No cause, but an original difference of conformation, can well account for that peculiarity of appearance which so remarkably distinguishes them from the inhabitants of every other country, though placed under similar latitudes, and as burning a sun; and which remains invariable in the negro race, whatever may be the change of their situation, or their mode of life. Some nations of a copper color, with lank hair, have recently been discovered in the interior; but so imperfectly is this country known, that scarcely a probable conjecture can be given concerning their origin.

The Carthaginians, an active and enterprising people, penetrated by land into several of the interior provinces, with some of which they established a commercial intercourse, while others they subjected to their empire. They sailed along the western coast almost to the tropic of Cancer; and planting several colonies, endeavored to civilize the rude natives, and accustom them to trade.

A more wonderful voyage was afterward said to have been performed by the Phoenicians, which, though the account of it was regarded as fabulous by some, subsequent discoveries have confirmed to be true; for they affirmed that when sailing around Africa, they had the sun on the right hand. But notwithstanding these voyages and` discoveries, Africa was very little known to the ancients, even by men of the most extensive erudition, for Polybius, the most learned and intelligent historian of antiquity, informs us that in his time it was not ascertained whether Africa was a continued continent, stretching toward the south, or whether it was surrounded by the sea. Strabo was

equally ignorant of its form, and Ptolemy, the most inquisitive and best informed of the ancient geographers, supposed that it stretched without interruption to the south pole; and he so far mistook its figure, that he describes it as becoming broader and broader toward the south.

After the downfall of the Roman empire, Africa was scarcely known to Europeans, until the accidental discovery of the Canary Islands excited a general spirit of adventure, increased and aided as it was by

them in their infancy, as they are naturally as shrewd as any other race of people; and in those places where the arts and sciences were once cultivated, they produced men as eminent in the walks of literature as any other part of the world. And the facts disclosed by recent travellers in Africa give us honorable examples of native shrewdness, though the individuals lacked that polish which education gives, and of as high and delicate feeling, as are to be found in more civilized countries.

As to the indigenous origin of the Africans, it is but a repetition of what Tacitus affirms of the aborigines of Germany, when speaking of their barbarous manners. The fact is, 'God made of one blood all the nations of the earth,' and hence whatever difference may now appear among the several tribes of men, is doubtless owing to climate, to education, to modes of living, to the influence of religious sentiments, rites, and customs, and to other accidental causes which might be named.

the invention of the mariner's compass. It was not, however, till the fifteenth century, that the boldness of enterprise, which the improving skill in navigation inspired, and the ardent curiosity natural to minds just emerging from ignorance, and expanding with more enlarged ideas, suggested regular plans of discovery, which at length conducted the navigator to a new world, and to regions hitherto unexplored. The Portuguese took the lead in this career. John I. of Portugal equipped a large armament to attack the Moors on the coast of Barbary; and the vessels sent on this expedition passed the dreaded promontory of Cape Non, and proceeded as far as Cape Bojador, 160 miles beyond any former navigators. The breakers, which dashed with tremendous fury over the cliffs of Bojador, projecting far into the Atlantic, prevented them from attempting to sail around this frightful cape. Still more vigorous efforts were made by the enthusiastic ardor of Henry, fourth son of John, who succeeded in doubling the Cape of Bojador, in discovering the island of Madeira, and finally of advancing within the tropics: the ships discovered the river Senegal, and explored all the coast of Africa, from Cape Blanco to the Cape de Verd. John II. of Portugal prosecuted with ardor this enterprise. He sent a powerful fleet, which discovered the kingdoms of Banin and Congo, and advanced 1500 miles beyond the equinoctial line, where the adventurers beheld with astonishment a new heaven filled with stars which they had never before seen; and with a view to secure these newly-discovered countries, this enterprising monarch planted colonies on the coast of Guinea, entered into commercial connections with its more powerful sovereigns, rendered others vassals to him; and by a regular and well digested system of policy, established upon a solid foundation, the power and commerce of the Portuguese in Africa. These discoveries rendered the account of the Phoenician voyage, which had been considered by the ancients as fabulous because they reported that they had seen the sun on their right, highly probable, and confuted the theory of Ptolemy, who had hitherto been considered as an oracle among geographers, that Africa grew broader and broader toward the south.

Being now fully convinced that the southern point of Africa terminated in the ocean, this monarch fitted out another fleet, under the command of Bartholomew Diaz, whose intelligence and boldness well qualified him for the adventurous enterprise. After encountering a variety of hardships, from storms and tempests, the loss of one of his ships, and from the mutinous conduct of his crew, and discovering more than a thousand miles of new country, he descried the lofty promontory by which Africa is terminated in the south; but the increased violence of the storms, and the shattered state of his ships, prevented him from sailing around it: to commemorate the hardships he had en

countered in these hitherto unknown seas, he called the promontory Cabo Tormentoso or the Stormy Cape. But his sovereign, confident that he had found a passage around this continent, and of course a passage to India, gave it the name of Cape of Good Hope, a name which it has ever since retained.

Intent upon accomplishing the object of his wishes in finding a passage in this direction to India, the monarch sent out another fleet under the command of Vasquoz de Gama, who, after struggling for months with contrary winds, succeeded in passing the southern point of Africa, explored its eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanquebar, and sailing thence for India, arrived at Calicut on the 22d of May, 1498, about six years after Columbus had discovered the continent of America. But while this passage opened a lucrative trade to India, it merely opened a way to Africa for the commencement of the detestable slave trade, by which the several nations of Europe have so generally disgraced themselves, and entailed upon their posterity a curse of the most tremendous magnitude.

These discoveries, however, gave but an imperfect knowledge of the geography of Southern Africa, except a few lines along its coast. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, had to be sure long been known, and an acquaintance with Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, was much enlarged by the communications of Norden and Bruce.

Such was the state of African geography, when an association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa, was formed by a number of enterprising English gentlemen. The first person they employed in their service was Ledyard, an American, who had spent several years among our American Indians, and afterward accompanied Capt. Cook in his voyage around the world. Impelled on by a spirit of enterprise he had also travelled through various countries of Europe and Asia, suffering almost incredible hardships, and finally arrived in England just in time to offer himself as the first adventurer, under the auspices of the African association, into the interior of Africa. But though actuated by the most generous and ardent enthusiasm in this cause, and fully competent for the task, he failed in his expectations. Having arrived at Cairo in Egypt, he became so vexed with the tedious delays of the caravan with which he was to travel, that he brought on a fever of which he died in a few days. But though his progress was thus cut short, he had collected much useful information from such as had travelled into the interior of Africa, which he communicated to his employers, and which tended to increase the desire and the facilities for farther discoveries.

The next adventurer in this perilous enterprise was Mr. Lucas, who had been three years in captivity at the coast of Morocco, and after his

liberation sixteen years as vice consul and charge d' affairs in the empire of Morocco. He succeeded in penetrating into the interior of Africa as far as Mesurata; but not being able to advance that season to Fezzan, according to his expectations, he returned to Tripoli, and thence to England. On the 16th of October, 1790, Major Houghton sailed from England under the direction of the association, and on the 10th of November arrived at the entrance of the River Gambia. After travelling through many difficulties and dangers, being robbed of his baggage by the son of the king of Bambouk, and afterward falling into the hands of some treacherous Moors, who robbed him of the little he had left, he was left to perish at a place called Tarra, near the great desert of Sahara.

Not discouraged by these disasters, the association next engaged Mungo Park in their service, a brave and ingenuous man, well fitted for such an enterprise. He sailed from Portsmouth on the 22d of May, 1795, and arrived at Jillifree, a town on the northern bank of the Gambia, after a pleasant voyage of thirty days. The account of his travels, his hardships and sufferings, is well known. For eighteen months he travelled in the hottest, the wildest, and most unfriendly regions of Africa, encountering dangers and enduring distress under which a mind less firm and a constitution less vigorous must have sunk. We cannot but admire the heroism displayed by this enterprising traveller in those inhospitable regions, even after he was stripped of every thing he possessed, and was obliged to beg his way among strangers-and these strangers often of the most barbarous and unfeeling character. He penetrated about 1100 miles in a direct line from Cape de Verd, and added much useful information respecting the geography of Africa. His second voyage terminated fatally to himself, and deprived the world of that rich increase of knowledge respecting many of the interior regions of this vast continent, which the genius, the enterprise, and the diligence of this scientific adventurer might have furnished, had his life been spared.

Horneman, a young German, was next sent out to explore the country, but was less successful than Park, as no authentic informafion has been received of his fate. He doubtless perished either by famine, fever, or by the hands of an assassin. Considerable acquisition to the knowledge of African geography was afterward made by the adventures of Mr. Browne, who travelled in the western parts of the country. One grand object of all these travellers was to ascertain the source of the river Niger, and then to trace it to its termination in the ocean or elsewhere, and to note the various kingdoms bordering * See New Edinburgh Encyclopedia, under the article Africa, whence the above facts are principally taken, though in an abridged form.

on that celebrated river, as well as the number and general character of the inhabitants.

In 1821 another expedition was undertaken under the sanction of the British government, by Major Denham and Lieutenant Clapperton. They advanced by the way of Tripoli to Mourzouk on the borders of the great desert; and from thence Major Denham, in company with an Arab chief, by the name of Boo Khalloom, passed through a part of this dreary desert. After travelling through these arid wastes for two weeks they discovered signs of returning life, and were much cheered at the prospect of being again in a cultivated country. They finally entered the most northern province of Bornou, where they saw the great interior sea of Africa, the Lake Tchad, glowing with golden rays of the sun. The caravan marched along the shores of this lake for two days and then arrived at a large town called Woodie. They journeyed thence to Kouka, passing through Angornou, the largest city in the kingdom of Bornou, containing not less than 30,000 inhabitBornou forms an extensive plain, stretching along the western shore of the immense Lake Tchad for 200 miles and nearly the same distance inland. We present the following account of an expedition undertaken by the party, in conjunction with some of the natives, which was detailed by Major Denham :—

ants.

Boo Khalloom, having despatched his affairs in Bornóu, wished to turn his journey to some farther account, and proposed an expedition into the more wealthy and commercial region of Houssa or Soudan; but the eager wishes of his followers pointed to a different object. They called upon him to lead them into the mountains of Mandara in the south, to attack a village of the kerdies, or unbelievers, and carry off the people as slaves to Fezzan. He long stood out against this nefarious proposal; but the sheik, who also had his own views, took part against him; even his own brother joined the malecontents, and at length there appeared no other mode in which he could return with equal credit and profit. Influenced by these inducements, he suffered his better judgment to be overpowered, and determined to conduct his troop upon this perilous and guilty excursion. Major Denham, allowing his zeal for discovery to overcome other considerations, contrived, notwithstanding the prohibition of the sheik, to be one of the party. They were accompanied by Barca Gana, the principal general, a negro of huge strength and great courage, along with other warriors, and a large body of Bornou cavalry. These fast are a fine military body in point of external appearance. Their persons are covered with iron plate and mail, and they manage, with surprising dexterity, their little active steeds, which are also supplied with defensive armor. They have one fault only, but that a serious one, they cannot stand the shock of an enemy. While the contest continues doubtful, they hover round as spectators, ready, should the tide turn against them, to spur on their coursers to a rapid flight; but if they see their friends victo