INTRODUCTION 
A CURIOSITY throughout Europe, proportionate to the ignorance 
of the Interior of Africa, exacts the pubhcation of the proceedings 
and researches of every Exploratory Mission, from its Conductor, 
as a duty to the Pubhc : " mandat fieri sibi taha/" 
The Pubhc, in acknowledgment of the performance of the duty, 
reflecting that it constrains literary efforts which the Author other- 
wise might never have presumed to expose, should sympathise in 
his diffidence and anxiety, and receive and review them as a task 
imposed, and not as a spontaneous essay. , 
If this indulgence is due even to gentlemen who have had the 
most enviable opportunities of qualifying then:iselves at the expense 
of a liberal Government, it is surely secure to one who never 
enjoyed those advantages ; but, being suddenly called to the 
immediate conduct of a Mission, originated by a public Board 
of very contracted means, when estranged from all facilities, had 
no resource to aid his realization of the scientific desiderata, bevond 
the acquirements common to most private gentlemen. 
The vessel in which I am making my passage to England having 
been chartered to trade in the River Gaboon, which is immedi- 
ately on the Line, I diverted a tedious delay of seven weeks in so 
