PROSPECTUS, &c. 
The mercantile travellers from the Cape Colony have explored 
the interior of South Africa nearly as far as the tropic, it is sup- 
posed, and to within a distance of six days' journey (about one 
hundred and fifty miles) from Dalagoa Bay*. As they advance 
northward, the country is found to be more fertile and populous. 
The trade becomes brisk at the distance of five or six hundred 
miles from the frontiers of the colony ; but the great distance to 
be traversed must obviously not only reduce much of the profit of 
the merchant, but also limit the trade to the most portable com- 
modities. 
The colonial traders, being in general ignorant persons, bring 
back but little satisfactory information : their routes are limited by 
the motive which impels them — that is, by the hope of immediate 
gain ; and in order to complete their discoveries, it would be re- 
quisite to send an expedition to connect the coast at Dalagoa Bay 
with the commercial routes of the interior. 
The promotion of discovery in this quarter is recommended by 
many considerations. The natives of the interior are eager to profit 
from European instruction — they receive the missionaries with 
* In 1827, Mr. Scoon visited the town of Malacatzi, at the sources of the Maputa, 
by a route of fourteen hundred miles from Cape Town, and traded with that chief, in 
a few days, to the amount of 18G0/. Malacatzi sent oxen to support him during the 
last two hundred miles of his journey. A Mr. Hume has recently proceeded two 
hundred miles farther north (Missionary Register, Feb. 1834), and found many 
peaceable tribes, speaking the Sichuana language, and obtaining European goods from 
the Portuguese. 
