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nature. In the Northern Seas, they suffered from that dreadful extremity of cold to which high latitudes are exposed; in Africa, from the scorching heat and pestilential vapours peculiar to a tropical climate: There, they encountered the fury of oceans and tempests; here, the privations and fatigues which oppress the traveller in parched and boundless deserts. In the former they had less to endure from that almost total absence of human society, which renders the Arctic zone so dismal, than they had to sustain in the latter from the fierce, contemptuous, and persecuting character of the people who occupy a great portion of the Libyan continent. In a word, while exploring these remote regions, they braved almost every species of danger, and passed through every variety of suffering, by which the strength and fortitude of man can be tried.

The interval, short as it is, which has elapsed since the first appearance of this work, has afforded the means of adding materially to its value. The discovery by the Messrs Lander of the termination of the Niger, which has fulfilled the main object of so many expeditions, and given an entirely new character to the geography of Africa, has been noticed, as it deserved, at some length. The opportunity has also been taken to bring down to the present date the accounts of the British settlements at Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and the Cape of Good Hope; and from recent materials a full description has been given of the interesting colony which the Americans have formed on the western coast under the name of Liberia. To the map, which was originally constructed with care, according to the best authorities, various additions have been made in order to illustrate the new discoveries and settlements.

The Narrative of these successive Travels and Expe

ditions comes from the experienced hand of Mr HUGH MURRAY. The chapter on Geology was furnished by PROFESSOR JAMESON; and for the interesting and very ample account of the Natural History of Africa the reader is indebted to Mr JAMES WILSON, author of "Illustrations of Zoology," and the principal contributor in that branch of science to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The present work, having for its main object the History of Discovery and Adventure, does not include the countries on the Mediterranean coast, which, being from the earliest ages well known to the nations of Europe, have been separately brought forward under the title of the Barbary States.-Egypt, again, owing to its high antiquity, its stupendous monuments, and the memorable revolutions through which it has passed, has in like manner afforded ample materials for a distinct volume; and the same plan has been followed with respect to the extensive countries of Nubia and Abyssinia.

So varied are the subjects introduced into this work, that, in order to do justice to them, it was found necessary, on its first publication, to exceed very considerably the limits to which the volumes of the EDINBURGH CABINET LIBRARY were meant to be confined. Owing to the vast accession of new matter in the present edition, a still farther extension has become indispensable; but in order to prevent it from occupying too great a space, the scientific chapters have been printed in a smaller type. As the Publishers, however, have made no increased charge on account of these enlargements, the reader, it is presumed, will appreciate the motives which, in the present instance, have induced them to incur the additional expense.

EDINBURGH, 28th May 1832.

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