unexplored spaces, we may now, without any painful repression of curiosity, leave all farther illustration to the gradual but certain progression of discovery. It should seem, too, that in the other and higher view, the well-wisher to his fellow-men may not have been altogether without intimations of success. That local impressions, favourable to moral and religious improvement, have been made, we have reasonable evidence; and there are, we think, fair indications that a better state of feeling is beginning to extend itself among both princes and people. Things are still, we admit, in a bad condition; but, whoever may have compared the statements of the earlier travellers with those of our own time, will probably have come to the conclusion, that the purer influences of European civilization have not remained altogether unknown or unfelt. The details of Mr. Duncan's journey supply something beyond constructive evidence in this direction; and, if the king of Dahomey may be taken as a fair example of the despots of Africa, it should seem that monarchs nearer home might take lessons in his school, with signal advantage both to themselves, their subjects, and their neighbours.

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It is, however, time that, instead of touching on matters of speculation, we should set forth something of the special and tangible, as presented in the volumes before us. The first thing that strikes the reader is the rare singleness of purpose with which Mr. Duncan tells his story. He is simply and thoroughly a man of business; he gives us little of artistic description, and nothing whatever of those ingenious digressions which the incidents of travelling are so apt to suggest, and of which the traveller is commonly so ready to avail himself. Yet is there no deficiency of interest in the narrative; attention is arrested throughout; and without the pretensions of a highly scientific production, the book is deserving of all commendation, as a valuable work, giving both extension and definition to knowledge of negro-land. Two-thirds of the first volume are occupied by preliminary matter, details of preparation, and A more incidental notices of native character and customs. appalling view of human nature in its lowest stage of mental and moral depravation, has seldom been presented to our view; along the whole line of coast traversed or visited by Mr. Duncan, every indication of moral principle seems to have been effaced by the slave-trade. To say nothing of the European residents, permanent or occasional, who are, with rare exceptions, engaged in the darkest atrocities of the traffic, the miserable natives, from the caboceer to the canoe-men, seem to have lost, from their immediate and incessant contact with civilized depravity, the power or the wish to discriminate between good

and evil. Lying, cheating, stealing, might stand as heads of sections in the Fantee code of morals. The virtues of private. life are extinct; the ties of kindred can have no existence where the coarsest polygamy prevails. And for all this there is no remedy, while slavery exists; and exist it will and must, so long as there is but one government in the world that is sincerely desirous of expelling the accursed thing. The French are but half-hearted in the work; and, as for our transatlantic coadjutors, Whoever heard of an American man-of-war capturing a slaver? For the implication we are not responsible; it is Mr. Duncan himself who asks the question.

Mr. Duncan's name indicates the land of his birth. His parents were of 'humble' station, and his early occupation was agriculture, the best preparative for a rough career.

born in 1805, and, at the age of seventeen, enlisted in the First Regiment of Life Guards. Of robust health and an athletic frame,' his steady habits made him an excellent soldier; and his leisure hours were assiduously improved by useful study. Finding the performance of merely routine duty more exhausting than activity, he obtained his discharge, 'on the conditions of the late good conduct warrant, early in 1839,' and was appointed master-at-arms to the Niger expedition. Our readers must too well remember the fate of that disastrous enterprise. Of more than three hundred brave and talented' men, five only survived. It has, we believe, been usual to represent this as a result which might have been anticipated from the very nature of the expedition; the fact, however, ought not to be overlooked, that the natives invariably spoke of the season as peculiarly fatal, even to themselves. Mr. Duncan himself did not come off unscathed. In a skirmish with the natives of the Cape Verd islands, he had been wounded in the leg by a poisoned arrow; and during a subsequent severe attack of fever at Fernando Po, symptoms of gangrene showed themselves, necessitating the most powerful and painful applications. His coustitutional vigor was ultimately restored, but the injured limb never quite recovered its original firmness and elasticity.' Yet neither danger nor suffering could quell the dauntless and enterprising spirit; he offered his services to the Geographical Society, proposing to explore the interior of Africa up to the Kong mountains, by a route hitherto unknown to Europeans. His plan was approved, but it does not appear that the patronage conceded to him was of a very costly kind. The Admiralty ordered him a free passage to the coast; and he obtained from the Colonial and Foreign departments official recommendations to the governors and commissariats of the different settlements. The Royal Geographical Society supplied the necessary apparatus

for geographical observation, with the addition of a 'small sum of money.' These were his resources, aided by a few contributions from private individuals; and, thus furnished, he set forth on his perilous adventure, relying on his own stout heart and strong hand; not, we would hope, unmindful of that guiding and protecting Power, without whose presence neither courage nor strength can avail.

It had been the original intention of Mr. Duncan to take the Ashantee road, and with that view he landed at Cape Coast. In answer, however, to his application, stating the object of his journey, and asking permission to pass through Coomassie on his way to the Kong mountains, he received only a qualified assent; the negro monarch offered a friendly reception at his capital, but refused any further concession. It may have been fortunate that the Ashantee line was thus closed, since even if faith were kept, which may be doubted, the hill country would, in all probability, have been the extreme limit of the journey. Disappointed in this direction, Mr. Duncan fixed on Whydah as the point from which to make his next movement; and the application forwarded from that place to the king of Dahomey was entirely successful. At this point of his adventure, he seems to have been led by circumstances, and the suggestions of the men who were, by local knowledge and experience, best qualified to advise, into a somewhat different course of action from that which was originally contemplated. Without assuming any thing of a positively official character, he appears to have availed himself dexterously and effectively of his military dress and accoutrements, in places and difficulties where the plain habit of a civilian might have failed to command deference or insure safety. He travelled, moreover, with an imposing escort of 'twenty people to carry baggage, provisions, and cowries; of the last article he complains as a very awkward money, requiring one man to carry two pounds' worth.' It is quite clear that the scanty means originally placed at his disposal, were not sufficient to furnish and maintain such an equipment as this, and we find him gratefully recording the generous aid of two or three among the more wealthy residents. Mr. Hutton, a merchant and factor, aided him most kindly and liberally; while Don Francisco de Suza, a regular and wholesale dealer in slaves, who had lost, at different times, twenty-two entire cargoes, through the vigilance of English cruisers, supplied him with goods to the amount of an hundred pounds, putting aside every offer of remuneration.

It was on the 6th of June, 1845, that Mr. Duncan set out for the capital. The commencement of his journey was not encouraging; a heavy rain was falling, and he reached his

evening quarters thoroughly drenched. This, in any country, would have been sufficiently annoying, but in Africa it was positively disheartening, and the temporary absence of his personal attendant aggravated the evil. Nor was this all; these were the mere accidents of journeying, and the traveller in Dahomey does not reckon on the snug housing of an English inn. Mr. Duncan might be content to dry his soaked drapery, to tend his wet and weary horse, and to cook his own supper, had these been the preliminaries to sound and secure repose. But there was treachery in his camp, and he knew it; he was surrounded by a 'set of villains ready to rob him when an opportunity should offer,' and quite as ready to make that opportunity by taking away life, but for their thorough cowardice. A few hours made, outwardly at least, some change for the better; 'I hired,' he says, 'some assistant carriers, and my people were in better marching order, and all seemed comfortable, and myself happy.' As he advanced on his route, he found fair accommodation and deferential treatment, due in part to the king's orders, but mainly, no doubt, to the expectation of reward. In this part of the world, as in all others, interest is the influential agent; and he was often indebted to a liberal distribution of cowries, needles, or thimbles, for a much more cordial reception than the royal mandate might otherwise have ensured. The road itself seems to have been good, and the scenery pleasant; with some of the accompaniments, the case was different ::

'At this place we passed through a swarm of locusts. No one who has not witnessed such a scene can form an idea of the immense numbers crowded together. Well might the Egyptians dread such visitors! Upon our approach to the spot where the swarm commenced, the noise was similar to that of a heavy blast of wind passing through a forest of trees, or like the noise of a heavy shower of hail. This was caused by their passing to get out of our way. My horse at first felt alarmed; but, after being urged by the whip and spur, he went amongst them, killing many hundreds as he passed, although they are so very nimble; but their excessive number prevented them from getting out of the way. They were about the size of a grasshopper, or a little stouter, of the colour of a bee. Their wings were not full grown, which may account for their not being able to get out of the way; I was told afterwards that they were not half grown.'-Vol. i. p. 213.

Mr. Duncan reached the capital, Abomey, on the 10th, and was immediately conducted to a commodious dwelling, where a cordial greeting awaited him from Mayho, the king's prime minister,' who is described as a warm-hearted and disinterested

person, a character somewhat rare, we believe, at an African court, however common it may be among ourselves. Arrangements were now made for a public presentation on the following morning, an honourable distinction, in which curiosity had probably no small share, since it is part of the state ceremonial to delay the public reception for a considerable, but indefinite number of days. At the appointed hour, Mr. Duncan, in the showy uniform of the life-guards, his little charger dressed out in martial array, with full armament of holster and carbine, was on his way to the palace. More senses than one were annoyed by the exposure of mutilated carcases, in strange attitudes, and various stages of decomposition, none of which, however, seem to have been the victims of caprice or savage custom; they had been thus punished for actual crime, and after regular trial. The walls of the royal residence were ornamented by a range of human skulls, the trophies of war, at intervals of thirty feet. The interview was managed after the most approved forms of African and European ceremonial. The natives grovelled on the earth, and threw dust upon their heads before their monarch, while Mr. Duncan saluted, by special request, in the military fashion of England. His arms and soldierly garniture were closely inspected, and honoured with royal approbation. White men,' said the king, 'know everything.' The Dahomans have no cavalry, and when one of their great men mounts a horse, he is invariably held on by an attendant on either side. When, therefore, the English lifeguardsman prepared, at the king's desire, to go through the horse exercise, two attendants were ordered to take the usual station :—

This I did not properly understand at first, not knowing their language, but after retiring a sufficient distance from his majesty, clear of the soldiery, I formed a circle to the right. My two soldiers signified that I must not form a circle to the right, the king alone possessing that privilege; whereupon I countermarched, and began a sharp trot, urging my two soldiers to keep out of the way, but all was of no avail. I then halted, and desired my interpreter to tell the king that Englishmen never required holding on their horse; upon which he seemed surprised, and told me to do as I thought proper, but begged me rather not to ride for his gratification than to run any risk; I again assured him that there was no danger, and put my horse in motion, just at a trot, and then a gallop. The king then stood up, clapping his hands in approbation. Upon which the whole assembled multitude followed the example, which much terrified my horse.'-Ib. p. 222.

But the most interesting part of the grand exhibition, which had evidently been prepared for the occasion, and to which the caracoling and sword-play of the British dragoon were but the