582 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



Here is at least spirit in expression ; and 

 had we not had so much of a similar kind of 

 late years, it would be striking. 



Man is a riddle, to himself unknown, 

 Of hope and fear, of loathing and desire 

 Pursuits abandoned, projects overthrown 

 A cloud, a spark, a smoke, a flash of fire : 

 In vanity and guilt the seeds are sown 

 Of woes that life infest, till life expire ; 

 And though the present mock our hope, a gleam 

 Of future and remote still lengthens out the dream. 



Light-bounding onward, youth aspires to climb 

 -The' ascent of life, and numbers every hour, 

 And chides it for delay, till manhood's prime 

 Give licence to besiege the gates of power, 

 Of wealth or glory ; while the gulf of time 

 Yawns underneath unheeded, to devour 

 The crowd, the pomp, the revelry, the car 

 Of triumph ; arts and arms, and policy and war. 



But when the strength is tasked, when heart and 



brain 



In error are perplexed, and worn with woes, 

 Then youth and enterprise cry out amain, 

 And envy age his honours and repose ; 

 While age is heard responsive to complain 

 And murmur that his day is at the close ; 

 And take reluctant leave of broil and rout, 

 The struggle and the chance, the victory ;id the 

 shout. 



Travels through Central Africa to Tim- 



&MC/OO, by Rtne CaUlii, 2 vols. 8vo. 1830 



Caillie was born in 1800, brought up at a 

 charity-school, and put to some humble trade, 

 but at sixteen, impelled by an irresistible 

 desire to see the world and especially Africa, 

 he embarked in a small vessel bound for the 

 Senegal, with sixty francs for his viaticum. 

 At the period of his arrival, Major Peddie's 

 expedition was preparing he died Camp, 

 bell died ; and the next year Major Gray's 

 commenced on the Gambia. Young Caillie, 

 longing for an opportunity to go into the 

 interior, set out on foot, in company with a 

 couple of negroes, in the hope of getting em- 

 ployment from Major Gray ; but he was com- 

 pelled to stop at Cape Verde. The journey 

 knocked up both him and his hopes, and he 

 was glad to accept a passage to Guadaloupe, 

 and a recommendation to a merchant of that 

 colony. A few months, however, brought 

 him back to St. Louis, just at the time when 

 Adrieu Partarrien was there performing some 

 commission for Major Gray, and on the point 

 of rejoining the expedition. Caillie obtained 

 from his countryman permission to accom- 

 pany him ; but illness obliged him, before 

 the expedition terminated, to return to St. 

 Louis. From thence he sailed to France, 

 but in 1824 he was again on the Senegal. 

 Baron Roger commanded the colony, and 

 from him he succeeded in obtaining some 

 assistance, and his consent to go up the river 

 as far as the Brancas to learn among them 

 Arabic and Moorish ceremonies. After a 

 residence of about eight months, he found 

 himself, from the want of resources and some 

 misunderstanding with the natives, obliged to 



come back to St. Louis, where he met with 

 but a sorry reception from the new governor. 

 In the hope of Baron Roger's return to the 

 colony he continued at St. Louis and the 

 neighbouring villages, and earned a miserable 

 subsistence by catching and stuffing birds. 

 Baron Roger returned, but refused peremp- 

 torily to further his views. Caillie now re- 

 solved to go to Sierra Leone to solicit English 

 assistance, but naturally neither General 

 Turner, nor his successor, Sir Neil Campbell, 

 would listen, though General Turner kindly 

 gave him the superintendence of an Indigo fac- 

 tory, with a salary of 3,600 francs. Still rest- 

 less, and eager as ever to reach Timbuctoo, he 

 had no sooner saved 2,000 franks, than he de- 

 termined to attempt the journey on his own 

 resources, and finally accomplished it. From 

 Sierra Leone not from the colony on the Sene- 

 gal, as Ihe English preface has it he sailed to 

 the Rio Nunez, and proceeded by Kakondy, 

 Timbo, and Kankan not Kankan and Tim- 

 bo some 200 miles beyond Soulimana, to a 

 town or village called Tima, where he was 

 detained some months by illness, and was 

 tolerably well treated. From that point he 

 proceeded northward through more than a 

 hundred villages, till he reached the Dhio- 

 liba, or Joliba, or Niger on the right bank 

 opposite to Jenne. From Jenne he embarked 

 on the river, and had ample opportunities of 

 observing its course, its islands, and the im- 

 mense lake of Debo through which it flows, 

 in a voyage of a month's continuance, till he 

 arrived at his ultimate point, Timbuctoo. 

 Timbuctoo, to his great disappointment, he 

 found considerably smaller than Jenne, and 

 instead of a town as large as Lisbon, accord- 

 ing to Adams, one of about ten or twelve thou- 

 sand inhabitants, in houses not very thickly 

 congregated, and so covering a larger space 

 than towns of the same population in Europe. 

 It is built on the edge of the great desert 

 itself on the sands the country around is 

 utterly unsusceptible of cultivation not a 

 tree to be seen, and scarcely a shrub ; and 

 the river at least seven or eight miles distant. 

 The natives depend on the trade in salt, 

 and exchange it for European products from 

 Tripoli and Morocco, and for native ones 

 from Jenne. Caillie's stay did not exceed a 

 fortnight, and he was plainly not able to get 

 to a thorough understanding, how such a 

 number of persons, situated as he represents 

 them, could live. Apparently the place is an 

 entrepot Moors bring salt on camels from 

 the mines of Tondeyni, and Moors bring 

 tobacco and some European goods from the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. But at Tim- 

 buctoo the merchants seem all to be Moors, 

 whilst the bulk of the people are negroes. 

 Caillie only gives us a glimpse we must 

 still wait for full information. At Timbuc- 

 too, Caillie seems to have gathered all the in- 

 telligence ever likely to be gathered of poor 

 Laing's death; we must refer to the book 

 for the details. Caillie joined the caravan to 

 Morocco, and after a series of severe suffer- 



