552 PLANS FOR EXPLORING AFRICA. 
heads of the expedition, who had certainly much 
better means of guarding against mere physical 
injury. In the expedition to the Niger, the loss, 
as already noticed, fell almost exclusively upon 
the ofiicers attached to it. 
Under all this discouraging train of events, the 
cause of African discovery is still prosecuted by 
government with an energetic perseverance, to 
which all obstacles must ultimately yield. Britain 
too still flirnishes active and daring spirits, who 
are only animated by former failures to higher 
exertions, and who are ready to stand forward as 
volunteers in a cause where the glory of their 
country is so deeply embarked. " Even now,'^ 
says a writer possessed of the best means of in- 
formation, " the prospective view seems to be 
" enlivened with a brighter colouring than has 
" yet tinted the African landscape." There are 
three different quarters from which hopes may 
be entertained of deriving, at no distant period, 
important information relative to the interior of 
Africa. Captain Gray, of the lloyal African 
Corps, who has been seven years in this part of 
the continent, and is well acquainted with the 
Jaloff language, has assumed the command of a 
new expedition, which, at the commencement of 
the present year, he was preparing to lead up the 
Gambia. His constitution, inured to the coun- 
