first Ashantee village was Quesha; the capital is Coomastee, which the mission reached on the 19th of May, 1817.  Mr. Bowdich paints the splendour, magnificence, and richness of the sovereign of the Ashantees in the most gorgeous manner; and even his manners as dignified and polished.  But though his work is very full of what almost seems romantic pictures and statements of the civilization and richness of the Ashantees, and gives accurate accounts of their kingdom, yet, in other respects, it is not interesting or important, in a geographical point of view.  There are, indeed, some notices which were collected from the natives or the travelling Moors, regarding the countries beyond Ashantee, and some of their opinions respecting the Niger.  The most important point which he ascertained was, that the route from the capital to Tombuctoo is much travelled; and it is now supposed that this is the shortest and best road for Europeans to take, who wish to reach the Niger near that city.  Indeed, we understand that merchants frequently come to the British settlement at Sierra Leone, who represent the route into the interior of Africa and the neighbourhood of the Niger from thence, as by no means arduous or dangerous.

We shall next direct our attention to the north of Africa.

The hostility of the Mahometans, who possessed the north of Africa, to Christians, presented as serious an obstacle to travels in that quarter as the barbarism and ferocity of the native tribes on the west coast did to discoveries into the interior in that direction.  In the sixteenth century, Leo Africanus gave an ample description of the northern parts; and in the same century, Alvarez, who visited Abyssinia, published an account of that country.  In the subsequent century, this part of Africa was illustrated by Lobo, Tellea, and Poncet; the latter was a chemist and apothecary, sent by Louis XIV to the reigning monarch of Abyssinia; the former were missionaries.  From their accounts, and those of the Portuguese, all our information respecting this country was derived, previously to the travels of Mr. Bruce.

Pocock and Norden are the most celebrated travellers in Egypt in the beginning of the seventeenth century; but as their object was rather the discovery and description of the antiquities of this country, what they published did not much extend our geographical knowledge:  the former spent five years in his travels.  The latter is the first writer who published a picturesque description of Egypt; every subsequent traveller has borne evidence to the accuracy and fidelity of his researches and descriptions.  He was the first European who ventured above the cataracts.