(——) is a man to whom the science of geography is so much indebted, that we are almost ashamed to confess that we know not his Christian name, the place where he was born, or the age at which he died. He had been a captain in the 69th regiment, and in the year 1779 had acted under General Rooke as fort major in the island of Goree. Hearing, some time in the year 1789, or perhaps earlier, that the African association wished to penetrate to the Niger by the way of Gambia, he expressed his willingness to undertake the execution of their plan. For this task he was peculiarly fitted. A natural intrepidity of character, which seemed inaccessible to fear, and an easy flow of constitutional good humour, which even the roughest accidents of life were not able to subdue, formed him for exploring the country of relentless savages; whilst the darkness of his complexion was such, that he scarcely differed in appearance from the Moors of Barbary, whose dress in travelling he intended to assume.

His instructions from the association were, to ascertain the course, and, if possible, the rise and termination of the Niger; and after visiting the cities of Tomboctoo and Houssa (see these articles in this Supplement), to return by the way of the desert, or by any other route which the circumstances of his situation at the time might recommend to his choice.

Having left England on the 16th of October 1790, he arrived at the entrance of the Gambia on the 10th of November, and was kindly received by the king of Barra, who remembered the visit which the Major had formerly paid him from the island of Goree; and who now, in return for a small present of the value of 20s. cheerfully tendered protection and affiance as far as his dominion or influence extended.

An offer from the master of an English vessel employed in the trade of the river, enabled the Major, and the interpreter he had engaged on the coast, to proceed to Junkiconda; where he purchased from the natives a horse and five asses, and prepared to pass with the merchandise which constituted his travelling fund, to Medina, the capital of the small kingdom of Wooli.

Fortunately for him, a few words, accidentally dropped by a negro woman in the Mandingo language, of which he had hitherto acquired a superficial knowledge, excited suspicions of danger; and gave him intimations of a conspiracy which the negro mistresses of the traders, who feared that the Major's expedition portended the ruin of their commerce, had formed against his life. Afraid, therefore, of travelling by the customary route, he availed himself of the opportunity which the dry season and the tide of ebb afforded of swimming his horse and his asses across the stream; and having by those means avoided the parties who were sent for his destruction, he proceeded with much difficulty on the southern side of the river, to that district of Cantor which is opposite to the kingdom of Wooli. There he repassed the Gambia, and sent a messenger to inform the king of his arrival, and to request a guard for his protection.

An escort, commanded by the king's son, was immediately dispatched; and the Major, whose intended pretence had been announced, was kindly received, and hospitably entertained at Medina.

The town is situated at the distance of about 900 miles by water from the entrance of the Gambia; and the country adjacent abounds in corn and cattle, and generally speaking, in all things that are requisite for the support, or essential to the comfort of life. Two different sects of religion distinguish rather than divide the people; the one is composed of the professors of the Mahomedan faith, who are called Buhreens; the other, and, it is said, the more numerous, consists of those who, denying the mission of the prophet, avow themselves deists, and from their custom of drinking with freedom the liquors of which he prohibited the use, are denominated Sonikees or drinking men.

In a letter from Major Houghton to his wife, which a seaman preferred from the wreck of a vessel in which the dispatches to the society were lost, the Major indulged the reflections that naturally arose from his past and present situations. A bilious fever had attacked him soon after his arrival in the Gambia; but his health was now unimpaired—a conspiracy had assailed his life; but the danger was passed—the journey from Junkiconda had exposed him to innumerable hardships; but he was now in possession of every gratification which the kindness of the king or the hospitality of the people could enable him to enjoy. Delighted with the healthiness of the country, the abundance of the game, the security with which he made his excursions on horseback, and above all, with the advantages that would attend the erection of a fort on the salubrious and beautiful hill of Fattentanda, where the English once had a factory, he expresses his earnest hope that his wife will hereafter accompany him to a place in which an income of ten pounds a year will support them in affluence; and that she will participate with him in the pleasure of rapidly acquiring that vast wealth which he imagines its commerce will afford.

While, in this manner, he indulged the dream of future prosperity, and with still more ample satisfaction contemplated the eclat of the discoveries for which he was preparing, but in the pursuit of which he was retarded by the absence of the native merchant, for whose company he had engaged, he found himself suddenly involved in unexpected and irresistible misfortune. A fire, the progress of which was accelerated by the bamboo roofs of the buildings, consumed with such rapidity the house in which he lived, and with it the greatest part of Medina, that several of the articles of merchandise, to which he trusted for the expenses of his journey, were destroyed; and to add to his affliction, his faithful interpreter, who had made an insufficient attempt on his goods, disappeared with his horse and three of his asses; a trade gun which he had purchased on the river soon afterwards burnt in his hands, and and wounded him in the face and arm; and though the hospitable kindness of the people of the neighbouring town of Barraconda, who cheerfully opened their houses to more than a thousand families, whose tenements the flames had consumed, was anxiously exerted for his relief; yet the loss of his goods, and the consequent diminution of his travelling fund, were evils which no kindness could remove.

It was in this situation that, wearied with the fruitless hope of the return of the native trader, with whom he had contracted for his journey, he resolved to avail himself of the company of another slave merchant, who was lately arrived from the south, and was now on his way to his farm on the frontier of the kingdom of Bambouk. Accordingly, on the evening of the 8th of May, he proceeded by moonlight and on foot, with his two allies, which the servants of the slave merchant offered to drive with their own, and which carried the wreck of his fortune; and journeying by a north-east course, arrived on the fifth day at the uninhabited frontier which separates the kingdoms of Woolli and Bondou.

He had now passed the former limit of European discovery; and while he remarked with pleasure the numerous and extensive population of this unvisited country, he observed, that the long black hair and copper complexion of the inhabitants announced their Arab origin. They are a branch of that numerous tribe which, under the appellation of Foolies, have overspread a considerable part of Senegambia; and their religious distinctions are similar to those which prevail in the kingdom of Woolli.

A journey of 150 miles, which was often interrupted by the engagements of his companion, who traded in every town, conducted him to the banks of the Faleme, the south-western boundary of the kingdom of Bambouk. Its stream was exhausted by the advanced state of the dry season, and its bed exhibited an appearance of flate intermixed with gravel.

Bambouk is inhabited by a nation, whose woolly hair and fable complexions bespeak them of the negro race, but whose character seems to be varied in proportion as the country rises from the plains of its western division to the highlands of the east. Distinguished into sects, like the people of Woolli and Bondou, by the different tenets of Mahomedans and Deists, they are equally at peace with each other, and mutually tolerate the respective opinions they condemn.

Agriculture and pasturage, as in the negro states on the coast of the Atlantic, are their chief occupations; but the progress which they have made in the manufacturing arts, is such as enables them to smelt their iron ore, and to furnish the several instruments of husbandry and war. Cloth of cotton, on the other hand, which in this part of Africa seems to be the universal wear, they appear to weave by a difficult and laborious process; and to these two circumstances it is probably owing, that with them the measure of value is not, as on the coast, a bar of iron, but a piece of cloth.

The common vegetable food of the inhabitants appears to consist of rice; their animal, of beef or mutton. A liquor, prepared from fermented honey, supplies the want of wine, and furnishes the means of those festive entertainments that constitute the luxury of the court of Bambouk.

On the Major's arrival at the banks of the river Fa. Houghton-leme, he found that the war which had lately subsisted between the kings of Bondou and Bambouk was terminated by the cession to the former of the conquests he had made in the low land part of the dominions of the latter; and that the king of Bondou had taken up his residence in the territory which he had thus obtained.

The Major hastened to pay his respects to the victorious prince, and to offer a similar present to that which the kings of Barra and Woolli had cheerfully accepted; but to his great disappointment an ungracious reception, a sudden permission to leave the present, and a stern command to repair to the frontier town from which he came, were followed by an intimation that he should hear again from the king. Accordingly, on the next day, the king's son, accompanied by an armed attendance, entered the house in which the Major had taken up his temporary dwelling, and demanded a sight of all the articles he had brought. From these the prince selected whatever commodities were best calculated to gratify his avarice, or please his eye; and to the Major's great disappointment, took from him the blue coat in which he hoped to make his appearance on the day of his introduction to the Sultan of Tombuctoo. Happily, however, a variety of articles were successfully concealed, and others of inferior value were not considered as sufficiently attractive.

The Major now waited with impatience for the performance of the promise which the slave merchant, with whom he had travelled from the Gambia, had made of proceeding with him to Tombuctoo; but as the merchant was obliged to spend a few days at his rice farm on the banks of the Faleme, the Major accepted an invitation to the hospitality of his roof. There he observed, with extreme regret, that the apprehension of a scarcity of grain had alarmed his friend; and that, dreading the consequences of leaving his family in so perilous a season to the chances of the market, he had determined on collecting, before his departure, a sufficient supply for their support. This argument for delay was too forcible to be opposed; and therefore the Major resolved to employ the interval in visiting the king of Bambouk, who resided in the town of Ferbanna, on the eastern side of the Serra Coles, or river of Gold. Unfortunately, however, by a mistake of his guide, he lost his way in one of the vast woods of the country; and as the rainy season, which commenced with the new moon on the 4th of July, and was introduced with a weetly wind, was now set in, the ground on which he passed the night was deluged with rain, while all the sky exhibited that continual blaze of lightning, which in those latitudes often accompanies the tornado. Distressed by the fever, which began to assail him, the Major continued his route at the break of day, and waded with difficulty through the river Serra Coles, which was swollen by the floods, and on the banks of which the alligators were barking in the temporary sun-shine.

Scarcely had he reached Ferbanna when his fever rose to a height that rendered him delirious; but the strength of his constitution, and the kindness of the negro family to which his guide had conducted him, surmounted the dangerous disease; and in the friendly reception which was given him by the king of Bambouk, he he soon forgot the hardships of his journey. The king informed him, that the losses he had lately sustained in the contest with the armies of Bondou, arose from his having exhausted his ammunition; for, as the French traders, who formerly supplied his troops, had abandoned the fort of St Joseph, and, either from the dryness of the last season, or from other causes, had defeated the navigation of the upper part of the Senegal, he had no means of replenishing his stores; whereas his enemy, the king of Bondou, continued to receive from the British, through the channel of his agents on the Gambia, a constant and adequate supply.

Major Houghton availed himself of the opportunity which this conversation afforded, to suggest to the king the advantage of encouraging the British to open a trade by the way of his dominions to the populous cities on the banks of the Niger.

Such was the state of the negociation, when all business was suspended by the arrival of the annual presents of Mead, which the people of Bambouk, at that season of the year, are accustomed to send to their king; and which are always followed by an intertropical festival of several successive days.

In the interim, the Major received, and gladly accepted, the proposal of an old and respectable merchant of Bambouk; who offered to conduct him on horseback to Tombuctoo, and to attend him back to the Gambia. A premium of £125, to be paid on the Major's return to the British factory at Junkieconda, was fixed by agreement as the merchant's future reward. It was further determined, that the Major should be furnished with a horse in exchange for his two asses; and should convert into gold dust, as the most portable fund, the scanty remains of the goods he had brought from Great Britain.

This plan was much approved by the king, to whom the merchant was personally known; and who gave to the Major at parting, as a mark of his esteem, and a pledge of his future friendship, a present of a purse of gold. With an account of these preparations the Major closed his last dispatch, of the 24th July 1791; and the African association entertained for some time languid hopes of his reaching Tombuctoo. Alas! these hopes were blasted. Mr Park, who succeeded him in the arduous task of exploring that savage country, learned, that having reached Jarra (See that article in this Supplement), he there met with some Moors who were travelling to Tifheet (a place by the salt pits in the Great Desert, ten days journey to the northward) to purchase salt; and that the Major, at the expense of some tobacco and a muleteer, engaged them to convey him thither. It is impossible (says Mr Park) to form any other opinion on this determination, than that the Moors intentionally deceived him with a view to rob, and leave him in the Desert. At the end of two days he suspected their treachery, and insisted on returning to Jarra. Finding him persist in this determination, the Moors robbed him of every thing which he possessed, and went off with their camels. Being thus deserted, he returned to a watering place, in possession of the Moors, called Farra; and being by these feeling wretches refused food, which he had not tasted for some days, he sunk at last under his misfortunes. Whether he actually died of hunger, or was murdered outright by the savage Mahometans, Mr Park could not learn; but he was shewn at a distance the spot in the woods, to which his body was dragged, and where it was left—a prey to corruption.

Thus perished, in the prime of life, Major Houghton, a man whose travels enlarged the limits of European discovery, and whose accounts of the places which he visited were strongly confirmed by the intelligence which the British consul at Tunis collected from the Barbary merchants.