45^ Anali/lkal Notices ofBooJcs. 



Art. XL VIII. Anali/tkal Notices of Books. 



Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Centra! 

 Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824. Btf Major 

 Denham, Captain ClApperton, and the late Dr. Oudney* 

 4 to. 



In noticing a volume so pregnant with interest as the present, 

 it is not a little annoying to feel ourselves restricted to a mere 

 technical analysis of one of the least important parts of its Ap- 

 pendix. Precluded by the nature of our review from alluding 

 to the discoveries in the hitherto impenetrable regions of central 

 Africa, which have crowned the labours of our gallant country- 

 men, it would be equally inconsistent with the strict line of our 

 duty to advert to the ardent and persevering zeal which supported 

 them through difficulty and peril to lands untrodden by European 

 feet, and scarcely known to us even by report. On the Zoological 

 facts alone with which they have furnished us are we at liberty 

 to dwell ; and although these present, comparatively, little of 

 striking interest or novelty, they afford a convincing proof o-f 

 the devotion of our travellers to the acquisition of knowledge in 

 every department within their reach. With no other cutting 

 instrument than a penknife, belonging to Major Denham, and 

 with only a little arsenical soap, left from the stores of the late 

 Mr. Ritchie, they succeeded in preserving upwards of a hundred 

 skins of animals, and transported them across the almost inter- 

 minable deserts, which they traversed on their return. Of these 

 many were found on their arrival in England to be utterly de- 

 stroyed. The remainder have been rendered available to science 

 by Mr. Children and Mr. Vigors, to whom we are indebted for 

 the Zoological Appendix now under consideration, in which 

 thirty-nine species of mammiferous quadrupeds, birds, and 

 reptiles, are noticed. 



Of the Mammalia thirteen species are recorded, the whole of 

 which have been previously described. One of them alone appear* 



