DISCOVERIES OF THE FRENCH. 195 
that the event could have arisen from a natural 
cause, or that the sides of the pit could have fallen 
in, merely because no expedient was employed to 
support them. 
There seems very little doubt, that Bambouk, 
in the occupation of any European nation, would 
yield a much larger proportion of gold than is now 
drawn from it. But it is a much more serious 
question, whether the produce of its mines could 
ever repay the expenditure of men and treasure, 
by which its conquest must be achieved. It 
might, indeed, in the first instance, be effected 
by the employment of not a very large body of 
troops. Besides the general want of discipline, 
which renders an African army wholly unable to 
contend in the field with the troops of Europe, 
the Bamboukians appear to labour under a pecu- 
liar want of intrepidity, which renders them often 
the prey of their hardier neighbours. But after 
the subjection was completed, the difficulties of the 
invading army would only begin. The intense 
heat and malignant character of the climate, the 
distance from reinforcements, the hostility certain- 
ly excited both in the country itself and in all the 
surrounding regions, would soon render it such a 
possession, as blind and misjudging avarice alone 
could covet. 
In the year 1749-50, the banks of the Senegal 
