THE AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 
7 
by a King called Mensi Suleiman in the year 610 of 
the Hegira, 1232, a.d. 
The Portuguese, in pursuit of discovery along the west 
coast of Africa, commenced the slave-trade there in 
1443;* but the interest respecting the interior again 
remained dormant till towards the end of the eighteenth 
century, when the fearful extent to which the traffic in 
slaves had arrived in England, gave rise to a spirit of 
inquiry respecting the countries from which we drew 
yearly so many thousand victims. 
“In the year 1788, some noblemen and gentlemen, 
desirous of rescuing the age from a charge of igno- 
rance, which in other respects so little belongs to it, 
and strongly impressed with a conviction of the practi- 
cability and utility of thus enlarging the fund of human 
knowledge, formed the plan of an association, for pro- 
moting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa.”f 
The first efforts of the Association were to equip 
two volunteers for African discovery, Mr. Ledyard and 
Mr. Lucas. The former to endeavour to cross the 
continent from Senaar towards the west ; the latter was 
to penetrate from Tripoli to Fezz^n, and thence to 
* Mr. Bandinel on the Slave Trade, p. 15. 
t Proceedings of the African Association, “ In this year, also, the 
Bill of Sir William Dolben for the regulation of the Slave Trade 
passed on the 10th of July, through the Upper House as through 
an ordeal, as it were of fire ; the first bill that ever put fetters upon 
that barbarous and destructive monster, the Slave Trade.*"— 
vol. !• p. 560, 
