PREFACE.

The following Journal, drawn up from original minutes and notices made at the proper moment and preserved with great difficulty, is now offered to the Public by the direction of my noble and honourable employers, the Members of the African Association. I regret that it is so little commensurate to the patronage I have received. As a composition, it has nothing to recommend it, but truth. It is a plain, unvarnished tale; without pretensions of any kind, except that it claims to enlarge, in some degree, the circle of African geography. For this purpose, my services were offered, and accepted by the Association; and, I trust, I have not laboured altogether in vain. The work, however, must speak for itself; and I should not have thought any preliminary observations necessary, if I did not consider myself called upon, both by justice and gratitude, to offer those which follow.

Immediately after my return from Africa, the acting Committee of the Association,[1] taking notice of the time it would require to prepare an account in detail, as it now appears; and being desirous of gratifying, as speedily as possible, the curiosity which many of the Members were pleased to express concerning my discoveries, determined that an epitome, or abridgment of my travels, should be forthwith prepared from such materials and oral communications as I could furnish, and printed for the use of the Association; and also, that an engraved Map of my route should accompany it. A memoir, thus supplied and improved, was accordingly drawn up in two parts, by Members of the Association, and distributed among the Society: the first part consisting of a narrative, in abstract, of my travels, by Bryan Edwards, Esq.; the second, of Geographical Illustrations of my progress, by Major James Rennell, F.R.S. Major Rennell was pleased also to add, not only a Map of my route, constructed in conformity to my own observations and sketches (when freed from those errors, which the Major’s superior knowledge, and distinguished accuracy in geographical researches, enabled him to discover and correct), but also a General Map, shewing the progress of discovery, and improvement in the Geography of North Africa; together with a Chart of the lines of magnetic variation, in the seas around that immense continent.

Availing myself therefore, on the present occasion, of assistance like this, it is impossible that I can present myself before the Public, without expressing how deeply and gratefully sensible I am of the honour and advantage which I derive from the labours of those Gentlemen; for Mr. Edwards has kindly permitted me to incorporate, as occasion offered, the whole of his narrative into different parts of my work; and Major Rennell, with equal good will, allows me not only to embellish and elucidate my Travels, with the Maps beforementioned, but also to subjoin his Geographical Illustrations entire.

Thus aided and encouraged, I should deliver this volume to the world, with that confidence of a favourable reception, which no merits of my own could authorize me to claim; were I not apprehensive that expectations have been formed, by some of my subscribers, of discoveries to be unfolded, which I have not made, and of wonders to be related, of which I am utterly ignorant. There is danger that those who feel a disappointment of this nature, finding less to astonish and amuse in my book, than they had promised to themselves beforehand, will not even allow me the little merit which I really possess. Painful as this circumstance may prove to my feelings, I shall console myself under it, if the distinguished persons, under whose auspices I entered on my mission, shall allow that I have executed the duties of it to their satisfaction; and that they consider the Journal which I have now the honour to present to them, to be, what I have endeavoured to make it, an honest and faithful report of my proceedings and observations in their service, from the outset of my journey to its termination.

M. P.