1831.] [ 393 3 



DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA. 



Lander's discovery of the mouth of the Niger, has turned public 

 interest once more to Africa, and there may now be at last a rational 

 hope of establishing some useful communication with its people, dis- 

 covering some portion of the natural riches of a land fertile beyond all 

 conception, where it is fertile at all ; and perhaps ameliorating the social 

 condition of those millions of mankind who have been from the earliest 

 ages condemned to be the victims of their own ignorance, and of the 

 avarice of every other people of the globe. 



Those who scoff at every thing, may scoff at the idea that providence 

 takes any care about those matters. But there may be no superstition 

 in thinking that there is a striking coincidence between this gi-eat dis- 

 covery of a path into the heart of Africa, and the present perfection of 

 the steam-boat ; and that the honour of the discovery, and perhaps its first 

 and most direct advantages, are given to the nation which first declared 

 against the sale of the unhappy African, and which, to this hour, holds 

 an unremitting and most righteous struggle against the incorrigible and 

 hideous avarice of the European slave-traders. The entire of Western, 

 and what is called central Africa, are unquestionably laid open by the 

 discovery of the mouth of the Niger, and by the access thus given to 

 the numerous rivers which branch off from its course, and which inter- 

 sect nearly the whole of the middle country. But there is still a vast 

 country, the table-land of Africa, totally unexplored, and of which we 

 even can conjecture little ; but, by judging from other table-lands, that 

 its climate is temperate, its population naturally numerous, and that in it 

 we shall probably make the finest and most useful discoveries of natural 

 produce and mineral opulence. 



The extent of Africa overwhelms the mind. It is nearly five thousand 

 miles long, by four thousand broad, and it lies directly under the sun's 

 path ; the equator almost intersecting it, and the tropics covering 

 the central regions to the north and south. The sun is alwai/s ver- 

 tical, somewhere, in Africa. In ]Major Head's ingenious Life of Bruce, 

 he observes, that " what is marked by nature, on our European scale of 

 climate, as excess of heat, is all that the African knows of the luxury of 

 cold, except what is produced by elevation or evaporation." It is two 

 thousand five hundred miles from the equator to its northern boundary, 

 the Mediterranean, and ah >iit the same distance to its southern, the Cape 

 of Good Hope. The jrrcat question with men of humanity and common 

 sense is, how this mighty continent can be civilized, made happy, and 

 made a contributor to the general happiness and wealth of the world. 

 In this view, we entirely agree with the author of the life of Bruce. 

 Nothing has been made in vain. The Creator had made no country, for 

 the express purpose of defying the activity or benevolent ingenuity of 

 man. All is capable of being turned to good if we but use the means. 

 The earth was undoubtedly made to submit to the mastery of man, and 

 the vast and curious inventions of late years seem to have been put into 

 our liands for the purpose of expediting that mastery. It is not inipni- 

 bable that the discovery of America was delai/cd, until the peaceful state 

 of Europe, the commercial activity of its ))eople, and the ad()])tion of 

 settled governments, rendered it capable of taking advant.ige of that 

 M. M. New iSeries.— Vol. XII. No. 70. 2 L 



