In this manner, obtaining eleemofynary fupport from the moft wretched of human beings, he wandered for the space of 15 days, directing his courfe nearly Eaft South Eaft, in the accomplishment of his miffion. At length, in the morning of the 16th day, having been joined by fome Mandingo Negroes who were travelling to Sego, he had the inexpreffible fatisfaction to behold the great object of his wishes-the long fought majeftic Niger, glittering to the morning fun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, flowing with flow majefty from West to Eaft, through the middle of a very extenfive town, which his fellow travellers told him was Sego, the capital of the great kingdom of Bambara.

His emotions were exquifite: and it were unjust not to give them in his Own words" I haftened to the brink of the river, and having drank of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the great Ruler of all things, for having thus far crowned my endeavours with fuccefs."

The houfes of Sego are of clay, with flat roofs; many of them two ftories high, and white washed. Moorifh mofques are feen in every quarter of the city, which contains about 30,000 inhabitants. The boats on the river are numerous, and the furrounding country well cultivated. Sego is the refidence of Manfong, King of Bambara, a Negro; who, fearful of the malignant cruelty of the Moorish inhabitants towards a Chriftian ftranger, fent to defire Park to quit his dominions, giving him 5000 cowries to defray the expences of his journey. An hundred of thefe cowries, or little fhells, will maintain a man and his horfe 24 hours in Bambara.

After leaving Sego, the first town of note at which Mr P. arrived, in the direction of N. E. was Kabba, fitu. d in the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated country. It Ed. Mag. July 1798.

was the feafon of the Shea harveft; which confifts in gathering the fruit. producing the butter-tree. The tree itself refembles the American oak; and the nut, from the kernel of which the butter is prepared, resembles a Spanish olive. The butter, obtained by fimply boiling this kernel in water, is whiter, firmer, and has a finer flavour than any that can be made from cows' milk, and has alfo the advantage of keeping without falt

Mr P. proceeded two days journey to Silla, and intended from thence to have advanced to Jeuné, Tombucto, and Houfa, the principal cities on the Niger; but was deterred by the information that the two first places were wholly under the influence of the Moors. In returning homeward, Mr P. followed the banks of the Niger and traced back that great river nearly to its fource. During the course of this peregrination, he en. countered the tropical rains in all their violence; and was chiefly indebted for his fupport to the Doody, or chief man in each place; one part of whose duty it is to provide for the neceffitous traveller. To fuffer the King's ftranger to depart hungry (fuch is the phrafe,) is an offence of a very heinous nature. The generofity of the Negroes often made them refuse cowries in payment, but their fuperftition made them earneft after faphies or charms. These faphies are scraps of paper, with a sentence of the Koran, fold by the Moors to the poor Negroes; who, being furnished with this merchandise, no longer dread the lurking ferpent or the prowling tyger. They obferved, however, "that if a Moor's faphie is good, a white man's muft need be better." Mr P. indulged this fancy, and fometimes gave them the Lord's prayer. was a reed ;-charcoal and gum water fupplied him with ink; a thin board ferved the purpose of paper. At Kamalia, which is 500 miles from any friendly country on the Gambia, Mr

His pen

P. was

P. was detained one month by a dangerous fever, and five months more, waiting for the firft caravan of flaves, the company of which was neceffary to his journey through the defert. The chief director of the caravan refided at Kamalia; to him our traveller applied; and for the value of one flave, to be paid on his fafe arrival at the Gambia, this worthy Negro undertook to conduct him fafe back to Pifania, and alfo offered him the accommodation of his houfe until the time of the caravan's depar

ture.

During the long and unexpected delay of fix months, not a mur mur efcaped the lips of Karfa (this was the Negro's name,) or those of any of his wives, at the trouble and expence which their inmate brought upon them. To the tender folicitude, the chearful affiduity, and flowing hofpitality, of thefe poor Pagans, Mr P. declares himself indebted for his fafe return to Great Britain, and the preservation of his life.

In April 1797, the caravan being completed, and our traveller's health re-established, he fet out from Kamalia in company with feventy perfons, under the direction of Karfa. In nine days they came to Maana, bordering on the branch of the Senegal. In ten days more, they reached the fmall but fertile State of Dentilla, and croffed in their journey fome of the ftreams that contribute to the great river of the Gambia. On the 4th of June they fell in with that river two days' journey above the falls of Baraconda. On the 10th of June Mr P. to his infinite fatisfaction, entered the hofpitable mansion of Dr. Laidley, from which he had fet out 18 months before. On the 15th he embarked in a flave fhip bound to America; which being driven by ftrefs of weather into

Antigua, Mr P. took his paffage from thence to London, where he arrived on the 25th of December 1797.

In his extenfive peregrinations, one of the greatest curiofities he met with is the Lotus, a plant of ancient renown, rather a thorny fhrub than a tree, abounding in all the countries he traverfed, but flourishing most in a fandy foil, Its fruit is a mall farinaceous berry, which being pounded and dried in the fun, is made into excellent cakes, refembling in colour and flavour, the fweetelt gingerbread, A liquor alfo is prepared from it, delicioufly fweet; the fame, perhaps, which is fabled to have produced fuch extraordinary effects on the companions of Ulyffes.

A new and important circumftance brought to light by Mr P. is, that the Moors, thofe merciless bigots, whofe territories extend in a narrow belt from the mouth of the Senegal to the confines of Abyffinia, do not, as has been hitherto univerfally believed, trust folely to the fword for the propagation of their tenets. They have introduced among the Pagans of Africa a fyftem of profelytifm much more efficacious and exter five, By eftablishing Schools wherever it is practicable, in which the Negro children are taught to read, and inftructed in the tenets of the Koran, they fix a bias on the minds of their difciples, which no accidents in life can ever afterwards remove.

Mr P. faw many of those schools in his progrefs, and could not but lament that none of the European Governments (Sierra Leone being a private concern,) have introduced a fimilar fyftem among thefe poor people, for inculcating the doctrines of Christianity; a meafure which, in his opinion, many circumftances concur to render practicable.

JUDGE BURNET, the fon of the celebrated Burnet, Bishop of Salif

bury, was fo wild and extravagant in his boyh days, that his father

at

Burnet, to fereen himself from profecutions in confequence of thefe freaks and fome others, was appointed conful at Lisbon, where he continued fome years; but as he was almost without any support, he came home, at very near thirty years of age, with out fortune, or little or no intereft from family connections.

In this dilemma, without means or profeffion, he applied to Sir Robert Walpole, who was then Minifter, recanting all his former imprudencies, and promifing to give both his induftry and talents to any line of bufinefs which Sir Robert would point out. The Minifter, knowing him to be a young man of good education and confiderable abilities, propofed the study of the law; to which Burnet at first demurred on account of his advanced age, and the fcantinefs of his prefent means. To the firft Sir Robert faid, "he ought to recover the time spent in paft imprudencies, by working double tides; and as for the fecond, he would allow him one hundred pounds per year out of his private purfe, till he was called to the bar."

Burnet, though rather difappointed, closed with this propofal, and immediately entered himself of the Inner Temple. He waited upon his father fome time before this, and told him he was going to give the world

E

Though Mr Burnet became a gravé Counsellor, and afterwards a graver Judge, his wit and humour never deferted him. Soon after he was called to the bar, he went the home cir cuit, when he unfortunately happened to lodge next door to a tall man, who fhewed himself as an exhibition and whofetrumpeter kept blowing before the door from eight o'clock in the morning till night. Burnet, whọ yet loved his bottle, and did not return home from the tavern till late, found himself fo annoyed from this circumftance, that he fcarcely could get a wink of reft. At last a thought ftruck him to get rid of fo troublefome a neighbour, by very formally fending the Giant (as he was called) a fubpæna to appear as a witness in a cause which was to have come on the next day.

The man, though conscious of his knowing nothing about the bufinefs alluded to, yet had fenfe enough to know, that if he once made his appearance in Court, the novelty of his perfon was at an end, very prudently decamped from his lodgings in the night, and took up his quarters at the next country town.

The judge being one day at a circuit dinner, a petulent young lawyer of family was every now and then interrupting the converfation by asking, "Who had feen the Elephant that was then fhewing at the King's Arms Tavern, one of the greatest cu

ufual age, he was put to the high fchool of Edinburgh, to learn the rudiments of the Latin language, Here he continued five years, (five miferable years he used to call them) making a very great proficiency in the language; not by labour or uncommon application, but in confequence of that vigour and quicknefs of ap. prehenfion which nature had beftow ed upon him with fo profufe a hand: for, though it is true that the idleness and inattention excufeable at that early age prevented him often from acquiring, and almoft always from retaining that great fuperiority of rank in the clafs which his parts and know ledge entitled him to hold; yet fuch was his acuteness, that, even when lured from his book by boyish frolics, he was always able to keep a very refpectable place at school.

At this very early period of life, he displayed a natural turn for poetical compofition, and, among his fchool-fellows, was diftinguished by the name of Poet. Indeed our au thor had not only an early, but a conftant attachment to the Mufes, and it may, therefore, be thought furprifing, that he did not exert his poetical talents more than he has done; and that what he has written is chiefly upon local fubjects, and fuch as probably, in thefe times, will not please the Republic of Letters.

Our author afterwards went through the ufual academical courfe at the University of Edinburgh, where he ftill continued to make a very great proficiency in the learned languages. He diftinguished himself alfo in the different fciences to which he then bent his attention; although he ufed often to mention, with regret, that he did not make fo rapid a progrefs in these as he would have withed, from having been fent to colleg lege at too early an age to be able to enter fully into the abftrufe ftudies which are understood to form an effential part of an univerfity education.

The pleasure our author had in reading debates, ancient and modern, and in hearing the pleadings at the Scotch bar, made him defirous of following the profeffion of a Barrif ter; although he was diffuaded from it, on account of the narrowness of his fortune, and the want of powerful connections to push him forward: his friends had intended him for the Church, but the gravity of a clergyman was not fuited to his lively temper. He determined, however, to be guided by his own inclination; and accordingly, after ftudying and making himfelf perfectly mafter of the Civil and Scotch Law, he was, in Auguft 17,6, admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. Previous to this, he, at leifure hours, overcame the fatigue of legal ftudy, by occafionally indulging himself in perusing his favourite claffics, and improving his talte for the mufes.

The first practice he had at the bar was before the General Affembly of the Church of Scotland; a court which, from its popular conftitution, young Barristers are accustomed to confider as one of the best theatres which this part of the island affords for difplaying their abilities. In this Houfe he was always employed on the fide of Oppofition, that is, the party which oppofe the fettlement of minifters in churches by prefentation from patrons; and he foon diftinguished himfelf in his pleadings and writings, by brilliancy of wit, and force of argument.

Such promifing talents were not long unrewarded; for, in the course of a few years, they were the means of introducing him into very confiderable practice, both before the Civil aud Criminal Courts of his country.

It was not as a mere lawyer that he acquired reputation in the world; for, by means of his abilities, learning and urbanity, he foon gained the acquaintance