the naked, feed the hungry, and shelter the orphan and fatherless, seemed to constitute the pleasure and happiness of her life, and the cause was only extinct with her breath. Her acts of charity and benevolence, which were not local, but extended to the abodes of distress wherever they were, will long be remembered with grateful emotions, especially by those who shared her bounty. The remains were brought from Orrard to Pitfour on Saturday, and the funeral took place on Tuesday. The tenantry, and others from the neighbourhood, to show the deep sorrow they felt for the loss of so amiable and useful a lady, assembled to pay their last tribute of grati. tude to the memory of one whose tender and generous heart was ever open to the cry of misery and distress, and whose bountiful hand was ever ready to administer, to the wants of the suffering, the necessaries and comforts of life, and along with these the use of medical aid when necessary. Aug. 5. At Dumfries, Mr James Dinniston, late merchant there. -At Mary's Cottage. Trinity, Mrs J. Linning. 6. At Tynefield, William Hunter, Esq. 7. Mrs Jessie Hamilton, wife of John Glassford, Hopkirk, Esq. W. S., in the 28th year of her age. 9. At Bath, Major-General William Augustine Prevost, C. B. son of the late Major-General, and brother of the late Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost, Bart. -At Juniper Green, Colinton, Lieut. Henry Rymer, R. N. 10. In Lauriston Lane, Edinburgh, Francis, the only son of Leonard Horner, Esq. -At Glasgow, Mrs Powlett, the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Horatio Armand Powlett, in her 86th year. -At Cornhill, in the 64th year of his age, Lawrence Robertson, Esq. of Cornhill, late Provost of Perth. 11. At Edinburgh, Maria Jane Craigie, eldest daughter of Captain Edmund Craigie, of the Hon. East India Company's service. -At Aberdeen, in the 22d year of her age, Jane Allan Kidd, daughter of the Rev. Dr Kidd. 12. At Rothesay, at an advanced age, the Rev. James Ramsay, formerly minister of the gospel in Glasgow. 13. In Upper Gower-Street, London, Lucy Elizabeth, wife of Lord Maurice Drummond. -At Clifton, Lieut. John Bushnan, R. N., aged 28. He sailed with Captains Ross and Parry in the three north-west expeditions, and was at tached to the overland expedition destined for Behring's Straits, under Captain Franklin. 14. At Glasgow, Dr William Buchanan, late Surgeon of the 82d regiment of foot. At Edinburgh, Mrs Jean Lawton, widow of Edward Lawton, Esq. of the island of Jamaica. -At his house, Dean Bank, Captain James Matthew. 15. At Edinburgh, the Rev. James Duguid, third son of the Rev. John Duguid, minister of Evie and Rendal, Orkney, aged 27. -At Glasgow, in the 28th year of his age, Mr John Johnston, formerly midshipman on board H. M. S. Royal Oak, 74 guns, Admiral Sir Pultney Malcolm, and, at the period of his decease, agent for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company. Aug. 16. At Sandwich, Mr Frend, landlord of the Mermaid inn. The deceased, with several young men, a few days back, were enjoying themselves in a field running, when a blade of grass by some means cut his foot, and the wound gradually getting worse, caused his speedy dissolution. 16. At Newtown, Paisley, at an advanced age, Miss Mary Rainy. - At Arbroath, in the 58th year of his age, the Rev. John Cruikshanks, pastor of the Scots Episcopal Church there. -At Edinburgh, Mr James Richardson, surgeon and druggist. 17. At Leith, Peter F. Hay, son of Mr John Hay, ship-owner. At Inverness, Mrs Sirella M'Iver, relict of the late Rev. Murdoch M'Iver, minister of Lochalsh. At Meadowsale, near Strathaven, James Millar, Esq. advocate. At Rockhill, Argyllshire, Mrs M'Lachlan, sen. of M'Lachlan, in the 91st year of her age. 18. At Glasgow, Lieutenant James Joseph Gor don, R. N. aged 4 years, only son of Captain Gordon, late of Gordon Bank. - Mrs Heugh, relict of John Heugh of Cartcows, Esq. -At Cupar, Mr Peter Morgan, Supervisor of Excise. 19. In the 28th year of her age, Susanna Davidson, wife of William Kirkaldy, Esq. merchant in Dundee. -At Edinburgh, William Calder, Esq. late Lord Provost of that city, much and deeply regretted. -At the Bridge of Allan, near Stirling, Mrs Ann Thomson, second daughter of the late Alex. Thomson, tobacconist, Edinburgh, and spouse of Robert Rankin, some time general agent, Katharine-Street, there. 20. At Dalnaspidal, Blair Atholl, Lieut-Colonel George Johnston, brother to the Right Hon. Lady Gray. At London, Thomas Trevor Hampden, Viscount Hampden and Baron Trevor of Bromham. At Eden, Mrs Grant Duff, relict of the late John Grant, Esq. of Kincardine O'Neil. - At Edinburgh, Mr Daniel Miller, late of the Excise. 22. At Inverleith Mains, Mr George Lauder, farmer. 23. At Stranraer, James Mackay, Esq. merchant, Glasgow, in the 60th year of his age. Lately. At Tewkesbury, a few days since, Thomas Tippen, a Chelsea, pensioner, in his 100th year. The veteran enjoyed his faculties in tolerable perfection until a very short period before his death. He entered the army in his 23d year, and served as a private in the 20th regiment at the memorable battle of Minden, as well as in five other general actions on the continent. -At Okegem, near Ninove, in the Netherlands, a woman named Marie De Brakeleer, aged 103. She possessed her intellectual faculties to the last, and her hair was long, black, and thick. -On board his Majesty's ship Owen Glendower, on his passage home from the coast of Africa, Mr Thos. Thomson, youngest son of the Rev. George Thomson, minister of Melrose. J. Ruthven & Son, Printers, THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY, BEING A NEW SERIES OF The Scots Magazine. Intellect of Women,...................................... 465 Births, Marriages, Deaths, 509 EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY. The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE and LITERARY MISCELLANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editor to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY, Edinburgh, or to HURST, ROBINSON, & COMPANY, London; to whom also orders for the Work should be addressed. Printed by J. Ruthven & Son. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. APRIL 1826. RECENT DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA THE geography of great part of the extensive continent of Africa, it must be confessed, after all the labour and danger which have been encountered to clear it up, still remains enveloped in doubts and obscurity. Large tracts of the coasts of this the most miserable region of the earth have been but partially and hastily surveyed. Africa has few attractions to draw European traders to her shores; she is so little advanced in civilization and the arts, that she has nothing to offer to the merchant except a few raw materials. And well it would have been for her, and well would it have been for the fame and honour of European nations, if they had confined their intercourse with Africa to this paltry traffic. But their visitations have been a curse and a Scourge to her: they have been greatly the cause of perpetuating, and rendering still more intolerable, the savage barbarities of her ruthless tribes. We have repeated proofs in the volume before us that the slave-trade is one great means of keeping alive perpetual feuds and predatory wars among the different nations of Africa. They go to war for the purpose of getting slaves to sell to the Moors, or to the agents of European merchants on the coasts; and the misery and suffering inflicted on the unfortunate victims, while they are driven over the wide and dreary desert, is almost inconceivable; they die by hundreds, and the road is in many places whitened with their bones. But our knowledge of the interior of Central Africa is in a state of much greater imperfection than our knowledge of its coasts. Many travellers, who have attempted to penetrate far into the interior, have not survived to communicate their discoveries; while of those who have, like the authors of the present volume, returned to tell their tales of wonder, the tract of country surveyed by them has been, comparatively speaking, limited. The obstructions of every kind, both physical, from the nature of the climate and country, and moral, arising from the savage manners of the people and their governments, have been so many and so great, that much yet remains to be done before we can fill up the immense chasm that remains in the map of Central Africa. There is not a journey undertaken that does not entirely alter all the former maps, either by displacing kingdoms and towns from the situation which we have been accustomed to assign to them, or by adding others not known before-or by displacing lakes and rivers whose existence rested on fabulous or misinterpreted information—or by adding features of nature unknown before. • Recent discoveries in Africa, made in the years 1822-23-24, by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, R. N. and the late Dr Oudney; extending across the Great Desert to the tenth degree of northern latitude, and from Kouka in Bornou to Sac. katoo, the capital of the Felatah Empire. London, 1826. 3 C VOL. XVIII. Thus our travellers have discovered an immense lake, called Lake Tchad, 200 miles long and 150 broad, on the very spot where, according to Arrowsmith's map, the swamp or morass of Wangara is laid down, which is made to swallow up the farrolling waters of the Niger. This Lake Tchad was surveyed accurately, but no such river, nor indeed any river of very considerable magnitude, was found to empty itself into it. The accounts of travellers on whose relations trust can be reposed, and who report what they have witnessed in a quarter of the earth so little known and frequented, cannot fail to be full of interest. We have, indeed, been favoured with several accounts within the last thirty years, but a great part of the tract gone over by Major Denham and his companions was ground previously untrodden by any European foot. Horneman had gone over part of the journey, but his papers never were transmitted to this country. The accounts given in this volume of Bornou and of Soudan, and the surrounding districts, introduce us to a country and to a people of whom before we had no accounts worthy of the least reliance. On the death of Mr Ritchie at Mourzuk, and the return of Captain Lyon, our Consul at Tripoli having represented to Earl Bathurst the expediency of keeping up a good understanding with the powers in the interior of Africa, and that the road from Tripoli to Bornou was as safe and open as the road from Edinburgh to London, it was resolved to send out a mission to that quarter. The information of the Consul was found by our travellers to be perfectly correct, and it has also been verified by subsequent travellers. Dr Oudney, a naval surgeon from this city, was strongly recommended by Dr Jamieson to the notice of Government as a person well qualified to undertake a journey of this nature, and he was appointed to proceed, in the capacity of Consul, to Bornou. He was allowed to take with him, as a friend and companion, Lieutenant Clapperton, promoted to Captain since his return. Captain Denham (promoted also to a Majority since his return) had about this time volunteered his services on an attempt to pass from Tripoli to Timbuctoo, pretty nearly by the same route as that which Major Laing is now pursuing; and it being intended that researches should be made from Bornou, as the fixed residence of the Consul, to the east and west, Major Denham's name was added to the expedition, and he joined them at Tripoli. The volume before us communicates the result of the researches of these enterprising travellers. They experienced, as is usual with travellers in these countries, many delays before getting fairly on their journey. Dr Oudney and Captain Clapperton were kept waiting at Mourzuk, a most unhealthy situation, until Major Denham returned to Tripoli, to urge the Bashaw to expedition. The journey occupied nearly a year after leaving Tripoli before they arrived at Kouka, the chief city of Bornou: it is usually performed in three months. Kouka was the head quarters of the expedition, and diverging from it, various excursions were made into the surrounding kingdoms. Major Denham accompanied a slave-hunting expedition into the kingdom of Begharmi, about 300 miles to the south. He also performed another journey about 200 miles to the eastward ; and Dr Oudney and Captain Clapperton performed a journey from Mourzuk to Ghraut. They also set out from Kouka on another to Sackatoo, the capital of Soudan, on which journey Dr Oudney died. The narratives of all these various journeys is given in this volume, from which a mass of most interesting and authentic information is to be gathered, as to the habits and manners of the tribes inhabiting the different kingdoms visited. A number of well-executed plates, from drawings made on the spot, tend very much to increase the liveliness of our ideas, as to the nature of the country and its inhabitants; though they augment, to a most unattainable height, the cost of the book. An appendix, containing documents of the most curious kind, closes the volume. Some of these documents exhibit a degree of shrewdness and accuracy in the management of business that we did not expect to find among such a savage race. |