SENEGAL GUM-TRADE. 107 on board of his vessel as prisoners, he durst not turn them to any account. In this way the adventure was almost as likely to ruin as to enrich the person who undertook it. The chief prosperity of the French settlements on the Senegal was derived from the gum-trade, of which Golberry has given a lively description. To the north of this river, where its fertile borders pass into the boundless plains of the Sahara, grow large forests of that species of acacia from which the gum distils. It is crooked and stunted, resembling rather a bush than a tree. No incision is necessary; for under the influence of the hot winds the bark dries and cracks in various places. The liquor exudes, but by its tenacity remains attached in the form of drops, which are as clear and transparent as the finest rock-crystal. The Moorish tribes, to whom these woods belong, break up about the beginning of December from their desert encampments, and proceed to the gum-district in a tumultuous crowd; the rich mounted on horses and camels, while the poor perform the journey on foot. Six weeks are spent in collecting the material; after which it is conveyed to the great annual fair held on the banks of the Senegal. The scene of this merchandise is an immense plain of white and moving sand, the desolate monotony of which is not broken by a single herb or shrub. Here the French take their stand to await the arrival of the Moors. On the appointed morning they hear at a distance the confused noise of their armies in motion. Towards noon this vast and solitary plain appears covered with men, women, and animals, innumerable, enveloped in clouds of dust. The chiefs ride beautiful horses; while the females of rank are seated on camels, elegantly caparisoned, in baskets covered with an awning. An incessant murmur pervades this barbarous assemblage, till, the whole having arrived, the camp is pitched, and a cannon fired as a signal for beginning the fair. The French relate, that every species of artifice and even threats are employed by these rude traffickers to enhance the price of their goods; yet they themselves, it would appear, have little right to complain, inasmuch as they confess that they have insensibly, and without attracting the notice of their barbarous customers, raised the kantar, by which the gum is measured, from five hundred to two thousand pounds weight. AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 109 CHAPTER VII. Early Proceedings of the African Association. Ledyard—Lucas—Information respecting the Interior-Houghton -His Death. THE preceding narrative of French and English discoveries proves the imperfect success with which the earlier attempts to penetrate into the interior of Africa, though made by the most powerful nations of Europe, were attended. While the remotest extremities of land and sea in other quarters of the globe had been reached by British enterprise, this vast region remained an unseemly blank in the map of the earth. Such a circumstance was felt as discreditable to a great maritime and commercial nation, as well as to the sciences upon which the extension of geographical knowledge depends. To remove this reproach, a body of spirited individuals formed themselves into what was termed the African Association. They subscribed the necessary funds, and sought out individuals duly qualified to undertake such distant and adventurous missions. Lord Rawdon, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, Sir Joseph Banks, the Bishop of Llandaff, Mr Beaufoy, and Mr Stuart, were nominated managers. It seemed scarcely probable that the mere offer to defray travelling expenses, which was all the Society's finances could afford, should induce persons with the requisite qualifications, to engage in journeys so long and beset with so many perils; yet such is the native enterprise of Britons, that men eminently fitted for the task presented themselves, even in greater numbers than the Society could receive. verer. The first adventurer was Mr Ledyard, who, born a traveller, had spent his life in passing from one extremity of the earth to another. He had sailed round the world with Captain Cook, had lived for several years among the American Indians, and had made a journey with the most scanty means from Stockholm round the Gulf of Bothnia, and thence to the remotest parts of Asiatic Russia. On his return he presented himself to Sir Joseph Banks, to whom he owed many obligations, just as that eminent person was looking out for an African discoHe immediately pronounced Ledyard to be the very man wanted, and recommended him to Mr Beaufoy, who was struck with his fine countenance, frank conversation, and an eye expressive of determined enterprise. Ledyard declared this scheme to be quite in unison with his own wishes; and on being asked how soon he could set out, replied, "Tomorrow." Affairs were not yet quite so matured ; but he was soon after provided with a passage to Alexandria, with the view of first proceeding southward from Cairo to Sennaar, and thence traversing the entire breadth of the African continent. He arrived at Cairo on the 19th August 1788, and while preparing for his journey into the interior, transmitted some bold, original, though somewhat fanciful, observations upon Egypt. He represents the Delta as an unbounded plain of excellent land miserably cultivated; the villages as most wretched assemblages of poor mud huts, full of dust, fleas, flies, and all the curses of Moses; and the people as below the rank of any savages he ever saw, wearing only a blue shirt and drawers, and tattooed as much as the South Sea Islanders. He bids his correspondents, if they wish to see Egyptian women, look at any group of gipsies behind a hedge in Essex. The Mohammedans he describes as a trading, enterpris ing, superstitious, warlike set of vagabonds, who, wherever they are bent upon going, will and do go; but he complains that the condition of a Frank is rendered most humiliating and distressing by the furious bigotry of the Turks: it seemed inconceivable that such enmity should exist among men, and that beings of the same species should think and act in a manner so opposite. By conversing with the Jelabs, or slave-merchants, he learned a good deal respecting the caravan-routes and countries of the interior. Every thing seemed ready for his departure, and he announced that his next communication would be from Sennaar; but, on the contrary, the first tidings received were those of his death. Some delays in the departure of the caravan, working upon his impatient spirit, brought on a bilious complaint, to which he applied rash and violent remedies, and thus reduced himself to a state from which the care of Rossetti, the Venetian consul, and the skill of the best physicians of Cairo, sought in vain to deliver him. The Society had, at the time they engaged Ledyard, entered into terms with Mr Lucas, a gentleman who, being captured in his youth by a Sallee rover, had been three years a slave at the court of Morocco, and after his deliverance acted as vice-consul in that empire. Having spent sixteen years there, he had acquired an intimate knowledge of Africa and its languages. He was sent, by way of Tripoli, with instructions to accompany the caravan, which takes |