474 
CORRESPONDENCE 
RESPECTING 
Letter of M. Delaporte to the President of the 
Geographical Society, 
Tangier, 3rd October 1828. 
Mr. President, 
To communicate to you that a European has just con- 
quered in Africa, for the Geographical Society, a vast extent 
of territory, is to impart good news both to you and the 
Society ; but the announcement that this European is a 
Frenchman will render it still more agreeable. 
One of our countrymen, M. Auguste Cailli<^, has ac- 
quired for the Society all the territories situated between 
Rio-Nunez, (Sierra Leone) and Tangier, that is to say be- 
tween the Ocean and the Mediterranean. He has visited the 
towns of Kankan, Jenne, Timbuctoo, and Araouan. He 
sojourned fourteen days at Timbuctoo. His house was 
within a few doors of that which had been inhabited by the 
unfortunate Major Laing. He has employed sixteen 
months upon this labour and in collecting the materials 
with which he has enriched his wallet. Nothing dis- 
heartened him, neither refusal, nor disgust, nor fatigue, 
nor danger; his vocation, as he has frequently repeated 
to me, demanded that he should cross Africa ; he followed 
it and has solved the problem that a European may tra- 
verse this continent, a problem, the impossibility of which 
appeared all but demonstrated. He travelled without 
ostentation ; and I saw a mendicant Dervish, with his 
