ich comes to one man and another in every
age and nation, the call into the unknown, into the mysterious places
where none of their race have ever trod. And if they did not expect to
meet men with heads growing below their shoulders, such as the mediaeval
travellers looked for, yet the heart of Africa might hold marvels almost
as strange. Seventeen years before, Mungo Park, the great Scottish
explorer, who set forth for the last time to follow the course of the
river Niger, had passed away into the silence of the unknown land. It
was hoped that this new expedition might succeed in recovering his
papers and journal.

The party started from Tripoli early in December. Their journey at first
was quite a triumphal progress; the English dress and speech were
honoured everywhere, and the strangers treated with the reverence due to
the representatives of the great unknown king whose sailors had
conquered Algiers. Many were the questions asked about the mighty
monarch, and we may be sure that the magnificence of the mysterious
'Sultan George' (King George III. of England) lost nothing in the
description his subjects gave of him. There were delays, however, owing
to the bad faith of the Sultan of Tripoli, and it was not till February
that the expedition reached the city of Kouka, the capital of Bornu.
Strange indeed is the description of this wealthy city, where the Sultan
sat to receive his visitors behind the bars of a golden cage, and where
corpulence was looked upon as so necessary a part of a fine figure that
the young dandies of the calvary regiments padded themselves out to the
proper size, if they had the misfortune to be naturally thin.

The travellers had plenty of time to study the peculiarities of the
place, being detained there some time, first from want of camels for the
journey, and then by Dr. Audney's serious illness. Major Denham, growing
weary of inaction, and hearing that the Sultan of Kouka was planning an
attack upon a neighbouring tribe, begged leave to accompany the
expedition. The Sultan, who was very much impressed by the importance of
the English visitors, and by the idea of the pains and penalties that
might follow if any harm came to them, refused for some time to let him
go, and it was not until the last moment before the departure of the
expedition that the Major wrung from him permission to be of the party.
In fact, it _was_ rather a doubtful proceeding for a member of a
peaceful mission, and Majo