PREFACE. 
The following Journal, drawn up from original minutes and 
notices made at the proper moment and preserved with great 
difficulty, is now offered to the Public by the direction of my 
noble and honourable employers, the Members of the African 
Association. I regret that it is so little commensurate to the 
patronage I have received. As a composition, it has nothing to 
recommend it, but truth. It is a plain, unvarnished tale ; without 
pretensions of any kind, except that it claims to enlarge, in some 
degree, the circle of African geography. For this purpose, my 
services were offered, and accepted by the Association ; and, I 
trust, I have not laboured altogether in vain. The work, how- 
ever, must speak for itself ; and I should not have thought any 
preliminary observations necessary, if I did not consider myself 
called upon, both by justice and gratitude, to offer those which 
follow. 
Immediately after my return from Africa, the acting Com- 
mittee of the Association,* taking notice of the time it would 
* This Committee consists of the following Noblemen and Gentlemen ; Earl 
of Moira, Lord Bishop of LandafF, Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, President of the 
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