IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 229 
induce me to recapitulate here the prior attempts 
which have been made by others, each of which en- 
terprises has formed an additional step in the career 
which he alone has been enabled to pursue to its 
accomplishment. After this examination of the dis- 
coveries and relations of preceding travellers, I shall 
analyse the map of the route annexed to this work. It 
has been constructed from the materials furnished in 
minute detail by the journal of the French traveller, and 
which also form the basis of the general map of the 
journey. 1 shall then treat of the nomenclature of the 
countries through which he has travelled, of the course 
of the great river, which, like Mungo Park, he has navi- 
gated, and of the acquisitions for which science is in- 
debted to him, without neglecting the questions con- 
nected with the theatre of his discoveries. 
Whoever studies the history of the discoveries in the 
interior of Africa is obliged to go back to the learned 
cosmographer el-Edricy, who may be styled the Prince of 
Arabian geography. Till now, an extract only of his 
description has been known, but a learned oriental scholar* 
has just discovered a much more complete manuscript 
than that which was translated into Latin at the com- 
* M. Amedee Jaubert has already presented to the Geographical 
Society a translation of the^rs^ climate of the geography of el-Edricy, 
from the manuscript which he has discovered : the entire work will be 
printed in the collection of this society's memoirs. The Rev. M. 
Renouard is also preparing in London, a translation of another in- 
edited manuscript of the same geographer. 
