UNKNOWN COUNTRIES. 307 To the westward of Dar-Fur, and between that country and Bornou, lies the large kingdom of Waday, which has never been visited by a European. I learned from some Kordofan merchants, who had visited the frontiers of Dar-Fur on their trading expeditions, that Sultan Adah had conquered a great part of "Waday, and would probably soon become involved in war with the Sultan of Bornou. It is said that there is in the country of Waday a lake called Fittre, which is a hundred and fifty miles in length, and receives several rivers. At the south-western extremity of Dar-Fur, in lat. 6° N. there is a small country, called Fertit. I often heard it mentioned by the Ethiopian traders, one of Whom showed me a snuff-box, which he had bought of a native of the country. It was made from the hard shell of a fruit about the size of an orange, with a stopper roughly wrought of silver. Almost the entire region south of lat. 10° N. and lying between the White Nile and the G-ulf of Guinea is unknown ground, and presents a rich field for future explorers.

The difficulties and dangers which have hitherto attended the path of African discovery, are rapidly diminishing, and the time is not far distant when eveiy mystery, hidden in the heart of that wonderful Continent, will be made clear. Where a traveller has once penetrated, he smoothes the way for those who follow, and that superior intelligence which renders the brute creation unable to bear the gaze of a human eye, is the defence of the civilized man against the barbarian. Bruce, journeying from Abyssinia to Egypt, in the year 1772, was beset by continual dangers, and even Burckhardt, in 1814, though successfully disguised as a Mussulman shekh, or saint, was obliged to keep his journal by stealth. At present, however, a