A long stay in our establishments of Senegal, and perhaps also, my own experience, had taught me how much this commerce, which, had so long languished, needed new markets and new connections in the interior; but to form these new connections, to impose on the distant population a tribute to our industry, new discoveries were necessary; and increased geographical knowledge was indispensable to enable the government to extend sufficient encouragement to our mercantile establishments on the coast. A strong persuasion of this necessity, of this urgent need, under which our African commerce labours, became in a manner the soul of my inquiries, particularly in a certain portion of my travels. I was convinced that our colonial and all our commercial relations must sooner or later be powerfully influenced by clear and positive information, drawn from the fountain head, and deposited with the government of a king, the zealous and enlightened protector of interests so important, and so nearly affecting, at the present period, the prosperity, and perhaps even, the internal tranquillity of the kingdom. Have I been fortunate enough to realize in this respect the wishes I had formed, the hopes which, in common with my former compatriots of Senegal, I had dared to conceive, of fulfilling this part of the task which I undertook, and of thus paying my tribute to the government of my country? Let my natural judges, with whom the fruits of my researches are deposited, and let the success of future enterprizes, incited by mine, answer this question for me. It is not for me to estimate the progress which geographical and natural science may owe to my travels. I must leave it to be appreciated by those who so worthily represent them in the capital of the civilized world, and the possession of whose knowledge and talents would have been so delightful, and above all so useful to me, when day after day I found myself alone and left to my own feeble resources in a world as yet unknown to, and unexplored by curious and scientific Europe. Armed with the knowledge and the instruments for which we are indebted to them, I might have hoped to have more fully accomplished the wishes of the Geographical Society, and to have rendered myself more deserving of the flattering and benevolent reception which it has granted me, and of the distinction and rewards which its descriminating patriotism decrees to those who record its efforts; of that Society which, with so much zeal and success, prosecutes the extension of science, and which, by the encouragement it held out to those who should explore the central regions of Africa, confirmed my opinion of the importance of such travels, and determined me in the plan which I had already formed of one day attempting the discovery of Timbuctoo.