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TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA. Being a Journal of an Expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.’s Government, in the years 1849—1855. By Henry Barth , Ph.D, D.C.L. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. New York, Harper & Brothers.

Africa, so long a shadowy and mysterious terra incognita to the civilised world, has at length yielded up her secrets to the indomitable spirit of modern enterprise, and by the self-sacrificing exertions of such men as Barth and Livingston, coming after and improving upon the achievements of Oudney, Denham and Clapperton, we are enabled to bring before our eyes a new and animated picture of her inmost recesses.

The extensive work of Dr. Barth, the first volume of which now lies before us, has been already made so familiar to the reading public through the media of newspaper and periodical extracts and reviews, that it would be useless for us to go over the same ground in an extended notice. The history of the undertaking of which this is a record, may be summed up in a few words. In the Summer of ’49, the British Government determined to dispatch Mr. Richardson, an experienced traveller, upon an expedition through the Great Desert into the interior of Africa. Drs. Barth and Overweg, two German scholars, volunteered to accompany Mr. Richardson, if the British Government would defray a portion of their expenses. This offer was accepted; and on the 23d of March 1850, they took their departure from Tripoli, in the Barbary States. On the 4th of March 1857, Mr. Richardson died, when the party was just approaching the borders of Negroland; and in September of the following year, Overweg also fell a victim to the climate and over exertion, having completed a full exploration of Lake Tsad, in Central Africa. Barth would now have been obliged to pursue his researches alone, but for the opportune arrival of Mr. Vogel, a German savan. He continued his travels for three years more and then returned to Europe. The work under consideration is the product of his five years, journeyings; it is very long and minute; written in a singularly plain and unassuming style of narrative, and forms, undoubtedly, a most important addition to our store of knowledge of regions hitherto obscured with an all but impenetrable veil of darkness.

On leaving Tripoli, the expedition formed a considerable caravan, bearing with them forty camels, laden with merchandise, and a small boat, intended for navigating Lake Tsad. Proceeding through the pashalik of Tripoli, they found the ruins of Roman structures, which continued to be met with until they had progressed far into Fazzen. Murzuk, the capital of Fazzen, was reached on the 6th of May, and here they remained over a month waiting for a chief to act as their farther escort. The entire population of Fezzan did not amount to 30,000. The escort having arrived, the travelers pursued their way through the Berber country, ground which Dr. Mayo has made interesting by his African romance. Crossing the dessert they reached the kingdom of Aïr, a territory of which only the vague accounts of the Medieval adventurers had ever reached the civilized world, and whose very existence was almost as debatable as Prester John’s Land. Barth found the ruling race to be Berbers, who had dispossessed the original inhabitants, and the little band were continually in dread of an attack. Agades, the capital, they found to be a mean town of 6000 inhabitants. The people live miserably, and their petty chiefs are great dealers in slaves. Under the protection of a caravan, the travelers set out southward for the great city of Kano, the emporium and heart, so to speak, of Central Africa. They found the face of the country to improve as they advanced. Fields of Indian corn were numerous, and the habitations of the people improved in appearance. As they neared the borders of Negroland, proper, Richardson and Barth separated, never to meet again on earth, and the latter proceeded alone to Kano, which he reached on the 1st of February 1851, a year after his departure from Tripoli. He found that the town did not altogether belie its reputation, being a place of 35,000 or more inhabitants and of great commercial importance. The leading branch of industry, however, is the manufacture of cotton cloths, which are exported to other parts of the continent to the value of 300,000,000 kurdi. We should state here that it takes 2500 kurdi, or cowrie-shells, to make a dollar in this part of the world, and that $25 a year is esteemed quite an independent fortune. The salt trade, the transit of natron and ivory, and, lastly, the slave-trade, are also important items in taking a view of the commerce of the place. A great quantity of European goods are brought into the market of Kano, comprising calicoes and prints from Manchester; French silks and sugars; cloth from Saxony; beads from Venice; small wares from Nuremberg, &c. Should the Niger be opened for navigation, and such an event is by no means improbable in the course of a limited number of years, English and American manufactures might reach the town from the coast, and Kano would at once take rank far higher even than she now stands, as a commercial emporium.

Barth now set out for the neighboring state of Bornu, with the intention of rejoining his former companions. While on his journey, however, he accidentally heard of Mr. Richardson’s death. The death of the leader of the expedition threw Barth into great trouble, from which it required all his financial and diplomatic skill to extricate him. He, however, was not deserted by his usual sagacity, and having settled the affairs of his late co-adjutor as well as he could, he set out on his exploring tour from Kukawa, the capital of Borun.

The close of the first volume leaves our traveller at this point. We shall look for the appearance of those which are to follow, with an impatience proportioned to the importance of the matters upon which they may be expected to treat. Meantime we commend the work, most heartily, to the attention of all who feel (as who does not?) a lively interest in the progress of modern discoveries in these hitherto unknown regions—and above all in the vast results which must flow from them, both as regards the material and spiritual welfare of a large portion of the human race.

The work has been issued in handsome style, and is profusely illustrated with wood-cuts taken from drawings made on the spot. It is dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon.

GUY LIVINGSTONE: OR “THOROUGH”—Same Publishers.

We recommend blase novel-readers who find it difficult to get up a “sensation,” to purchase “Guy Livingstone,” and our word for it, they will not lay it down until the magic word “Finis” breaks the spell and disenchants them. In our time we have waded through acres of the most popular novels of the day, with the most philosophical equanimity, and are not very likely to get excited by anything that can be contained between two covers, but we admit the soft impeachment of having been really interested by the fortunes and misfortunes of Guy Livingstone, the impersonation of arrogant manliness; of Flora Bellasys, the dazzling combination of sensuous loveliness, keen intellect and unscrupulous artifice: of Isabel Brandon, the type of those fair saints whom Thackeray has apotheosized in Helen Pendennis. The novel is written with wonderful vigor. There are passages in it of an interest as intense as anything to be found in Bulwer, and there is a certain terse directness about the style which tempted us to pause several times in our reading and wonder whether the book was not, after all, an unacknowledged bantling of Charles Reade’s. Whoever the author may be he is evidently no novice in literature. Setting aside some few great names, we regard Guy Livingstone as decidedly the most noticeable novel that has lately issued from the press.

HISTORY OF KING PHILIP, Sovereign chief of the Wampanoags. Including the early history of the settlers of New England. By John S. C. Abbott. With engravings. Same publishers.

This handsome little volume is one of the series of Abbott’s illustrated histories. Like its predecessors, it is written in a plain and simple style, admirably adapted to the understanding of children, and well calculated at the same time, to afford instruction and entertainment to many of larger growth. The narrative is succinct and comprehensive, and strictly faithful to the truth so far as it can now be ascertained. The career of the great Indian Chieftain, full of adventure and romance as it was, presented a fair subject for the pen of the picturesque biographer, and so far as we have examined the work, Mr. Abbott seems to have left no salient feature untouched, and no opportunity for animated description unimproved.