plumes borne on long poles, and followed by the war camel' bearing the kettle-drums, on which the drummer was exerting his utmost strength, the Sultan appeared, his household following, and, conspicuous in the procession, were forty-five of his female favourites, each mounted on horseback, and dressed from top to toe in black native cloth, each having a slave on either side. It is pleasant to find that after all his dangers and trying delays, Dr. Barth's journey was not fruitless. The Sultan, after he had fully ascertained that the traveller was not likely to bewitch him, gave him a very friendly reception, and willingly promised his protection to any future traveller; he also, at Dr. Barth's request, sent him a selection of the manufactures of the country. Meanwhile letters most gratifying, both from private friends and from the Foreign Office, came to hand; and forming new plans of future journeys, and indulging in bright anticipations, our traveller on the 10th of August set out to return to Kúkawa.

But sorrow follows closely upon pleasure; on meeting his old companion, Mr. Overweg, who had been making a very interesting excursion into the south-western mountainous regions of Bórnu, Dr. Barth was surprised at his sickly look. Days, however, passed on; there were official visits to be paid, money matters to be settled, and Mr. Overweg meanwhile made a short visit to the Lake Tsád. But his weakness increased; still a short residence in a more healthy spot in the vicinity it was thought might restore him. While there, the poor invalid most imprudently went shooting, and unknown to his anxious friend, continued in his wet clothes all the day. The sequel need scarcely be told; violent fever, attended with delirium, came on, and then after a few hours of insensibility, he departed at dawn of day. His sorrowing and desolate companion laid him in his grave in the afternoon, beneath the shade of a spreading tree, on the very 'borders of that lake by the navigation of which he made his name 'celebrated for ever.' Mr. Overweg had not completed the thirtieth year of his age.

With this sad event the third volume closes, and all interested in African discoveries will, we are sure, eagerly look forward to the two remaining volumes, which will complete the work. Dr. Barth has by some critics been complained of as a dull and heavy writer. Now we think this scarcely fair; for it should be borne in mind, that these Travels in Central Africa are not a mere personal narrative, but an actual report,-an official report, of the countries visited for the express purpose of collecting all the authentic information respecting them which could possibly be obtained. Thus facts, whether picturesque or unpicturesque, must equally have their place; details, dry and dull,

The great importance of these African Discoveries. 413

or most interesting, must alike be set down; and when we remember that the journal,-independent of full appendicesstretches over very nearly sixteen hundred octavo pages, we may scarcely expect eloquence to illumine every line. The merit of a work like this consists in its fulness of details, not in the attractiveness of its style; and the mass of information here supplied renders it a most valuable contribution to geographical science.

Very interesting are these discoveries in Central Africa, and very interesting and suggestive are the thoughts they awake as to the future of Africa and her many tribes. Surely it was not the mere concurrence of fortuitous events that at length has flung open these long-sealed-up regions to the eyes of Europe; surely it was no blind chance that sent out two scientific travellers, both so amply qualified, almost simultaneously to explore this apocryphal land in its length and in its breadth, and to bring back the truth concerning it-pointing us to races intelligent, industrious, and ready for civilization, and to vast districts capable, under the simplest cultivation, of becoming great producing and exporting countries. Is there not a wonderful future for Africa? We have long been accustomed to believe that Central Africa was the abode of merest savages; but how different is the report which Dr. Barth and Dr. Livingstone have alike brought us? We have been told of barren, scorching sands, of inaccessible mountains of the Moon; but how different are the descriptions these travellers have given! Beautiful plains, well-wooded slopes-park-like scenery' is the phrase used alike by the narrator of the first expedition to the mouths of the Kwára, and by Dr. Barth. Now, what phrase can be more suggestive to the English reader of a rich and lovely landscape? And, then, the people have already emerged from a savage state; they build neatly, as we have seen, and even with some attempt at ornament; and they cultivate not only roots and vegetables, but various kinds of grain; indigo, too, and, in some parts, tobacco; but, almost universally, cotton.

And, then, how are these rich and fertile regions traversed by noble rivers, fitted alike for agriculture and for commerceformed as though by Nature to fulfil the double task of nourishing and increasing the crops by their fertilizing inundations, and then subsiding, to form a broad highway on which the produce may be conveyed to the ocean! We have just seen how wonderfully that portion of Central Africa visited by Dr. Barth is supplied with rivers, and lakes, and streams, so that a clear water way extends almost from Lake Tsúd to the mouths of the Kwára; while Dr. Livingstone tells us that

in the parts he visited 'there was a grand system of rivers-a kind of basin in the centre of the country, into which streams 'from all directions flowed'-that there was indeed 'a network of ' rivers.'

6

Now under any circumstances the discovery of vast regions, so favourably situated both for agriculture and commerce as these, would be an important event; but at the present time, when our chief manufacture has awakened so much anxietywhen a competent authority has declared that it is impossible 'for those interested in the cotton manufacture of this country 'to contemplate with unconcern the insecurity on which their ' vast manufacture rests;' when it is borne in mind, too, that our cotton is the produce of slave-labour, and that another inquirer on the subject has remarked, that he doubted if there 'could be found a single man north of Washington who would ' venture to guarantee the existence of slavery for another fifty 'years; how do these considerations enhance, beyond all estimation, the importance of these discoveries? In the discussion lately held at the Society of Arts, on the question, "How can increased Supplies of Cotton be obtained?' the speakers chiefly insisted on the necessity of an immediate increase of the supply, and of a cheap water carriage. Now both these conditions Central Africa can fulfil. Of all species of native produce, cotton stands foremost there. In those parts of Western Africa visited by Dr. Livingstone, he remarks, there was cotton growing all over the country,' and that there he saw women with spindle and distaff in their hands, spinning cotton while going to the fields. In the districts of the Zambesi, too, cotton, although of an inferior kind, was largely grown, while the reader has seen in the preceding portion of this article how widely the cultivation of cotton extends along the wide regions visited by Dr. Barth, and must have remarked how constantly the cotton field is pointed to, as the never-failing indication of a flourishing village, throughout the whole extent of his travels. What, then, should prevent our looking to these so lately discovered countries for that supply which, in each coming year, will be so imperatively demanded, to countries where the cultivation of cotton has subsisted from time immemorial, and where nature has provided means of cheap and speedy conveyance, without the cost and delay of the construction of canals or railways?-countries, too, so wide, and so vast, as to be capable of absorbing countless millions of population, and still affording space enough for the cultivation of that raw produce, which, as an able writer in the Examiner has lately shown, cannot be raised when the population exceeds two hundred to a square mile.

What shall be the future of Central Africa?

415

This subject, however, we feel, is by far too important to be treated thus cursorily; still, when the singular fitness of time' of these African discoveries is contemplated, and when we bear in mind, too, that plans were actually in progress to encourage the cultivation of cotton in India, by the most liberal expenditure of English capital, skill, and enterprize, even up to the very time when the whole civilized world stood aghast with horror at the atrocities perpetrated by the mild and oppressed Hindoos!" we cannot but remark how the very finger of Providence seems pointing us to Central Africa, and how these various events may all be movements of a mighty purpose which has determined that the time to favour 'poor long down-trodden Africa' is at length at hand.

And with the cultivation and civilization of these wide regions how many mighty interests may be involved? The surplus population of Europe is each year pouring itself upon America, and give us room that we may dwell,' is the cry even now, in wide districts which less than fifty years ago were trackless forests. Meanwhile there is that large negro population, brought up from infancy to the culture of cotton, chafing under the yoke of slavery, and casting many a longing look toward the land from whence their fathers were torn. Who can say, that now, when slavery appears doomed, whether 'justice to the Negro' may not at length be at hand, and that disciplined by suffering, instructed in the arts of civilized life, the long-oppressed Africans of America, like the chosen people of old, may come forth from their hard bondage in a peaceful exodus, to instruct their pagan brothers, and to found prosperous communities in the very land

of their fathers?

416

ART. VII.—(1.) The Cotton Crisis; and How to Avert it. London: Whittaker and Co. 1857.

(2.) Address to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, on the subject of

Cotton Cultivation in India..

1857.

(3.) DE Bow's Encyclopedia of the Trade and Commerce of the United States. 1854.

(4.) Letters from the Slave States, by JAMES STIRLING. London: J. W. Parker and Son. 1857.

(5.) A Few Months in America. By JAMES ROBERTSON. London: Longman and Co. 1855.

(6.) Statistics of the Cotton Trade. By RICHARD BURN. London : Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1846.

(7.) Western India. By ALEXANDER MACKAY. London: N. Cooke.

1853.

(8.) India as it may be. By GEORGE CAMPBELL. London: John Murray. 1853.

(9.) Indian Irrigation. By Lieutenant-Colonel C. W. GRANT. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1854.

(10.) Public Works in India.

By Lieutenant-Colonel COTTON. 1854.

London: W. H. Allen and Co. (11.) How are Increased Supplies of Cotton to be Obtained? A Paper read before the Society of Arts, London, May 13, 1857. By J. B. SMITH, Esq., M. P.

(12.) Prospectus of the Madras Irrigation and Canal Company. 1857. It is now nearly twenty years since Mr. J. B. Smith, at that time an energetic member of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, stood forward among the few clear-sighted and intrepid men to whom belongs the honour of having founded the Anti-Corn-Law League-the most successful political organization ever witnessed in this or any other country. Those who remember how much the Manchester Association was indebted to the zeal and industry of the member for Stockport in the first year of its existence, will hail his appearance among the men who are laying the foundation of an India Reform League as a hopeful augury. After ten years of free trade, during which the declared value of our exports has risen from 57,786,876l., in 1846, to 115,890,8571., in 1856, it has all at once been discovered by the men of Lancashire that something more than freedom of commerce is required. in order to place the staple trade of that county on a permanent and secure foundation.

For many years past predictions of a cotton dearth have been freely made, whenever the stock of the raw material in Liverpool has been reduced so low as to give the speculators an opportunity for creating a cotton panic. The last great falling-off in our imports of cotton was in 1846-7, when the aggregate quantity