The continent of Africa, the discovery of which has baffled the
enterprise of Europe, (unlike every other part of the habitable world,)
still remains, as it were, a sealed book, at least, if the book has been
opened, we have scarcely got beyond the title-page.
Great merit is due to the enterprise of travellers. The good intention
of the African Association, in promoting scientific researches in this
continent, cannot (by the liberal) be doubted. But something more than
this is necessary to embark _successfully_ in this gigantic undertaking.
I never thought that the system of solitary travellers would produce any
beneficial result. The plan of the expedition of Major Peddie and
Captain Tuckie was still more objectionable than the solitary plan, and
I have reason to think, that no man possessing any personal knowledge of
Africa, ever entertained hopes of the success of those expeditions.
Twenty years ago I declared it as MY decided opinion, that the only way
to obtain a knowledge of this interesting continent, is through the
medium of commercial intercourse. The more our experience of the
successive failure of our African expeditions advances, the more
strongly am I confirmed in this opinion. If we are to succeed in this
great enterprise, we must step out of the beaten path--the road of
error, that leads to disappointment--the road that has been so fatal to
all our ill-concerted enterprises; we must shake off the rust of
precedent, and strike into a new path altogether.
Do we not lack that _spirit of union_ so expedient and necessary to all
great enterprises? Is not the public good sacrificed to
self-aggrandisement and individual interest.--Let the African
Institution unite its funds to those of the African Association, and
co-operate with the efforts of that society! Let the African Company
also throw in their share of intelligence. The separated and sometimes
discordant interests of all these societies, if united, might effect
much. The _united_ efforts of such societies would do more in a year
towards the civilization of Africa, and the abolition of slavery, than
they will do in ten, unconnected as they now are. _Concordia parva res
crescunt_.--When each looks to particular interests, we cannot expect
the result to be the general good.
It is probable that the magnificent enterprises of the Portuguese and
Spaniards, would, ere this, have colonised and converted to
Christianity, all the eligible spots of idolatrous Africa, if their
attention to this grand object had not been diverted by the discovery of
America, and their establishments in Brazil, Mexico, &c.
I was established upwards of sixteen years in West and South Barbary;
territories that maintain an uninterrupted intercourse with all those
countries that Major Houghton, Hornemann, Park, Rontgen, Burckhardt,
Ritchie, and others have attempted to explore. I was diplomatic agent to
several maritime nations of Europe, which familiarised me with all ranks
of society in those countries. I had a perfect knowledge of the
commercial and travelling language of Africa, (the Arabic.) I
corresponded _myself_ with the Emperors, Princes, and Bashaws in this
language; my commercial connections were _very_ extensive, amongst all
the most respectable merchants who traded with Timbuctoo and other
countries of Sudan. My residence at Agadeer, or Santa Cruz, in Suse,
afforded me eligible opportunities of procuring information respecting
the trade with Sudan, and the interior of Africa. A long residence in
the country, and extensive connections, enabled me to discriminate, and
to ascertain who were competent and who were not competent to give me
the information I required. I had opportunities at my leisure of
investigating the motives that any might have to deceive me; I had time
and leisure also to investigate their moral character, and to ascertain
the principles that regulated their respective conduct. Possessed of all
these sources of information, how could I fail of procuring correct and
authentic intelligence of the interior of Africa; yet my account of the
two Niles has been doubted by our fire-side critics, and the desultory
intelligence of other travellers, who certainly did not possess those
opportunities of procuring information that I did, has been substituted:
but, notwithstanding this unaccountable scepticism, my uncredited
account of the connection of the two Niles of Africa, continues daily to
receive additional confirmation from all the African travellers
themselves. And thus, TIME, (to use the words of a [j]learned and most
intelligent writer), "which is more obscure in its course than the Nile,
and in its termination than the Niger," is disclosing all these things:
so that I now begin to think that the before-mentioned critics will not
be able much longer to maintain their theoretical hypothesis.[k]
[Footnote j: Vide the Rev. C. C. Colton's Lacon, sect. 587. p. 260,
261.]
[Footnote k: See various letters on Africa, in this work, p. 443.]
The talents, the extraordinary prudence and forbearance, the knowledge
of the Arabic language, and other essential qualifications in an African
traveller, which the ever-to-be-lamented Burckhardt so eminently
possessed, gave me the greatest hopes of his success in his arduous
enterprise, until I discovered, when reading his Travels, that he was
_poor and despised, though a Muselman_.
There is too much reason to apprehend that he was suspected, if not
discovered by the Muselmen, or he would not have been _secluded from
their meals_ and society: the Muselmen never (_sherik taam_) eat or
divide food with those they suspect of deception, nor do they ever
_refuse to partake of food with a Muselman_, unless they do suspect him
of treachery or deception; this principle prevails so universally among
them, that artful and designing people have practised as many deceptions
on the Bedouin under the cloak of hospitality, as are practised in
Christian countries under the cloak of religion! I cannot but suspect,
therefore, from the circumstance before recited, that the Muselmism of
Burckhardt was seriously suspected, and that his companions only waited
a convenient opportunity in the Sahara for executing their revenge on
him for the deception.
The very favourable reception that my account of Marocco met with from
the British public; the many things therein stated, which are daily
gaining confirmation, although they were doubted at the period of their
publication, have contributed in no small degree, to the production of
the following sheets, in which I can conscientiously declare, that truth
has been my guide; I have never sacrificed it to ambition, vanity,
avarice, or any other passion.
The learned, I am flattered to see, are now beginning to adopt my
orthography of African names; they have lately adopted _Timbuctoo_ for
the old and barbarous orthography of _Timbuctoo_; they have, however,
been upwards of ten years about it. In ten years more, I anticipate that
_Fez_ will be changed into _Fas_, and _Morocco_ into _Marocco_, for this
plain and uncontrovertible reason,--because they are so spelled in the
original language of the countries, of which they are the chief cities.
Since the publication of my account of Marocco, I have seen Arabic words
spelled various ways by the same author (I have committed the same error
myself); but in the following work I have adopted a plan to correct this
prevailing error in Oriental orthography, which, I think, ought to be
followed by every Oriental scholar, as the only correct way of
transcribing them in English; viz. by writing them exactly according to
the original Arabic orthography, substituting _gr_ (not _gh_, as
Richardson directs) for the Arabic guttural [Arabic] grain, and _kh_
for the guttural _k_ or [Arabic]--
_Note._ We should be careful not to copy the orthography of Oriental or
African names from the French, which has too often been done, although
their pronunciation of European letters is very dissimilar from our own.