ON AFRICA. 451 nies' from opposite quarters, meeting exactly in the same point ; nor does there, as far as we know, exist any evidence at all respectable to the contrary.

It now remains for me to declare (that as opinions have been industriously propagated tending to discredit my account of Marocco, and the interior of Africa,) that nothing has been set down therein, until I had previously investigated the qualifications of the narrators, their means of knowledge, and whether the respective vocations of the several narrators made it their interest to disguise or misrepresent the truth of their communications ; and, after ascertaining these important points, I have generally had recourse to other testimonies, and have seldom recorded any thing until confirmed by three or four concurrent evidences : on this pyramidical basis is founded the intelligence in my account of Marocco, and of the interior of Africa, annexed to that account.

This assertion is to be understood in respect to intelligence that I could not ascertain by ocular demonstration.

Finally, my description of the black heartheaded serpent, called Bouska', has been doubted j but a late traveller ' has confirmed the accuracy ' The testimonies here alluded to are Hornman, Park, and Jackson.

' See Jackson*s enlarged Account of Marocco, &c. p. 109.

* *' I paid two dollars for a station, and I looked into the room without interruption. It was about twenty feet long, G G 2