Sleep on, sleep on, thou faithful slave! No more for thee his whistle shrill Shall sound through wood, o'er moor and hill- Sleep on, sleep on, no morrow's sun On tented field or bloody plain, For thee the watchfire flares in vain- Sleep on, thou friend and comrade tried, Not thus inactive wert thou laid, Then fierce and forward was thy bound, Sleep on, sleep on; it is not now The soldier's cloak, a covering meet What boots it now if storms be high, They cannot reach thee there; That lot thou canst not share. Then sleep; though gladly would I give Vain wish, and impotent as vain ; 'Tis but a mockery of pain, To dream that aught may bring again But years steal by, and they who mourn Shall tread one path, and reach one bourne,- 3 R. G. GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA. MUCH important geographical information, concerning Northern Central Africa, is contained in the large quarto volume before us; but still, as regards the great object of public curiosity, interest, and research, the lower course and termination of the Niger, or Joliba, the information is unaccountably, and we believe we may add, reprehensibly deficient and defective. Englishmen, who were within five days' march of the middle course of that important stream, within nearly the same distance of the interesting spot where the enterprising Mr Park was lost, within 600 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Bight of Benin, and who were under the protection of the mightiest potentate in the interior of Africa, Sultan Bello, whose power was extended, or at least known and respected, to the coast of the ocean in the quarter just mentioned, must have heard many important facts and reports concerning the intervening countries, mountains, and rivers; and having been employed by the public, so the public were entitled to receive at their hands every information on these points, without neglect or reservation. The reverse, however, is the fact. A dark and dubious cloud seems to be thrown over points the most important, but which might, we think, have been left clearer and plainer one way or the other. What information is given is, however, valuable, and enables us to correct many errors in the Geography of Northern Central Africa, particularly in the longitudes and latitudes of places fixed by calculations made from days' journeys, on the various and varied information of Arab traders; and, also, from the positions of towns, to show the grievous and fatal errors which their authority as to bearings, and distances, and positions of places, too frequently led those into who had no other guides to direct them. These will appear more conspicuous as we proceed in our observations. The expedition for discovery in the interior of Africa, by the exertions and the influence of the British Government, set out from Tripoli under the protection of the Chief of that place, and by his power and his influence the travellers were conveyed safely to and placed under the protection of the Chief of Bornou, still a powerful state in the interior of Africa. The travellers left Mourzook on the 29th November 1822, under a powerful escort, and the company was auginented by Arab merchants, who embraced the favourable opportunity to form a commercial Kafila. On the 5th of Feb. 1823, they reached LARI, situate near the N. W. corner of Lake TCHAD, and on the 17th of the same month they reached KOUKA, the seat of Sheikh el Kanemy, the real sovereign of Bornou, by whom they were hospitably received, and carefully protected and assisted in the prosecution of the object of their mission. We consider it as wholly unconnected with our present object to trace their progress through the burning desert, extending from Mourzook, latitude 27° N., to Lari, 14° N. lat., on the banks of the Lake Tchad, a distance of 780 geog. 900 British miles, and in which space, each day's journey exhibited and presented to the eye the same dreary aspect of barrenness and sterility,-moving sands burning with heat, scattered over the space,-rising hills composed of bare rocks, and at certain and considerable distances, the welcome well, and the wadey covered with scanty vegetation, and inhabited by a few miserable, rude, ignorant, and barbarous Arabs, ever ready to rob and to plunder the weak and defenceless travellers who may fall into their hands. Such general reference may serve for the account of the journey of our travellers through this dreary space, and leave us more room to attend to their progress and their discoveries in more interesting countries. One thing in the narration of this part of the journey is altogether omitted, namely whether, in their journey from Tripoli and Mourzook to Bornou, they ascended generally, or descended in any part, and how much Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in 1822, 1823, and 1824. By Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Dr Oudney, 4to. Murray, London. 1826. VOL. XIX. 4 S either might be. To ascertain this is of great importance, as it would give us some more accurate idea of the elevation of the Lake Tchad, the mouth of the River SHARY, and the country of Bornou above the level of the sea. The barometer, we are told, stood at Tripoli at 30.39; in the middle of the desert at 28.50; at Kouka at 28.72. This difference will indicate the elevation at the latter place to be 1340 feet above the level of the sea; and we shall see as we proceed, and when we arrive at CLAPPERTON'S Journal, that it must be higher, not lower, than we have just stated. more; MAJOR DENHAM's Journal is the most important, and, as it stands, the fullest as to geographical information: we take the River YEOU first in order. Three days' journey to the south of Lari, the travellers crossed the river Yeou, near to its entrance into the Lake Tchad. Its breadth at that time, early in February, the dry season, was fifty yards, the channel about fifty ; the banks on each side rose perpendicular, and the current then was at the rate of 3 miles per hour; the depth is not stated, but we infer that the travellers forded it. The Quarterly Review, in its first notice of this stream, made its breadth 100 feet, the channel 300 feet, and the current then at the rate of one mile per hour. With great confidence and great triumph it told us, that this paltry stream was the GREAT RIVER NIGER, and, in a subsequent Number, we were informed that Major Denham had sent to a friend in Tripoli a bottle of the water of the Ycou, informing him that he transmitted it to him as water taken from the Niger! Of all this, we do not see a word in the volume before us. Subsequent researches have put an end to the delusion. This river Yeou rises in mountains south of Kano, in about 9° 30' E. long. and 11° 30' N. lat. and at the distance of several days' journey from Kano southward, and in a country the inhabitants of which are stated to be yem-yems, or cannibals. It flows first northerly, then north-east, joined by numerous small streams from the southward, and afterwards flows eastward with a smooth still current, till it joins the Lake Tchad. In its course it passes KATTAGUM and GAMBAROU, the latter town now almost desolate, and from which the same name was given to the river, as is so common in Eastern Afri ca, and from which confusion and changes of names the errors in African geography principally proceed. Near Wallad, the river is said to be as broad as the Thames at Kingston. On the 23d September, the middle of the rainy season, and when it was in full flood, Major Denham, on his return, found the Yeou, near its entrance into the lake, 100 yards broad, with a deep current, and running at the rate of three miles per hour. Such is the river in the height of its majesty which was triumphantly set down as the Niger the river Niger, which at BAMMAKOO, 1100 geographical miles distant, and in the earlier part of the rainy season, Park found to be ONE MILE BROAD!! Before proceeding farther, we may notice a circumstance which explains much of African geography, and which clearly elucidates what Arabs and Ne gro Arabs mean, when they state that the Joliba or Niger flows to the Nile of Egypt. Major Denham's guide, BELLAL, at this time and at this point, told him that the Yeou flowed unto the Egyptian NILE. When the Major pressed him upon that point, and argued against the fact being so, when they really saw before them that it terminated in the lake, his guide replied, that what he meant by the saying was, that it was like the Nile of Egypt-"sweet water,"-"running water.' Another equally important elucidation of African Geography is found in the meaning of the term "WANGARA." This the Arabs assured Major Denham did not mean a particular town or district, but a large extent of the African continent, comprehending all the country situated to the south, containing mountains and rivers in contradistinction to the ZAHAARA, or Great Desert. This we formerly noticed is the explanation which Dupuis received of the word at Coomassie in Ashantee, and moreover that the term Wangara comprehended all the country from the river of BENIN in the East, to GANEM westward; from the Gulph of Guinea on the south, northwards to HOUSSA on the north. This is an important confirmation of a decisive fact; decisive in African Geography, because every account hitherto received agreed that the Niger terminated in WANGARA, that is, in the sea through BAHR KULLA, or the alluvial country on its southern bor |