1831.] Affairs in General. 207 



vmtraversed by an European foot. We know even the coasts but im- 

 perfectly, but the centre of this singular Continent is one mighty table- 

 land,, temperate in its climate, and probably abounding in vegetable and 

 mineral wealth and wonders. 



We may shew what a field is open for discovery, when we state that 

 this table-land contains not less than two millions and a half of square 

 geographical miles. It is bordered by immense acclivities, supporting 

 ranges of mountains, towards the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, and the 

 country of Nigritia. With what beds of minerals may not those moun- 

 tains be expected to abound, when the plains at their feet are the sands 

 from which a large portion of the gold of Europe is gathered ? Of the 

 variety of valuable woods, and healing plants, to be found in so vast a 

 region, we can form a conception only from the prodigality of nature in 

 all climates where sun and water combine to fertilize the soil. It is to 

 reach this enormous region that our efforts should be directed ; and the 

 attempt should be made from the Bight of Benin by water, and the Cape 

 of Good Hope by land. In South Africa, the natives are gentler, and 

 the difficulties to a traveller would be fewer, from the ease of procuring 

 attendants, from the known power of the English settlement, and the 

 respect for the English name ; and from the mere circumstance of 

 starting at once, without the delay of a voyage from England, and with- 

 out the hazards of an unhealthy coast. But the attempt should in 

 neither direction be made by a solitary traveller, nor by any half-dozen. 

 An expedition complete in all its parts; consisting of scientific men, 

 interpreters, and soldiers enough to protect them from any, at least, of 

 the roving-bands of the Desert, should be sent from the Cape ; and the 

 whole power of the government there should be exerted to provide for 

 their safe conduct, and their ultimate success. The steam-boat, on the 

 Atlantic-side would, of course, have a company strong enough for all 

 the purposes of discovery. 



There must be something which we cannot comprehend, in our nego- 

 ciations with America. Either Jonathan has the organ of bargaining 

 developed to a degree that throws our diplomatic bumps into eclipse, or 

 we are peculiarly unlucky in our envoys across the Atlantic. We never 

 remember a negociation, in which it was not declared by all sorts of 

 persons, from the London capitalist to the Canadian back-woodsman, that 

 Jonathan had outwitted his fathers on this side of the Atlantic. There 

 is always a discovery, after the treaty has been signed and sealed, that 

 we have been hoodwinked out of some millions of acres of barren land, 

 that a swamp of a hundred square miles has been cruelly extorted from 

 us, or that a measureless range of rocks, on which a goat would not find 

 enough for a day's browsing, has been swindled away from the supremacy 

 of Britain. How all this comes, we know not. Nor are the Canadians, 

 who are eye-witnesses of the transaction, at all likely to help us to the 

 elucidation. With the dweller on the north of the St. Lawrence, 

 Jonathan is the perfection of craft ; and he couches his fear and his 

 wonder under an apologue worthy of JEsop himself. 



" The beavers on a certain stream are said to have once proposed, in a 

 treaty with the fish, that the beavers on their part should have free liberty to 

 enter and use the waters ; and the fish on theirs, to come on shore. Nothing 

 could appear more reciprocal. Some old sea-fish indeed had got an idea that 

 it might intercept the communication between them and their young fry, in 

 the lakes above ; but all the gudgeons, boobies, noddies, to a great majority, 



