Was Caillie compensated for his physical and mental sufferings by the aid which the Geographical Society sent to him at once, by the prize of 10,000 francs adjudged to him, by the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the fame and glory attached to his name? We suppose he was. He says more than once in his narrative that nothing but his wish to add by his discoveries to the glory of France, his native country, could have sustained him under the trying circumstances and insults to which he was constantly subjected. All honour then to the patient traveller, the sincere patriot, the great discoverer. We have still to speak of the expedition which cost Alexander Gordon Laing his life; but before giving our necessarily brief account, for his journals were all lost, we must say a few words about his early life and an interesting excursion made by him to Timmannee, Kouran and Soolimana, when he discovered the sources of the Niger. Laing was born in Edinburgh in 1794, entered the English army at the age of sixteen, and soon distinguished himself. In 1820 he had gained the rank of Lieutenant, and was serving as aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Maccarthy, then Governor General of Western Africa. At this time war was raging between Amara, the Mandingo almamy, and Sannassi, one of his principal chiefs. Trade had never been very flourishing in Sierra Leone, and this state of things dealt it its death-blow. Maccarthy, anxious to put matters on a better footing, determined to interfere and bring about a reconciliation between the rival chiefs. He decided on sending an embassy to Kambia, on the borders of the Scarcies, and from thence to Malacoury and the Mandingo camp. The enterprising character, intelligence, and courage of Laing led to his being chosen by the governor as his envoy, and on the 7th January, 1822, he received instructions to report on the manufactures and topography of the provinces mentioned, and to ascertain the feeling of the inhabitants on the abolition of slavery. A first interview with Yareddi, leader of the Soolimana troops accompanying the almamy, proved that the negroes of the districts under notice had only the vaguest ideas on European civilization, and that they had had but little intercourse with the whites. "Every article of our dress," says Laing, "was a subject of admiration; observing me pull off my gloves, Yareddi stared, covered his widely-opened mouth with his hands, and at length exclaimed, 'Alla Akbar!' 'he has pulled the skin off his hands!' By degrees, and as he became more familiar, he alternately rubbed down Dr. Mackie's hair and mine, then indulging himself in a loud laugh, he would exclaim, 'They are not men, they are not men!' He repeatedly asked my interpreter if we had bones?"