1831.3 Discoveries in Africa. 397 



known. On euch a eubject, though rashness may be deprecated, it would 

 be criminal to despair. We must remember, that " the difficulties will 

 not increase, while our powers are hourly increasing ;" and in this good 

 spirit let us turn to the service of human nature our last grand discovery 

 of the Niger. 



But it is a higher consideration still, that by giving health and fertility 

 to Africa we should be actually taking the most direct way to elevate 

 the character of its innumerable tribes. The tyranny of the petty kings 

 is almost wholly founded on the poverty of their people, on their ignor- 

 ance of every thing, and their unacquaintance with the arts and comforts 

 of European life. The poverty of their kings themselves drives them 

 to the horrid resource of the slave-trade, itself reacting on every feature 

 of the national character. Africa undivided by its enormous deserts, 

 and with the spirit of man unbroken in it by perpetual disease and 

 poverty, would not long remain without making advances in liberty, 

 knowledge, virtue, and as the combined result and protector of them 

 all, in Christianity. 



Our intercourse, unstained by the indescribable pollution of the slave- 

 trade, would rapidly excite the tribes to the employment of their natural 

 powers, and by a wise and well regulated commerce we mtist rapidly 

 rescue those benighted millions of our fellow-men from fetters heavier 

 and more fatal than all that were ever forged of iron. And all this 

 might be done without the most trivial coercion, and with the most direct 

 advantage to ourselves. " In all countries under the sun there is one 

 great road that leads directly to every man's heart, his own interest." — 

 If Ave were calmly to offer to those people the information that we pos- 

 sess, and give them gratis the inestimable benefits which science can be- 

 stow upon rude labour : if we were to offer to the poor woman a wheel 

 for her draw-well — to the people who pound their corn in a mortar, 

 a simple method of grinding it — if we would by a common filter sweeten 

 for them impure water, and by an herb lull the painful disorder which 

 it creates — if we would come forward to replace a dislocated limb — if we 

 could shew manure, unknown, lying in the soil before them — and on the 

 greater scale, if we would explain to those people, that by a very simple 

 operation immense districts of their vast country might be either irri- 

 gated or drained — in short, if, on great subjects as well as small, we 

 were chemically and mechanically to assist them, we should undoubtedly 

 find that the general good qualities of a mind truly civilized, would, in 

 Africa, as well as elsewhere, be fully appreciated, that our fame would 

 justly extend, and that every tribe and nation would be eager to receive 

 us. The following sketch of the rivers of Africa, shews what vast floods 

 the tropical rains pour down, and how little founded is the complaint 

 which charges Africa with general want of water, 



" The only river of consequence which empties itself into the Mediterranean 

 is the Nile. It is the longest river in the whole Continent, being navigable 

 about four hundred and fifty miles from the sea. The greatest velocity of the 

 stream is three miles an hour, llie rivers in the Barbary States, which run 

 into the Mediterranean and Atlantic, are very insignificant. 



" Tlicre is no stream deserving notice on the western coast from Morocco to 

 the .Senegal. 



" From the river Senegal, along the coast of Guinea to the equator, there is 

 more water discharged into the ocean than from any other part of Africa — 

 probably more than from all the rest of that Continent put together. The 



