In 1849 the British Government determined to make another effort to open up commercial relations with the Niger and Central Africa, but resolved again to try the overland route from Tripoli. After the Napoleonic wars were finished, the British Government had sent out various surveying parties to map the coasts of Africa; and a well-equipped expedition under Admiral Beechey made a thorough investigation of the coasts of Tripoli and Barka in 1821 and 1822, and sent back the first trustworthy accounts of the Greek ruins of the Cyrenaica. Since that time several consular representatives of Great Britain in Tripoli had carried on explorations in the interior. Among these was James Richardson, who had originally accompanied Admiral Beechey, and who further made most important explorations of the Tripolitan Sahara, discovering many interesting rock paintings and inscriptions. He was appointed to be the head of this overland expedition of 1849, and associated with him were two Germans, Barth and Overweg. Dr Heinrich Barth was born at Hamburg in the year 1821. He had travelled extensively in Asia Minor, in Mediterranean Africa, and up the Nile. This expedition left Tripoli in the spring of 1850, and reached Bornu without any difficulty. Here its members separated. Richardson died soon afterwards and was buried near Lake Chad; Overweg died in 1852, having been the first European to navigate Lake Chad[175]. He was buried on the shores of that lake. For the next four years Barth carried on gigantic explorations on his own account. He journeyed from Lake Chad along the river Komadugu, and thence across northern Hausaland to the Niger at Say. From Say he cut across the bend of the Niger to Timbuktu, and descended the river back to Say, and thence to Sokoto, from which he made his way to Kukawa in Bornu, where he met Dr Eduard Vogel and two non-commissioned officers of the Royal Engineers, who had been sent by the British Government to reinforce his expedition. Barth had previously in 1851 made a journey due south, and had struck the river Benue very high up in its course. Vogel started to complete the discoveries in this direction, and eventually to make his way to the Nile. He was accompanied by Corporal MacGuire, but the two quarrelled and parted, and both were murdered in the vicinity of Wadai. Dr Barth and the other non-commissioned officer made their way back across the desert to Tripoli and England. Barth’s journey was productive of almost more solid information than that of any of the great African explorers, excepting Stanley, and possibly Nachtigal, Schweinfurth and Emin Pasha. Besides the geographical information given, Barth’s book in five volumes and his various linguistic works on the Central Sudan languages represent an amount of information that has not been