It would be an easy matter for a severe critic to point out many incorrect expressions in these letters, as it is obvious they were all written off-hand amid the hurry and anxiety of the avocations connected with the mission, and certainly never meant to meet the public eye. But, we think, they cannot be perused without producing a deep impression that their author was devotedly attentive to the performance of his public duties—that he possessed a sanguine temperament and a well-informed mind—and that his heart was actuated by a sense of the obligations of friendship, and the kindly feeling of fraternal affection. With regard to this latter sentiment, indeed, it is quite clear, from that portion of the letters to his sister which—as relating entirely to private and confidential matters—has been suppressed, that his anxiety for the welfare of his relatives was never absent from his thoughts, and that the desire to afford them protection, and to minister to their comfort, was the constant and powerful stimulant to his exertions. The substance of the second of his letters to professor Jameson was printed in the volume published by Denham and Clapperton, giving an account of the result of the mission in which they, along with Dr. Oudney, had been sent. The first letter to the professor, however, contains original matter, as well as the most of those to his sister; and had he lived to return home, and reduce his _memoranda_ to a state fit for publication, we have reason to believe that he would have greatly enlarged our knowledge of Africa. The Doctor and Clapperton set out towards Soudan about the middle of December 1823, while Major Denham went on an exploratory excursion in another direction; and while engaged in its prosecution, he received a short note from Dr. Oudney. It was brought from Katagum. “It had no date, and was indeed his last effort. The acknowledgment of being weak and helpless,” says Major D., “assured me that he was really so; for, during the whole of his long sufferings, a complaint had scarcely ever escaped his lips. On the Shiekh’s saying to him, when he first expressed his wish to accompany the _Kafila_, ‘surely your health is not such as to risk such a journey?’ he merely replied, ‘why, if I stay here I shall die, and probably sooner, as travelling always improves my health.’ This letter, though short, expresses great satisfaction at the treatment he had met with on his journey, and also from the inhabitants of the country.”[2] Captain Clapperton’s letter to Mr. Consul Warrington, dated Kano, 2d February, 1824, contains the last scene of this mournful history.