If We Turn To The East Coast, Still Less Has
Been Done To Explore The Interior From That Side; The
Nature, bearings, &c.
of the coast itself are not accurately known; and accessions to our
knowledge respecting it have been
The result rather of accident than of a
settled plan, or of any expedition with that view. The Cape of Good Hope
has now been an European settlement nearly two hundred years: the
inhabitants in that part of Africa, though of course barbarians, are
neither so formidable for their craft and cruelty, and strength, nor so
implacable in their hatred of strangers, as the inhabitants of the north
and of the interior of Africa; and yet to what a short distance from the
Cape has even a solitary European traveller ever reached!
But though a very great deal remains to be accomplished before Africa will
cease to present an immense void in its interior, in our maps, and still
more remains to be accomplished before we can become acquainted with the
manners, &c. of its inhabitants, and its produce and manufactures, yet the
last century, and what has passed of the present, have witnessed many bold
and successful enterprizes to extend our geographical knowledge of this
quarter of the globe.
As the sovereigns of the northern shores of Africa were, from various
causes and circumstances, always in implacable hostility with one another,
and as, besides this obstacle to advances into Africa from this side, it
was well known that the Great Desert spread itself an almost impassable
barrier to any very great progress by the north into the interior, it was
not to be expected that any attempts to penetrate this quarter of the globe
by this route would be made. On the other hand, the Europeans had various
settlements on the western coast: on this coast there were many large
rivers, which apparently ran far into the interior; these rivers,
therefore, naturally seemed the most expeditious, safe, and easy routes, by
which the interior might, at least to a short distance from the shore, be
penetrated.
But it was very long before the Senegal, one of the chief of these rivers,
was traced higher than the falls of Felu; or the Gambia, another river of
note and magnitude, than those of Baraconda. In the year 1723, Captain
Stebbs, who was employed by the Royal African Company, succeeded in going
up this river as far as the flats of Tenda. Soon afterwards, some
information respecting the interior of Africa, especially respecting Bonda,
(which is supposed to be the Bondou of Park, in the upper Senegal,) was
received through an African prince, who was taken prisoner, and carried as
a slave to America.
All the information which had been drawn from these, and other sources,
respecting the interior, was collected and published by Moore, the
superintendent of the African Company's settlements on the Gambia; but
though the particulars regarding the manners, &c. of the inhabitants are
curious, yet this work adds not much to our geographical knowledge of the
interior of this part of the world.
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