ABSTRACT
A Powerful interest is attached to travels in central Africa: any attempt, therefore, to explore this part of the world can scarcely fail to excite curiosity, provided, at least, that it makes some addition to the knowledge previously acquired and supplies one of the deficiencies of geographical science; that is to say, if it furnishes authentic documents concerning the respective situations of places, their topographical positions, and relative distances; concerning the natural productions and physical geography of the country; the population, commerce, interior navigation, industry, and agriculture; the manners, customs, religious worship, superstitions, and language of the people, or the physical conformation of the inhabitants; in short, provided it is calculated to interest the geographer or the naturalist, the historian or the person engaged in commerce and manufactures. The merit and usefulness, indeed, of a narrative of travels consists in these positive results. The attentive reader will discover in the simple journal before him more than one such result, especially in matters of geography, the nomenclature and position of places, the course and importance of rivers, the situation of mountains, and generally speaking, every thing relating to the accidents of the soil. The various tribes, also, visited by M. Caillié, and in the midst of which he lived, presented so many subjects of observation that it was impossible he should not attempt, at least, to sketch their portraits. To the well-informed public it belongs to appreciate whatever is new and interesting in this simple and inartificial picture of nations and tribes scarcely known in Europe, even by name. I must not, however, rest here, but will turn my undivided attention in the first place to examining and discussing all the points of geography connected with M. Caillié’s route. Before I proceed to this discussion, for which I shall need all the indulgence of the reader, I shall take leave to cast a glance upon the explorers who preceded him, and the information we possessed anterior to his travels. Notwithstanding the advantage which M. Caillié has over all his predecessors, in having brought to Europe a description of the city of Timbuctoo, written on the spot, several motives induce me to recapitulate here the prior attempts which have been made by others, each of which enterprises has formed an additional step in the career which he alone has been enabled to pursue to its accomplishment. After this examination of the discoveries and relations of preceding travellers, I shall analyse the map of the route annexed to this work. It has been constructed from the materials furnished in minute detail by the journal of the French traveller, and which also form the basis of the general map of the journey. I shall then treat of the nomenclature of the countries through which he has travelled, of the course of the great river, which, like Mungo Park, he has navigated, and of the acquisitions for which science is indebted to him, without neglecting the questions connected with the theatre of his discoveries.
