1838.] 



Progress of Geography in 1836-7. 



455 



AFRICA. 



Northern Africa, — In this wide field for discovery accurate geogra- 

 phical investigation has advanced but a little way beyond the coasts 

 within the last year ; and it is to be feared that the recent calamitous 

 death of our countryman, — a loss which we, in common with every 

 admirer of enterprise, deplore,— may tend to check its pvogr/ss for 

 sometime to come. Young, zealous, and enthusiastic in the cause of 

 discovery, the traveller had surmounted all the difficulties opposed to 

 his advance in Marocco, in Sus, in Wadi Nun, and had even traversed 

 half the desert towards Tumbuktu, when he was barbarously murdered 

 by the faithless Arabs : and the name of Davidson must now be re- 

 corded with those of Hornemann, Park, Ledyard, Burckhardt, Laing, 

 and Lander, as some of the most eminent among our countrymen who 

 have sacrificed their lives in the cause of African discovery. 



Should the traveller's papers be recovered, vi e may expect to find 

 in them a detailed account of the country round Wadi Nun, and ob- 

 servations calculated to determine the western route from Marocco to 

 Tumbuktu more accurately than has hitherto been done. All that we 

 now know of his routes is gathered from his letters to H. R. H. the 

 Duke of Sussex, and to his family, which have been promptly com- 

 municated to the Geographical Society, and will be found in the seventh 

 volume of its Journal. 



Abu Bekr, the companion of Mr. Davidson, who is supposed to have 

 continued his journey to Tumbuktu, has been sent for by the sheikh 

 of Wadi Nun, and if he escape the perils of the deserts, will probably 

 return to England. He is quite capable of giving an instructive and 

 accurate account of the country through which he passes ; his re- 

 tentive memory and his honesty meriting tiie utmost confidence. It 

 may be here observed that Abu Bekr's description of the route from 

 Jenne to Cape Coast, collected with great care by Mr. Renouard, and 

 inserted in the sixth volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, deserves much attention, as it points out a short road to the 

 interior which had never yet been thought of, and v. hich, so long as 

 we possess the friendship of the King of Ashanti, seems to offer consi- 

 derable advantages. 



In continuation of the former labours of Captains Belcher and 

 Skyring, R. N., Lieutenant Arlett has surveyed and laid down, on the 

 scale of an inch to a mile, the western coast of Africa, from Cape 

 Spartel to Cape Bajador j has measured the height of many of the 

 mountains of the lesser Atlas, and has expunged from our charts of 



