the Expedition into Central Africa. 259 



likelihood of its occurrence, should be well examiued before 

 they are approached. 



It will be inconsistent with any beneficial result, that, in its 

 progress outwards, the expedition should force its way through 

 the territory of any tribe disposed to resist it, if no persuasive 

 means be found of avail to overcome their repugnance, the 

 advance in that direction must cease: it is only in case of the 

 party being itself attacked, or being beset by a force showing 

 an obvious disposition to assail it, and a determination to op- 

 pose its progress in any du'ection, or in case of the defiles of a 

 territory being occupied and closed against its return, that the 

 Committee can reckon it justifiable to exercise upon the lives 

 or persons of the natives those formidable means of warfare 

 with which the expedition has been furnished. It will be 

 proper that each individual attached to the expedition should 

 have a determinate station, in which it is expected that he 

 shall be found in cases of emergency, and it will be well that 

 the measures necessary to be adopted should be fully illustrated 

 and impressed upon all by such previous training as circum- 

 stances may admit of. 



In regard to the territory the expedition is to visit, there 

 are two methods in which it may arrive at beneficial results : 

 it may either sweep rapidly over a great length of country, 

 with tiie object of attaining the most distant point which the 

 time allotted to it. or the duration of its resources may en- 

 able it to reach ; or it may leisurely examine in detail, 

 throughout its length and breadth, the condition, capabili- 

 ties, and productions of a district of more manageable di- 

 mensions. Tiie Committee conceives that the former might 

 be perhaps the more interesting method of proceeding, on 

 account of the greater probability of romantic peril, adventure, 

 or discovery, but that these very circumstances of greater un- 

 c-ertainty and danger, do, in this case, preclude our aiming at 

 the comparatively barren honour of exciting wonder, and of 

 throwing a partial and obscure light on an extended region ; 

 the Committee therefore assumes that the last-mentioned of the 

 two courses is, in all respects, more accordant with the views 

 and interests of the Subscribers, as expressed in the Prospectus ; 

 the Committee therefore recommends that no endeavour be 

 made to penetrate beyond the parallel of 20° south latitude, 

 and that the attempt to reach that parallel be made, only if, in 

 the first place, circumstances favour it greatly, and, secondly, 

 if the intervening districts do not alFord objects of suflicient 

 interest and importance to occupy the attention of the expe- 

 dition. Tiie territory limited by that boundary is about four 

 times the extent of the British Islands. It is in truth to be 

 anticipated that the wide regions between the Cape Territory 

 and the Southern Tropic will have suflicient extent and variety 



