190 
DISCOVERIES OF THE ENGLISH. 
less precise and satisfactory than the whole tenor 
of his narration. It is, in fact, so loose and gene- 
ral, as scarcely to afford groxind to decide either 
for or against it. No one else, indeed, has dis- 
covered gold ; but no one appears to have search- 
ed for it so diligently, or to have analyzed the 
sands, either by chemical or mechanical processes. 
The mortifying mistakes and disappointments of 
his own, which he recounts, bear a considerable 
semblance of truths Stibbs, who seems to have 
possessed a more copious journal, and who was 
the best judge on the subject, does not express 
any doubts of his authenticity. If he really as- 
cended the river, he probably went higher than 
any European. From the time of his passing Bar- 
raconda, three months are said to have elapsed ; 
a period which, if employed with any degree of 
that diligence of which he boasts so much, must 
have carried him much beyond the limit of Job- 
son, who spent only twelve days in sailing upwards 
from that previous boundary of European know- 
ledge. 
From the voyages now narrated, a long period 
elapsed, without any farther effort to penetrate, by 
this channel, into the heart of Africa. About the 
year 1723, however, the spirit of discovery re- 
vived. The Duke of Chandos, then Director of 
the Royal African Company, finding that, as usual 
