asserted place of his birth in the best manner he could. His adven. tures in this perilous enterprise are preparing for the press in four volumes quarto, all written by himself on the leaf of the chickachoo tree, and we can only gratify public curiosity by anticipating a very few of the more remarkable facts.

Every one who has read Herodotus is aware that an expedition was fitted out by Necho, King of Egypt, of whom mention is made in the Second Book of Kings. The Phenician mariners employed in this daring enterprise, completely circumnavigated Africa, but were discredited upon their return, because they stated they had seen the setting sun on their right hand; an assertion which our present knowledge of astronomy enables us to confirm. In the Journal of Hanno, the Carthaginian, preserved for so long a time in the Temple of Saturn, mention is made of several marvellous circumstances observed by that enterprising voyager, which have been hitherto considered fabulous, although the researches of Capt. Muggs upon the same coast, establish in every respect the perfect fidelity of his relation. Thus we are told that Hanno caught two women entirely covered with hair, whose skins he carried to Carthage, which has generally been interpreted to mean two specimens of the ouran-outang; but Capt. Muggs, while tracing up to the sources of the Senegal River, encountered a whole tribe of these people, whom he at first took for an immense flock of baboons, until they accosted him very courteously in a language which proved to be a dialect of the Timbuctoo. They are described as a very civilized and cleanly race, regularly using the curry-comb every morning; a fact which strongly tends to support Swift's relation of the Houyhnhnms. When it is recollected what ridicule was first thrown upon this story, as altogether improbable; and what taunts and doubts were launched at Bruce's narrative of Abyssinia, although every one of his statements has been subsequently verified, we hold it our duty to hurl defiance beforehand at that ignorant scepticism which might feel disposed to cavil at the Journal of Capt. Muggs, merely because it contains facts that may startle the narrow intellects of Europe.

Hanno talks of having discovered a whole country in a state of ignition, with rivers of fire running into the sea; and Capt. Muggs has no doubt whatever, that at certain seasons of the year, the entire surface of the land may be in the fiery condition described by the Carthaginian, since he himself, in the neighbourhood of Baromaya, came to a deep valley surrounded by mountains of lead ore. Such was the intensity of the heat in this confined spot, that the rays of the sun, by perpetually melting the ore, had formed a metallic lake of considerable extent in the valley, which was kept in constant fusion by new supplies. When the surface was gently agitated by the wind, an almost blinding brilliancy was cast by the ripple of its waves; but by moonlight its softened radiance is described as inconceivably beautiful and enchanting. Of course it is much resorted to by the boys of the surrounding district for the purpose of supplying themselves with dumps, a game which, to use the school slang, is in all the year round; and as the natives are obliged to keep the heat out of their houses with glass, a number of glaziers are settled upon the spot, that they may obtain a material so indispensable in their trade. The lake is sadly infested with Salamanders, and considerable ingenuity is manifested in the mode of catching

them. A pan of red-hot coals being provided, a small portion is thrown upon the bank as a bait, which the animal eagerly devours, when he is lured away from his molten element by fresh coals tossed to him every now and then, and not unfrequently caught in his mouth before they touch the ground. In this manner he is decoyed to a net at some distance, where he is secured; the great art consisting in so casting the coals as that they shall not burn and destroy the net. Once caught, the creature is popped into a baker's oven, where it lives comfortably enough while the fire is blazing, but is apt to be chilled to death in the night. Capt. Muggs wished to have ascertained the temperature of this singular valley, but from the violence of the heat, the quicksilver burst out at the top of his thermometer, and spirted up a considerable height into the air.

Leaving this interesting neighbourhood, our traveller proceeded eastward, over a desert and uninhabited tract, until he came to the banks of a great river, flowing from West to East, along which he wandered for several days in search of a ford. In one of these excursions he observed an ancient pyramidal stone, almost buried in the sand; and upon clearing away the soil to a depth of five feet, a rude inscription became visible, of which the following is a faithful transcript.

HIC. NIGER. EST. HVNC.TV. ROMANE.CAVETO. which there can be no doubt must have been carved by those Nasamones mentioned by Herodotus, as having penetrated from Cyrene into the very centre of Africa, where they were made prisoners by men of a diminutive stature, and carried to a city washed by a great river flowing from West to East, and abounding in crocodiles. Pliny expressly says this river was the Niger, and the inscription was indisputably set up to record that fact, and warn future Romans against bathing in it on account of the crocodiles. Cavils have been raised on account of the gender of the pronoun, which it is contended should have been either neuter or feminine to agree with the common Roman terms for a river; but if we suppose the river God to have been understood, a very common practice with the ancients, the difficulty will instantly vanish. Being now resolved to settle the long-contested point as to the termination of this river, he followed its banks eastward, for several hundred miles, subsisting upon fish, until he reached an immense level desert in the very heart of Africa, over the burning surface of which the waters spread themselves in a thin sheet, something like our artificial salt-pans, where they were either absorbed into the sand or speedily evaporated by the intense heat of the sun. This will appear the less marvellous when it is recollected that there is no other way of accounting for the consumption of water in the Mediterranean, into which the tide perpetually flows from the Straits of Gibraltar, than by a similar process of evaporation. Retracing his steps, our adventurous traveller found his way back to the inscribed stone, feeling confident that the city to which the Nasamones were carried, as mentioned by Herodotus, must have been Timbuctoo, and that he should discover it somewhere in the neighbourhood of the memorial they had left.

Crossing the river accordingly upon a float constructed of the leaves of the chickachoo-tree, and following the sinuosities of the opposite coast, he had the inexpressible delight, after three days' journey, of looking down from a small eminence upon this celebrated and long

sought city, then sparkling in all the radiance of a setting-sun. Capt. Muggs is aware that the same enthusiasm which almost intoxicated Mr. Bruce as he bestrode the sources of the Nile, may have induced him to attribute an undue magnificence to the capital which he has discovered; but after his senses have been sobered by a lapse of several months, he remains still convinced that its first aspect is decidedly superior to that of the finest Kraal of Hottentots in all Caffraria. The mud of which the hovels are constructed is of a finer texture, and the architecture, if that term may be applied to buildings seldom exceeding eight feet in height, is of a more artificial kind, approaching in several instances to the ingenuity displayed in the nidification of birds. Not only are the dunghills before the doors smaller and less offensive, but civilization has made such progress, that in several of the houses of the nobility a hole has been left in the thatched roof for the escape of the smoke, a luxury quite unknown to the Hottentots. The royal palace stood proudly eminent in the middle of the city, being full three feet higher than any other building, and having a pyramid of human skulls on each side of the door, which was guarded by half-naked soldiers, armed with bows and poisoned arrows.

It happened to be a grand levee on the day of our traveller's arrival, and as he was immediately conducted into the royal presence, he had an opportunity of observing the court etiquette. His woolly majesty was seated on a throne of skulls, and, spite of his diminutive stature, distorted features, and an exorbitant squint, preserved an air of dignity which fully proclaimed him to be "every inch a king." A red cloth, nearly as fine as a hopsack, was girt round his loins; in his right hand was a crocodile's jaw for a sceptre; in his left, a bunch of feathers for a fan; and two attendants were constantly employed in anointing his most sacred and woolly head with fat, grease, and soot. On either side were ranged his guards, each wielding a long lance with a skull at the top; and at a signal given by the Poet Laureate, the whole court fell prostrate, and chanted in chorus the following legitimate ode, or loyal address to their Sovereign Lord, King Quashiboo.

"Hoo! Tamarama bow-now!
Slamarambo-jug ! !"

Hurrah! for the son of the Sun!

Hurrah! for the brother of the Moon!

Throughout all the world there is none

Like Quashiboo the only one

Descended from the Great Baboon, Baboon,

Descended from the Great Baboon.*

Buffalo of Buffaloes, and Bull of Bulls !
He sits on a throne of his enemies skulls ;
And if he wants others to play at foot-ball,
Ours are at his service-all! all! all!

Hugaboo-jah! Hugaboo-joo!

Hail to the royal Quashiboo,

Emperor and Lord of Timbuctoo!

Referring to the forthcoming volumes for the particulars of this most interesting audience, we shall merely observe, that as to the com

*Their principal idol, whose temple adjoins the palace.

mercial advantages to be derived from an intercourse with this people, Captain Muggs is of opinion that as they all wear a coarse cloth round their bodies, there might be a considerable sale of this article, did they not unfortunately manufacture it much cheaper for themselves than it could be conveyed to them across the desert; and he has no doubt there would be an almost unlimited demand for perfumery, could the natives be once induced to discontinue the use of their present cosmetics: videlicet, buffalo's fat, soot, pitch, tar, grease, and cow-dung. Our limits not allowing us to go into any further details, we must hasten to conclude with a few specimens of their poetry, furnished by the Court Laureate, and translated by Captain Muggs, who has devoted his fourth quarto volume to their preservation, and assures us that his version is as literal as the different idioms of the languages will allow. The Timbuctoo tongue is excessively guttural and harsh, nearly as much so as the Dutch, of the Anthology of which we have lately had specimens, and the reader will, perhaps, be surprised that any thing so cacophonous, and apparently barbarous, should be made the medium of such refined and delicate sentiments as are exhibited in the following

ELEGY.

"Funke rumbo yaya, blubdub mum y funghyzz."

To Tambooshie.

Awed as I am and in thy presence dumb,
Deny me not the solitary bliss

To sing thy lips, each thicker than my thumb,
Lips that seem form'd as cushions for a kiss.
Thy flatten'd nose still haunts me in my sleep,
Whose upturn'd nostrils are the bowers of love,
Where Cupid lingers, playing at bo-peep,

Or stealing arrows from thine eyes above.
With gooroo juice are stain'd thy yellow teeth,
Bracelets of entrails clasp thy legs and arms;
Tobacco gives its perfume to thy breath,

And grease its radiance to thy sable charms.
O wert thou mine, Tambooshie! I would make
Suet and soot pomatum for thy head,
Then powder it with bucku dust, and take

Cowdung cosmetics o'er thy face to spread.

Ah! when the mothers o'er their shoulders throw
Their breast to feed the young one at their back,*
The husband's, father's joys I sigh to know,
And disappointed hopes my bosom rack.

Presumptuous thought!-Tambooshie for my wife!
She who was form'd for monarchs to adore?

I feel that I must love her all my life,

But hope both life and love will soon be o'er.

We shall only offer one more selection from their amatory poetry, which, we think, our readers will confess to be not altogether unworthy of Shenstone.

* A common practice in the interior of Africa.

"Schneik-boo Dsirika cha-cha ben."

I know what my Dsirika loves,

And I'll creep by the light of the moon
To the jungles and tamarisk groves,
To steal a young howling baboon.
My charmer shall make it a cage,
And feed it with lizards and frogs,
And when it attains its full age,

Shall bait and torment it with dogs.
I will catch her a fat yellow snake,
To be eaten with crocodile's eggs,
Form of buffalo's entrails a cake,
And a jam of tarantula's legs.

From the banks of the Niger I'll bring
Fish-bones to be thrust through her nose,

And sew up live worms in a ring,

To encircle her fingers and toes.

I told her my plan, but her heart

Is so tender she winced at the worms,
And proposed I should alter that part
Before she accepted my terms.

"I had rather," she cried, quick as thought,
"On my finger a wedding-ring hung ;'
And I loved her the more when I caught
Such a delicate hint from her tongue.

Their lyric poetry possesses a most noble and animated pæan or battle-ode, which has been much admired by the critics for the truly Pindaric and daring abruptness of its commencement, and which, moreover, is curious not only as describing the Timbuctoo mode of battle, but as containing their most approved receipt for dressing and eating the prisoners. We had begun its translation, but as its beauties could not be fully felt in an extract, and our limits would not allow us to insert the whole, we were reluctantly compelled to desist.

It will perhaps excite some surprise when we state that their literature is richer in epigrams than any other with which we are conversant, the point being generally made to turn upon some familiar proverbs, and their proverbs bearing such a striking affinity to ours, that with no other than the fair latitude of a free translation they might be actually identified. Fragments of Latin are not unfrequently encountered in these caustic and witty effusions, an additional proof that Timbuctoo was the actual city discovered by the Nasamones, to whom we have already made allusion, and who must have left behind them these curious relics of the Roman tongue. It is principally on this account that we select the following

EPIGRAM.

As Slug-shoo was courting the fat-smear'd Boo-jeer,
On the snake-cover'd banks of the Niger,

Her lover pass'd by, and exclaim'd with a sneer,
"Optat ephippia bos piger."

The next which we shall translate was composed upon Squosh, a prime minister, who appears to have severely oppressed the people for the gratification of his own architectural extravagance, and to have richly merited the cutting irony of the last line.