610 
rfKETOH OF AFRICAN DISCOVERT. 
tho broadest part of the continent of Africa, my traveis neces- 
sarily comprise snbjects of great interest and diversity. 
“ After having traversed vast deserts of the most barren soil, 
and BceneB of the most frightful desolation, I met with fertile 
lands irrigated by large navigable rivers and extensive central 
lakes, ornamented with the finest timber, and producing vari- 
ous species of grain, rice, sesamnm, ground-nuts, in unlimited 
abundance, the sugar-cane, Ac., together with cotton and 
indigo, the most valuable commodities of trade. The whole 
of Central Africa, from Bagirmi to the east as far as Timbuctu 
to the west (as will be seen in my narrative), abounds in these 
products. The natives of these regions not only weave their 
own cotton, but dye their home-made shirts with their own 
indigo. The river, the far-famed Niger, which gives access to 
these regions by means of its eastern branch, the Benuwe, 
which I discovered, affords an uninterrupted navigable sheet 
of water for more than six hundred miles into the very heart 
of the country. Its western branch is obstructed by rapids 
at the distance of about three hundred and fifty miles from the 
coast ; but even at that point it is probably not impassablo in 
the present state of navigation, while, higher up, the river 
opens an immense high-road for nearly one thousand miles into 
the very heart of Western Africa, so rich in every kind of 
produce. 
“The same diversity of soil and produce which the regions 
traversed by mo exhibit, is also observed with respect to man. 
Starting from Tripoli in the north, wo proceed from tho settle 
ment8 of tho Arab and tho Berber, tho poor remnants of tho 
vast empires of tho middle ages, into a country dotted with 
splendid ruins from tho period of tho Roman dominion, through 
tho wild roving hordes of the Tawarck, to tho Negro and half- 
Negro tribes, and to the very border of tho South African 
nations. In the regions of Central Africa there exists not one 
and the same stock, as in South Africa, but the greatest diver- 
sity of tribes, or rather nations, prevnils, with idioms entirely 
distinct. ” 
