inhabitants lived upon the nitta. On the 4th they arrived at Medina, and on the day following at Jindey, where Mr Park had left Dr Laidley eighteen months before. Here Karfa left his slaves, after hiring huts for their accommodation, and a piece of land, on which to employ them for raising provisions for their subsistence; and proceeded with one of the Foulhas of the coffle towards Pisania. Mr Park could not leave, without sensible emotion, those unfortunate persons doomed to a life of slavery in a foreign land, who had often alleviated his sufferings, when their own were infinitely greater, who, of their own accord, had often brought him water to quench his thirst, and formed his bed of leaves in the wilderness. At Pisania, he was received like one returned from the dead by Dr Laidley, as all the traders on the Gambia had been informed that he was murdered by the Moors of Ludamar. Dr Laidley undertook to discharge all pecuniary engagements which he had entered into since his departure from the Gambia, and assured Karfa that he would assist him to dispose of his slaves to the best advantage. This respectable negro was surprised when he was informed that he would receive goods to the amount of double the sum which he had been promised by Mr Park, who likewise sent a handsome present to the schoolmaster at Malacotta. But the superiority

of the Europeans in manufactures and the arts of civilized life, excited the astonishment of Karfa : he examined the furniture of the house, the masts, sails, rigging, and construction of the trading schooner; and, with an involuntary sigh, exclaimed, "Black men are nothing!" When Mr Park resumed his English dress, he surveyed him with great pleasure, but was displeased at the loss of his beard, which, he said, "had converted "him from a man into a boy." On the 17th of June, Mr Park embarked in an American slave- vessel, and proceeded to Goree, where they were detained till the beginning of October. The surgeon having died of a fever, Mr Park acted in his medical capacity during the remainder of the voyage. Many of the slaves had heard of Mr Park in the interior countries, and some of them had seen him. After a voyage of thirty-five days; they reached Antigua, where Mr Park embarked in the Chesterfield packet, and on December the 22d arrived at Falmouth.

Thus terminated the journey of Mr Park, unquestionably the most important ever performed by an European in Nigritia. Though unable to reach Tombuctoo or Houssa, he established a number of geographical positions, in a direct line of 1100 miles, reckoning from Cape Verd; he fixed the common boundaries of the Moors and negroes in the interior, and pointed out the sources of the

three great rivers, the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger. He explained to us the method of proselytism, by which the Mahometan religion is propagated among the negroes; and he illustrated the history of the ancient Lotophagi. He restored to the Niger its ancient course, and by this means rendered intelligible the descriptions of the interior, which were formerly involved in inextricable confusion. It is impossible, in taking a temporary leave of Mr Park, not to pay a tribute to the sagacity and prudence with which he prosecuted his design, the intrepidity with which he encountered the most formidable dangers, and the perseverance with which he surmounted the obstacles which presented themselves to his progress.

CHAPTER VII.

MR BROWNE'S JOURNEY.

Departure from Assiut.-Arrival and residence in Darfur.Description of that Country.-Begarmee.-Bergoo.-Darkulla.-Donga.-The Bahr-el-Abiad.

WHILE Mr Park, with so much intrepidity and perseverance, was attempting to explore Western Africa, according to the plan of the African Association, a private traveller, Mr W. G. Browne, urged by curiosity, and the spirit of adventure, endeavoured to traverse that continent from E. to W. and penetrated into Darfûr, the name of which had been mentioned to Ledyard, but which was entirely unknown to Europeans. The natives of Darfur, in Egypt, are obsequious in their behaviour, even towards the Christians of that country, and were always represented as more. tolerant to unbelievers than other Mahometans. Mr Browne imagined, therefore, that when he should arrive in that country, the choice of various routes would be in his power, the length of the journey would be compensated by the superior acquaintance which it would enable him to

obtain with the peculiar manners of the interior Africans, and the suspicions of the natives would be removed by his favourable reception in one of the interior kingdoms. He believed that it would be equally easy to penetrate into Abyssinia by Kordofan, or to traverse Africa from east to west by a route which would afford an opportunity of determining various geographical positions, and of observing numerous important facts, both in manners and in commerce. He was informed that the inhabitants of Darfûr extended their seleteas, or armed expeditions for procuring slaves, above forty journeys to the south, along the banks of the Bahr-el-Abiad, which he conceived to be the true Nile unexplored by Europeans, and therefore believed, that, by accompanying one of these expeditions, he should not only accomplish. this discovery, but traverse at least five degrees of unknown country. With these views, having provided himself at Assiut with five camels, at the price of £.13 each, he joined the Soudan caravan, and departed from the vicinity of Assiut on the 28th of May 1793. They journeyed over a sterile mountainous track, and, on the 31st, arrived at Gebel Ramlie, a rugged mountain of tufa, where, by a steep descent, they entered the desert. From the rock they beheld before them a valley of unbounded extent, covered with rocks and sand, diversified with scattered date