DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA. 1. IN 1788, ninety-five Englishmen, generally men of rank, wealth, and learning, considering the little knowledge possessed respecting African geography a reproach to an enlightened age, formed themselves into an "Association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa." Their efforts, although they have accomplished much less than was aimed at, have, nevertheless, greatly increased our knowledge of that continent; at the expense, however, of many valuable lives. 2. The first traveller, employed by the Association, was Ledyard, an American, a native of Groton, Connecticut, and a man of great enterprise and energy of character. He had sailed with Captain Cook round the world, and had travelled over the north of Europe and Asia. 3. Arriving in England, he waited on Sir Joseph Banks, who proposed to him a tour of discovery in Africa, which he entered into with enthusiasm. Sir Joseph gave him a letter of introduction to one of the members of the committee of the Association. The description which that gentleman has given of the interview strongly marks the character of this hardy traveller. 4. "Before I learned," says he, "from the note, the name of my visiter, I was struck with the manliness of his person, the breadth of his chest, the openness of his countenance, and the inquietude of his eye. I spread the map of Africa before him, and tracing a line from Cairo to Sennaar, and from thence westward in the latitude and supposed direction of the Niger, I told him that was the route by which I was anxious that Africa might, if possible, be explored. 5. He said he should think himself singularly fortunate to be entrusted with the adventure. I asked him when he would set out, To-morrow morning,' was his answer. From such zeal, decision, and intrepidity, the Association naturally formed the most sanguine expectations. Mr. Ledyard sailed from England for Egypt, and arrived at Cairo in August, 1788. 6. He was taken sick, and died in January following, after his arrangements had been made for proceeding into the interior. "I am accustomed to hardships," said Ledyard, on the morning of his departure from London, "I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering. 7. "I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman; and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character, to avoid a heavier calamity: my distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will ever own, to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. 8. "If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagement to the Society and if I perish in the attempt, my honour will be safe, for death cancels all bonds." The following is the beautiful eulogium of this careful observer of human nature, on the benevolence of the female character. 9. "I have always remarked," says he, "that women, in all countries, are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are fond of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable, in general, to err, than man, but in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. 10. "To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency or friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of the wandering Tartar11. “If hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have been friendly to me, and uniformly so and to add to this virtue, (so worthy the appellation of benevolence,) these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish." 12. Mr. Lucas, another gentleman, was engaged by the Association about the same time with Ledyard. After hav ing proceeded as far as Mesurata, in Tripoli, finding it impossible to proceed that season, he returned to England. The third person employed by the Society was Major Houghton, who ascended the Gambia, and penetrated as far as into Ludamar, where he was murdered, or perished with hunger. 13. But of all the explorers employed by the Association, no other has done so much as the enterprising and intrepid Scotchman, Mungo Park. He sailed from England in May, 1795, and proceeded up the Gambia, and ascertained the sources of the three great rivers, the Gambia, the Senegal, and the Niger; and also determined the course of the last for a great distance, a river which no European eye had seen but his own. 14. After travelling about 1100 miles into the heart of Africa, he returned to the enjoyment of private life. He af terwards embarked on a second expedition, penetrated into the interior, and launched forth again on the 7th of November, 1805, on the mysterious Niger, but nothing that can be relied on as authentic has since been heard of him. 15. The next adventurer, employed by the Association, was Hornemann, a German, who sailed from England in 1797, proceeded to Cairo, and from thence afterwards to Mourzouk, in Fezzan, to the south of which he is supposed to have died of a fever. Mr. Nicholls was then sent to the gulf of Benin, to commence a tour to the regions of the Niger, but he soon fell a victim to the fever of the country. 16. In 1819, Mr. Burckhardt, an enterprising and accomplished Swiss, sailed from England in the service of the Association, and.travelled through Syria, Arabia, and Nubia, but died at Cairo, without having performed his projected journey into the interior of Africa.-Such has been the success and the fate of the adventurers employed by the African Association. 17. In 1816, an expedition was fitted out by the British government with a view to ascertain the course and termination of the Niger. The expedition was divided into two parts, one military, commanded by Major Peddie, the other naval, commanded by Capt. Tuckey. 18. The party under Major Peddie proceeded up the river Nunez, but all the leaders fell a sacrifice to the climate before they approached the Niger. The party under Captain Tuckey ascended the Congo 300 or 400 miles, but were seized by a pestilential disorder that proved fatal to most of them. Thus fatally terminated both parts of this expedition! and so difficult is it to effect the discovery of Africa! Note. Egypt is a country of Africa, 600 miles in length, and 250 in breadth; lying south of the Mediterranean and west of the Red Sea. Denmark is a kingdom of Europe, bounded on the east by the Baltic Sea, on the west and north by the North Sea, and on the south by Germany; in a medium latitude of 56° north. Its capital is Copenhagen. Sweden, in Europe, lies north of the Baltic Sea, and the gulf of Finland, west of Russia, and east of Norway; between 60 and 70° north latitude.-Nubia is a kingdom of Africa, south of Egypt, north of Abyssinia, and west of the Red Sea. The Nile passes through, and greatly enriches the soil of Nubia. HERCULANEUM. 1. THIS city was, together with Pompeii and Stabia, involved in the common ruin occasioned by the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius, in the 79th year of the christian era. It was situated on a point of land stretching into the gulf of Naples, about two miles distant from that city, near where the modern towns of Portici and Resina, and the Royal Palace, by which they are separated, now stand. 2. The neck of land on which it was built, and which has since disappeared, formed a small harbour. Hence the appellation of the small haven of Hercules, sometimes given to Herculaneum, and hence, in all probability, the modern name of Portici. The latter being seated immediately above some of the excavations of Herculaneum, the just fear of endangering its safety, by undermining it, is given as a principal reason why so little progress has been made in the Herculanean researches. 3. The discovery of Herculaneum is thus explained. At an inconsiderable distance from the Royal Palace of Portici, and close to the sea-side, a certain prince inhabited an elegant villa. To obtain a supply of water, a well was dug, in the year 1730, through the crust of lava, on which the mansion itself had been reared. The labourers, after having completely pierced through the lava, which was of considerable depth, came to a stratum of dry mud. 4. This event precisely agrees with the traditions relative to Herculaneum, that it was in the first instance overwhelmed with hot mud, which was immediately followed by a wide stream of lava. Whether this mud was thrown up from Vesuvius, or formed by torrents of rain, does not appear to have been decided. Within the stratum the workmen found three female statues, which were sent to Vienna. 5. It was not until some years after, that the researches of Herculaneum were seriously and systematically pursued. By continuing the Prince's well, the excavators at once came to the theatre, and from that spot carried on their further subterraneous investigation. The condition of Herculaneum was at that time much more interesting, and more worthy the notice of the traveller, than it is at present. 6. The object of its excavation having unfortunately been confined to the discovery of statues, paintings, and other curiosities, and not carried on with a view to open the city, and thus to ascertain the features of its buildings and streets, most of the latter were again filled up with rubbish as soon as they were divested of every thing moveable. 7. The marble was even torn from the walls of the temples. Herculaneum may therefore be said to have been overwhelmed a second time by its modern discoverers: and the appearance it previously presented, can now be only ascertained from the accounts of those who saw it in a more perfect state. Agreeably to those, it must at that time have afforded a most interesting spectacle. 8. The theatre was one of the most perfect specimens of ancient architecture. It had from the floor upwards, eighteen rows of seats, and above these, three other rows, which, being covered with a portico, seem to have been intended for the female part of the audience, to screen them from the rays of the sun. It was capable of containing between three and four thousand persons. 9. Nearly the whole of its surface was, as well as the arched walls which led to the seats, cased with marble. The area, or pit, was floored with thick squares of beautiful marble of a yellowish hue. On the top stood a group of four bronze horses, drawing a car, with a charioteer, all of exquisite workmanship. The pedestal of white mar |