2 INTRODUCTION. 



however imperfectly, to elevate the position and character of 

 our fellow-men in Africa. This knowledge makes me doubly 

 anxious to render my narrative acceptable to all my readers ; 

 but, in the absence of any excellence in literary composition, 

 the natural consequence of my pursuits, I have to offer only a 

 simple account of a mission which, with respect to the objects 

 proposed to be thereby accomplished, formed a noble contrast 

 to some of the earlier expeditions to Eastern Africa. I be- 

 lieve that the information it will give, respecting the people 

 visited and the countries traversed, will not be materially 

 gainsaid by any future commonplace traveller like myself, 

 who may be blest with fair health and a gleam of sunshine 

 in his breast. This account is written in the earnest hope 

 that it may contribute to that information which will yet 

 cause the great and fertile continent of Africa to be no longer 

 kept wantonly sealed, but made available as the scene of 

 European enterprise, and will enable its people to take a 

 place among the nations of the earth, thus securing the 

 happiness and prosperity of tribes now sunk in barbarism or 

 debased by slavery ; and, above all, I cherish the hope that it 

 may lead to the introduction of the blessings of the Gospel. 



The first expedition sent to East Africa, after the Portu- 

 guese had worked a passage round the Cape, was instituted 

 under the auspices of the Government of Portugal, for the 

 purpose, it is believed, of discovering the land of Ophir, 

 made mention of in Holy Scripture as the country whence 

 King Solomon obtained sandal-wood, ivory, apes, peacocks, 

 and gold. The terms used by the Jews to express the first 

 four articles had, according to Max Miiller, no existence in 

 the Hebrew language, but were words imported into it from the 

 Sanscrit. It is curious then, that the search was not directed 

 to the Coast of India, — more particularly as Sanscrit was 



DSI 



