ART. VIII.-Voyage au Congo et dans l'interieur de l'Afrique Equinoxiale, fait dans les années 1828, 1829 et 1830. Par J. B. Douville, Secrétaire de la Sociéte de Géographie de Paris pour l'année 1832, et membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes Françaises, et étrangères. Ouvrage auquel la Sociéte de Géographie a décerné le prix dans sa séance du 30 Mars, 1832. 3 tom. 8vo. Paris. 1832.

AFRICA, distinguished in all ages as a land of prodigies and wonders, has never given birth to any thing more extraordinary than the volumes now before us. A private gentleman has travelled 3,500 miles, at an enormous expense, through countries hitherto deemed inaccessible. He has visited and won the admiration of great kings, has discovered rich gold mines, has seen volcanoes both active and in all stages of extinction; has cleared up many problems of African geography, and even caught a glimpse of a river, which an adventurous critic might pronounce to be the true Nile; and finally, he has brought home, it appears, such irrefragable proofs of the reality of his travels that the highest honours have been already awarded him by scientific Europe. The Société de Géographie at Paris has bestowed on him its first prize, a gold medal of a thousand francs value, and, deeming that a distinction below his merits, has also appointed him one of its foreign secretaries. On the motion of Mr. Barrow (who has always enjoyed the reputation of being a gentleman of shrewd discernment,) M. Douville has been elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Geographical Society of London. M. Douville's narrative we acknowledge to be extremely wonderful, but the honours which he has obtained appear to us still more so. We cannot yet enlarge on our suspicions; but if the reader will take the trouble to peruse the following pages, we can promise that he will find in them, not only an abstract of M. Douville's very remarkable discoveries, but also some, not less amazing, of our own.

"Hardly rested," says our author," from the fatigues of my preceding travels in various parts of the world, I left Paris on the 1st of August, 1826, and embarked at Havre on the 6th of the same month, with the intention of proceeding to the eastern peninsula of India, and afterwards, if possible, of penetrating into China."

From this first sentence of M. Douville's narrative, the reader will perceive that he is a man of mettle and a determined traveller. He does not acquaint us explicitly (indeed he is never explicit) with the extent and direction of his preceding travels, but it may be collected from scattered sentences in his volumes,

that he has visited both North and South America, South Africa, Egypt, Italy, and some portion of Asia. He had expended much money and consumed much time in these distant peregrinations. But what weight can such comparatively sordid considerations have in a mind glowing with the ardent love of knowledge and of truth? That M. Douville cared little for money, may be inferred from the enormous expense attending the important discoveries which we are now about to lay before our readers; that he had completed his studies before he sallied forth on his travels, must be also taken for granted, since no man, not duly strengthened by education or else not grossly ignorant, could advance in a tone so authoritative and tranchant, opinions, often the most heterodox, on scientific matters. However, it will be sufficient for the present to observe that he carried with him a dozen thermometers, seven barometers, a repeating circle, sextant, compasses in abundance, besides chronometers, hygrometers, eudiometers, and other apparatus.

Yet, however M. Douville may have panted to explore the interior of China, a country which offers to a skilful observer, well versed in the language, a boundless field of inquiry, he had hardly arrived on the other side of the Atlantic, when he was induced to lay aside his original plans, and to direct his attention towards another quarter. At Rio Janeiro he became acquainted with some Portuguese merchants, who had resided in the colonies of Angola and Benguela, and who related to him many curious particulars respecting the interior of those countries.

From these observations our author was led to conclude (and indeed it is singular that he should have been previously ignorant of the fact) that no European had ever trodden the central regions of Equinoctial Africa. He was immediately fired with the thought of reaping fame in a field untouched by others, of measuring mountains, sounding lakes, taking plans of cities, prying into all the secrets of nature, and studying the manners of demicivilized cannibals throughout countries, of which even the names were unknown in Europe. This last assumption indeed, which appears to have constituted a most important element of M. Douville's reasoning, was not perfectly correct, but "we'll talk of that anon." His Portuguese friends amplified, we have no doubt, as much as he does himself, on the dangers and difficulties of his new enterprise, but could not daunt him, nor perhaps did they intend to do so, inasmuch as they told him that he would find no difficulty in forming at Ambriz or Cabinda a caravan, with which he might safely venture to proceed up the country. Perhaps they may likewise have intimated to him that the interior of Angola, though concealed from Europe by the systematic bar

barism of the Portuguese government, is far from being a terra incognita to the colonial merchants and slave dealers; that factories are established at least 700 miles inland, to which the beaten tracts of commerce are trodden with perfect security, and from which some intercourse, more or less constant, is carried on with the nations dwelling still further to the East.

His plans being thus definitively settled, our author commenced his preparations for carrying them into effect with becoming energy. In short, he engaged two secretaries, freighted two ships with the requisite merchandise, and setting sail from Rio Janeiro on the 15th of October, 1827, arrived at Benguela on the 18th of December following. Having completed his observations here, (observations to which we shall have occasion to advert hereafter,) he departed for Loanda, the capital of the Portuguese possessions on the western coast of Africa.

It may be naturally supposed that a foreigner, proposing to explore countries, with their sources of wealth, real or imaginary, which the Portuguese government has always so studiously concealed, and to pry into the state of colonies, which are ruled with the mistrustful tyranny of state prisons, could not expect to meet with much encouragement at Loanda. By what influence or arguments M. Douville contrived to lull the suspicions of the governor, he does not inform us. The preparations for his journey went forward with activity. Large parties of negroes, conducted by pombeiros, or travelling agents, were despatched with merchandise to the chief places in the line of his intended route. One hundred and sixty-four proceeded to Cassanji, about 600 or 700 miles due east from Loanda; one hundred and ten to Bihé, situated to the east of Benguela, about 300 miles from the sea; sixty more marched to Golungo Alto; and eighty remained with M. Douville himself, to carry the provisions, which were required at the commencement of the journey, as well as to bear his tipoï, or palanquin, and that of his lady: for the reader will be surprised to learn that the adventurous traveller was accompanied by his wife; respecting which curious circumstance, our author, as usual, withholds all explanation.

All things being now ready, we gladly turn our back on the seat of government, respecting which M. Douville relates much that is neither new nor interesting. On the 6th of February, 1828, he set sail for the mouth of the river Bengo or Zenza, a few leagues to the north of Loanda. From this point we hope to conduct him, with rapid strides, to the scene of his great discoveries; only premising, that within the limits of the Portuguese authority, which extends perhaps 200 miles inland on the northern bank of the Coanza, the natives are reduced into such a state of

organized servitude, that a European has nothing to fear from them but the inconveniences arising from their slothfulness and their unsought, officious homage.

It requires penetration and mature sense to examine and unfold the structure of human society, even as it exists among savages. But the face of nature, in a new country and within the torrid zone, would give eloquence, one might suppose, even to the dullest of travellers. Yet M. Douville rarely expatiates on this agreeable theme. He stepped aside, indeed, to examine the little lake Quilunda, near the left bank of the Zenza, which is so infested by crocodiles that it is dangerous to approach it. Our author, nevertheless, and Madame Douville, did not allow themselves to be deterred from making experiments on the temperature of its waters. As M. Douville approached the lake, he saw a large herd of hippopotami at some distance from it. He immediately took precautions to cut off their retreat, and, at the first shot he fired, one fell to the ground; the ball had pierced its skull. Now, perhaps our readers will recollect that the late Mr. Salt, whose veracity as a traveller was never questioned, states, that while roaming along the banks of the Tacazze, with a party of Abyssinians, they amused themselves with firing down at the hippopotami, which, though repeatedly struck on the head and elsewhere, yet sustained no injury from the balls. The Abyssinians, though prompt to engage the elephant or lion, are afraid to encounter the hippopotamus, whose impenetrable skin renders him a most dangerous adversary, when forced to act on the offensive. M. Douville, who promises to give the public a work on the natural history of Equinoctial Africa, informs us that the hippopotamus and crocodile are never known to frequent the same waters. This unfounded assertion is obviously at variance with his observations on the lake Quilunda. And here we must disclose to the reader, that in every page of the volumes before us, there is a constant jar of incongruities, which, however ingenuity may soften it, is extremely inconsistent with the pure harmony of truth.

It would fatigue the reader to detain him with the frivolous incidents of the journey, with the endless stratagems of negroes to obtain rum, and the dignity of the white man in refusing it; we shall neither enter into prolix accounts of savage rites and superstitions, nor relate improbable stories of wizards performing their secret incantations in the heart of the forest, and by special grace admitting our author, who had the luck to find them, within their magic circle; suffice it to say, that M. Douville, who was at Quilunda on the 14th of February, directed his course to Golungo Alto, distant from the former place at least fifteen days' journey,

examining the geological structure of the mountains, and studying the manners of the people as he passed, that he devoted sixand-thirty days to the survey of the province of the same name, and yet that he left Golungo Alto on the 28th of March. But let not the reader start at this stroke of magic, by which the events of ten weeks are compressed within a period of six; we shall take care, before we conclude, to reveal to him the secret of this very ingenious process.

From Golungo Alto, M. Douville turned northwards to the country of the Dembos, through which we shall hurry our reader in breathless haste, despite the impediments of narrow vallies, rugged hills, and entangled woods. In every village the native chiefs made the utmost exertions to do honour to their European visitors. Feasting, dancing, and burning of houses, testified the joy of the inhabitants on their arrival. At Gomé Amuquiama their reception was peculiarly splendid; two chairs were placed in the midst of the assembly for the author and Madame Douville; opposite to them squatted the chief, or Dembo, with his naked wives on one side, and his naked daughters on the other. The long-established rights of African hospitality were maintained to the letter. M. Douville was pressed to make choice of one of the chief's daughters; a refusal in such a case would be an insult, and so one of these sable nymphs accompanied him back to his tent. This anecdote has no importance, but as it helps to disclose the true circumstances of M. Douville's journey, and enables us to appreciate the common sense and moral sentiments of one, the fidelity of whose narrative we call in question. In all his pictures of negro manners, the same grossness, sensuality and debauchery are represented in flaring and perhaps somewhat true colours, and yet Mme. Douville, whom he mentions but incidentally, and who does not appear to have had the same passion for travelling as her husband, was always at his side. The politeness of the Dembo, in this instance, was repaid by a present of wine, rum, cloth, beads, &c. equal in value to 600 francs, or 25 pounds sterling. It is not surprising that the natives should have always regarded M. Douville as a mighty prince travelling in disguise; a similar display of munificence would in Europe cause the same impression.

The province of the Dembos here described is situated between fifty and eighty miles to the north of the Coanza, on the continuation of the chain of hills, which, crossing that river about 130 miles above the sea, runs northward or north-eastward to an indefinite extent. These hills seem indeed to form the margin of an elevated terrace or table-land towards the east, and the mountainous character of the province of the Dembos is owing,