at INTRODUCTION. 
interior regions of northern Africa, we are indebted to the 
Arabian writers of the middle ages, and to the information 
of Arabian travellers of our own times. After them the 
Portuguese were the first Europeans to penetrate beyond 
the coast into the interior, where they no doubt collected 
much information ; but, unfortunately for the world, it 
was their plan to conceal what they discovered, till it has 
been lost even to themselves. ‘That this nation sent frequent 
embassies to l'ombuctoo, we have the authority of De 
Barros, which can seldom be called in question, and never, 
we believe, when he states mere matters of fact, which is 
the case in the present instance; but though he mentions 
the names of the persons sent on these missions, he omits 
all the circumstances and occurrences of the journey, and 
fails even to describe this renowned city. There are 
however some circumstances which make it possible that 
the ‘Tombuctoo of De Barros was no other than the Tam- 
bacunda of Park and others, as in all the maps of the 
sixteenth century, taken from Portuguese authority, Tom- 
buctoo is placed not more than from three to four hiindred 
miles from the coast, which is about one-third part only 
of its real distance. The Portuguese, however, followed 
the Arabian geographers in describing the stream of the 
Niger to flow from east to west, which Herodotus had 
learned, nearly twenty centuries before, to flow in a con- 
trary direction; an opinion which Ptolemy afterwards 
seems to have adopted, perhaps on information gained 
from the same source; though it must be confessed, that 
Ptolemy is unusually obscure in his geographical delin- 
eation of the rise, direction, and termination of this cele- 
brated river. 
In the midst of these conflicting opinions respecting the 
