But the Public are not to expect, even under an improved system of African Geography, that the Interior Part of that Continent will exhibit an aspect similar to the others; rich in variety; each region assuming a distinct character. On the contrary, it will be meagre and vacant in the extreme. The dreary expanses of desart which often surround the habitable spots, forbid the appearance of the usual proportion of towns; and the paucity of rivers, added to their being either absorbed or evaporated, instead of being conducted in flowing lines to the ocean, will give a singular cast to its hydrography; the direction of their courses being, moreover, equivocal, through the want of that information, which a communication with the sea usually affords at a glance. Little as the Antients knew of the Interior Part of Africa, they appear to have understood the character of its surface; one of them comparing it to a leopard’s skin. Swift also, who loses no opportunity of being witty at the expence of mathematicians, diverts himself and his readers both with the _nakedness_ of the land, and the absurdity of the map-makers. “Geographers, in _Afric_ maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o’er unhabitable downs Place elephants, for want of towns.” The Society for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa has been fortunate in collecting much geographical information, in so early a stage of the African researches; and there is little doubt but that in a few years all the great features of this Continent (within the reach of their enquiries) may be known and described. But to accomplish this, it will be necessary that intelligent Europeans should trace some of the principal routes; as well to apportion the distances, as to establish some kind of criterion for the parole information derived from the natives. As yet, in the wide extent of near thirty degrees on a meridian, between BENIN and TRIPOLI, not one celestial observation has been taken, to determine the latitude. But as far as materials composed by a scale founded on estimated distances (that is, days journeys of caravans) may go towards the establishment of geographical positions, the itineraries made use of for constructing the new matter in the accompanying map, are less discordant than might be expected in so wide an expanse, and on the foundation of rules so vague as those which necessity has compelled me to apply. On this, however, the Reader must exercise his own judgement, after the following exposition of the _data_, and the rules by which I have determined the scale.