By the death of Dr. Oudney, it has fallen to the lot of Captain Clapperton and myself to render an account to the public of our expedition into the interior and central parts of Northern Africa. The sudden departure of my surviving companion, on a second mission, has necessarily thrown the greater part of the burden on myself. I believe, however—for I have not seen any of his papers—that Captain Clapperton, during the lifetime of Dr. Oudney, made but few remarks himself beyond the construction of the chart of our route, from daily observations of the latitude, and of lunars for the longitude, whenever favourable opportunities occurred; but, subsequently to the death of his travelling companion, which happened at an early stage of their journey into Soudan, a journal of his proceedings and remarks appears to have been regularly kept; and this, together with other documents connected with that journey, were left at his departure in the hands of Mr. Barrow, with a request that he would see them through the press. It may naturally enough be asked, Why something more than a short excursion to the westward of Mourzuk, and a few notes, do not appear from the pen of Dr. Oudney in the present volume? I can only answer the question by the fact, that the only papers placed in my hands consist of “An Itinerary from Mourzuk to Bornou;” and “An Excursion to the Westward of Mourzuk;” neither of which have been deemed fit for publication _in extenso_, from their imperfect state, and containing very little beyond what will be found in my own journals. I have, however, printed in foot notes such parts of them as have been pointed out to me. Not a paper of his, to my knowledge, has been lost or destroyed; and I can only account for the unsatisfactory state in which they have been found, from the circumstance of his ill health, which became extremely precarious from the moment of our departure from Mourzuk, where he had caught a cold, which settled on his lungs, and never left him. On our arrival at Kouka, and frequently afterwards, he experienced so many attacks of fever, that there appeared little hope of his surviving to return to England, which was indeed his own opinion; and when he set out on his last journey towards Soudan, he was so exhausted, and in a state so unfit for such an undertaking, that he fell a martyr to his zeal very soon after his departure, though, had he remained at Kouka, the melancholy event would not, in all probability, have been prolonged many days. My own expeditions in various parts of Bornou, in Mandara, and Loggun, and the two fruitless attempts I made to complete the tour of the great lake Tchad, will be found to occupy a considerable portion of the volume; and being made in countries, and among a people unknown to Europeans,—many of them even by name or report,—it is hoped that observations, faithfully and circumstantially minuted down at the time and spot, will not be found tedious or uninteresting to the reader.