo: and Merolla the monk, who at every step encounters a witch or a wizard, asserts that he saw the shambles, near the capital, where human flesh had been sold by them while they occupied that place; they offered it (he adds) very cheap to the Portugueze, whose object, however, was to procure their captives alive rather than to have their bellies filled with such barbarous food.' That the story of this human flesh-market should not be lost, Pigafetta's narrative of the wonderful adventures of Lopez, in the collection of De Bry, has been illustrated with an elegant plate in the best style of Wolffangus Richter, exhibiting a butcher in his shambles, finer than any in Leadenhall-market, in the act of cutting up a young lady, and surrounded by legs, arms, hands, and various other

joints,

joints, regularly suspended on hooks, and all beautifully white. But the stories of Lopez, of Merolla, and another good father of the name of Jerome, are such palpable fabrications, more especially those of the latter, who, with his rosary and the aid of the Virgin Mary, defeated whole armies; that whatever credit they might once have obtained, they are now unworthy of the least attention. Father Jerome asserts that, on the banks of the Zaire, the King of Concobella, who styled himself Lord of the Waters' and 'Ruler of the Elements,' fed his favourites with the flesh of condemned criminals; and that his majesty sent to him (Jerome) the carcass of one of the fattest and best conditioned, out of a gang of traitors, with a hope that it would be found tender and well flavoured. But even these are innocent, when compared with the audacious falsehoods of an ignorant and fanatical Capuchin of the name of Cavazzi, who seems to have raked together all that his predecessors had said before him, and to have added to them the suggestions of his own distempered imagination. The Jagas,' he says, are exceedingly fond of the flesh of young women, especially of their bed-fellows of the preceding night;' and he adds, that one of the most favourite dishes of the princes of this nation is a fœtus cut from the womb.' The ladies, too, it would seem by his account, are no less delicate in their taste than the gentlemen; for a certain princess is mentioned, who, to shew her great fondness for her gallants, feasted on them in succession:-but more of these Capuchins hereafter. We now know that not only the outrageous stories of this monkish dolt, but all the other accounts of cannibalism in this part of Africa, are entirely false; and that the people are invariably more mild and harmless, in proportion as they recede from the sea coast. The practice, mentioned by Degrandpré, on the coast of Congo, of cutting the bodies of certain animals in pieces, and exposing them to be devoured by birds of prey, may have given rise to the fables of early travellers; but among savages every horde represents to strangers the next to it as cannibals.

Had Mr. Murray consulted Hackluit's invaluable collection, (and we are somewhat surprized that he should not have made himself familiar with it,) he would have found accounts of many voyages along the coast of Guinea and to Benin, by Englishmen, previous to the patent of Elizabeth in 1588; as Windham's, for instance, in 1553, Lok's in 1554, Towerson's in 1555, and various others. The patent granted by Elizabeth was to certain merchants of Exeter, to carry on a trade to the rivers Senegal and Gambia; and accordingly, in 1591, we find that a voyage was undertaken by Richard Rainolds and Thomas Dassel to the Gambia, where they found the Portugueze in great numbers, who were exceedingly jealous of the new visitors,

and formed a conspiracy to seize their vessel and massacre the crew; but it was discovered and thwarted. Very little is recorded of the early voyages of our countrymen along the coast of Africa; but it would seem that the English merchants, who first established a trade on the Senegal and Gambia, soon felt an unbounded desire to explore the interior of western Africa in search of that which, in every age, has strongly tempted human cupidity—gold; and in 1618 a company was formed for the express purpose of penetrating to the country of gold, and advancing to Tombuctoo. GEORGE THOMPSON, a Barbary merchant, was the person selected for the enterprize. He sailed up the Gambia in a vessel of 120 tons, having a cargo on board of the value of £1857. At Kassan he left his vessel and proceeded up the river, but in his absence the Portugueze rose upon the crew, massacred the whole of them and seized the ship. Thompson, however, was not intimidated by this disaster, but formed his establishment in the upper part of the river, and wrote to the company for fresh succours; they sent out two expeditions; the first of which proved fatal to nearly the whole of the crew, from the inauspicious season at which it arrived: the latter, under the command of Captain Jobson, was more successful; but on its arrival at the mouth of the Gambia, the first intelligence which reached its commander was the death of Thompson. A deep mystery,' says Mr. Murray, ‘hangs over the fate of this first martyr in the cause of African discovery.' It seems he had pushed up the river as far as Tenda, where, it is said, he was killed in a conflict with some of his own party.

JOBSON was not discouraged by this catastrophe of his predecessor. His first exploit was to seize a boat containing the effects of one Hector Nunez, who was considered as the ringleader in the seizure of Thompson's ship. On reaching Kassan he found that all the Portugueze inhabitants had fled from the place. Proceeding upwards, he arrived at Jerakonda (the Jonkakonda of Park) where he met two of Thompson's men. He next reached Oranto where Thompson had established his factory; here he was visited by the king, Summa Tumba, a blind man, who made haste (Jobson says) to drown his wits in the aqua vitæ we brought him :'—but the great article of demand was salt. Sailing upwards, the country became more mountainous and barren; and the wild animals multiplied: there was a world of sea-horses, whose paths, as they came on shore to feed, were beaten with tracks as large as London highway.' He passed the falls of Barraconda, after which the navigation of the river became difficult and dangerous from rocks and shallows. From the top of a high mountain nothing could be perceived except 'deserts replenished with terrible wild beasts, whose roaring we

heard