It is a pleasure to us Frenchmen when we can quote the name of a fellow-countryman amongst the many travellers who have risked their lives in the cause of geographical science. Without abating our critical acumen, we feel our pulse quicken when we read of the dangers and struggles of such travellers as Mollien, Caillie, De Cailliaud, and Letorzec. Gaspar Mollien was nephew to Napoleon's Minister of the Treasury. He was on board the _Medusa_, but was fortunate enough to escape when that vessel was shipwrecked, and to reach the coast of the Sahara in a boat, whence he made his way to Senegal. The dangers from which Mollien had just escaped would have destroyed the love of adventure and exploration in a less ardent spirit. They had no such effect upon him. He left St. Louis as soon as ever he obtained the assent of the Governor, Fleuriau, to his proposal to explore the sources of the great rivers of Senegambia, and especially those of the Djoliba. Mollien started from Djeddeh on the 29th January, 1818, and taking an easterly course between the 15th and 16th parallels of north latitude, crossed the kingdom of Domel, and entered the districts peopled by the Yaloofs. Unable to go by way of Woolli, he decided in favour of the Fouta Toro route, and in spite of the jealousy of the natives and their love of pillage, he reached Bondou without accident. It took him three days to traverse the desert between Bondou and the districts beyond the Gambia, after which he penetrated into Niokolo, a mountainous country, inhabited by the all but wild Peuls and Djallons. Leaving Bandeia, Mollien entered Fouta Djallon, and reached the sources of the Gambia and the Rio Grande, which are in close proximity. A few days later he came to those of the Faleme; and, in spite of the repugnance and fear of his guide, he made his way into Timbo, the capital of Fouta. The absence of the king and most of the inhabitants probably spared him from a long captivity abbreviated only by torture. Fouta is a fortified town, the king owns houses, with mud walls between three and four feet thick and fifteen high. At a short distance from Timbo, Mollien discovered the sources of the Senegal--at least what were pointed out to him as such by the blacks; but it was impossible for him to take astronomical observations. The explorer did not, however, look upon his work as done. He had ever before him the still more important discovery of the sources of the Niger; but the feeble state of his health, the setting in of the rainy season, the swelling of the rivers, the fears of his guides, who refused to accompany him into Kooranko and Soolimano, though he offered them guns, amber beads, and even his horse, compelled him to give up the idea of crossing the Kong mountains, and to return to St. Louis. Mollien had, however, opened several new lines in a part of Senegambia not before visited by any European.