and in seven days reached Kabra, on a northern creek of the river, whence, in a couple of hours, he entered Timbuktú. - The splendour and importance of Timbuktú, though long since nearly extinguished by revolutions in the channels of African commerce, consequent on the growth of the maritime trade of Guinea, still survive in the writings of geographers and travellers. So long as all the produce of Guinea, gold, pepper, and ivory, was brought to Europe across the desert, Timbuktú flourished as a chief emporium of the trade. But as the trade of the coasts developed, that of the desert necessarily declined, and doubtless is destined to sink still further, if the traffic of the great rivers, the Kowára and Bénuwé be only perseveringly cherished, till the Africans become habituated to the new markets, and resort to them without fear of disappointment. But though much sunk and impoverished, Timbuktú still retains traces of its early grandeur. Its chief mosque, 278 feet in length and 206 in breadth, with nine naves, is a very remarkable edifice to be met with on the frontiers of Negroland and the great desert. Here Dr. Barth placed himself under the protection of a liberal chief, named El Bakay. During the latter part of his journey, and while near the headquarters of Felláta fanaticism, he had, under the guidance and tutelage of a trader, named Weled Ammer el Walátí, feigned himself a Mohammedan; but in the commercial capital of Negroland, his true character was soon discovered, and a party arose, demanding vehemently the death or expulsion of the infidel. It is probable that these religious pretences had no other object than extortion; but being persisted in for the pleasure of excitement, they kept the traveller in constant alarm during his seven months' residence, and fill his pages with tedious and disagreeable details. At length, escorted by El Bakay, he was enabled to leave the town at the end of March, 1854, and slowly marched along the left bank of the river, till, at a place now called Gawo, he reached the site of the ancient capital of the Songhay empire, Kagho or Gogo, where a tower, seventy feet high, like a truncated obelisk, still marks the place of the principal mosque. Soon after crossing the river, he travelled along its right bank to Say, where he came again on his former route. The journey from Say, directly across to Tímbuktú and thence back again along the banks of the river, was a very remarkable and bold undertaking, though not so productive of information as might have been expected. Of the interior of Guinea in the course of our author's route, and of the ramifications of the great river where it turns northwards, we still know little more than may be derived from the itineraries which he and others have collected. His historical inquiries, during his protracted residence in Tímbuktú, fortunately led him to the discovery of Ahmed Baba's History of the Songhay Empire; but African history learned from African sources must ever remain dark and uncertain. It can hardly be doubted that the rise and early prosperity of Tímbuktú were due to its position near the great navigable river, where advancing far northwards it abridged the march across the desert; and it is natural to suppose that the great emporium of Negroland, which politically preceded and was replaced by Tímbuktú, had similar advantages of situation. Indeed it is expressly stated that Ghanah (the capital of Negroland in the eleventh century) stood near a great river which was thence called the river of Ghanah, and we know that this capital was but five days from Samakanda on the opposite or eastern side of the river. It would be impossible within our limits to convey an adequate idea of the great amount of interesting and novel information scattered in details throughout these volumes. It is true that the reader who would find this treasure must seek it patiently, but his pains will ultimately be rewarded with the fruits of unexampled exertions in the heart of the African continent. Dr. Barth's journeys, taken together, amount perhaps to 6000 miles. From Tripoli in the north to Yola in the south he travelled over above twenty-three degrees of latitude. From Baghírmi in the east to Tímbuktú in the west, about nineteen degrees of longitude. To him indisputably belongs the discovery of the Bénuwé, a navigable river, easily accessible from all the more fertile and cultivated parts of Negroland, and likely to become, at no distant day, a principal channel of intercourse with the African continent. To say nothing of the rare good fortune of the traveller who, after five years of toil in the heart of Africa, returns home with health and spirits which enable him to write a copious narrative of his labours, Dr. Barth's discovery of the Bénuwé, the importance of which can hardly be over-estimated; his indomitable perseverance exhibited in the extent of his travels; his learning and great industry, fully entitle him to rank among the first, if not as the very first, of African travellers. ART. III.-1. On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries: being the Substance of two Papers read before the Philological Society. By RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D., Dean of Westminster. London: 1857. 2. Proposal for the Publication of a new English Dictionary by the Philological Society. London: 1859. To O a man who reflects upon the common operations of human life, which are some of the most wonderful phenomena of our existence, nothing is more astonishing than the origin, the structure, the history, and the effect of Words. Those lifeless signs, which carry to the ear or to the eye the infinite varieties of thought, seem to have acquired a vitality of their own. A mechanism so complicated that it adapts itself to every conceivable motion of the mind, and conveys the same impression to the minds of others a mechanism so various that every nation and almost every province of the globe employs it in a different manner, seems, nevertheless, to acknowledge no author and to have grown up like the productions of nature. The powers of the human intellect have in fact given birth to the signs and forms of expression they require to convey and perpetuate their meanings. The subtle inflections of grammar which frame the organisation of words, the combinations of syntax which array them in language, the indescribable nicety of use which discriminates every shade of intention, all pass in the habitual and almost unconscious exercise of the faculty of speech, though they embrace a science of extreme depth and completeness. The rude tongue of a savage awakens the curiosity and sometimes instructs the mind of a philosopher; but as we rise in the scale of nations and of beings, from the uncouth sounds which express the desires of a Patagonian to the lofty periods of cultivated oratory, the power of words expands, until it attains regions above the present range of our capacity. It designates, as Novalis has finely said, God with three letters and the Infinite with as many syllables — though the ideas conveyed by those words are immeasurably beyond the utmost grasp of man. In every relation of life, at every moment of our active being, in everything we think or do, it is on the meaning and inflection of a Word that the direction of our thoughts and the expression of our will turns. The soundness of our judgments, the clearness of our faith and of our reason, the influence we exert over others, depend mainly on a true knowledge of the value of words. Education begins with it; the experience of life promotes it; but no life is long enough to complete it; and there is not a day of life on which he who carefully observes the processes of language may not add something to his store. Hence all that concerns the culture of language is of infinite importance. The care bestowed on it is bestowed on the most perfect instrument of the mind, without which all other gifts are valueless; and though grammars and dictionaries are not to be classed amongst the most attractive collections of knowledge, they do in fact comprise everything else from the inspired diction of religion or poetry to the records of history and the phraseology of daily life. Take for example that profession which may be said to sustain the fabric of society by the exposition of the Law. In the ordinary relations of society and in the pages of literature, words represent impressions and ideas, but in legal instruments they are things; they dispose of property, liberty, and life; they convey and determine the paramount will of the legislature; and they become the masters of our social being. Accordingly the main duty of those who are concerned in the administration of justice between man and man is the precise definition and correct application of terms; sometimes indeed in the more contracted and technical sense which the Courts have assigned to them, but often on the broader principles of philology or vernacular use. The Court of Chancery more especially, or any other court of construction, is perpetually engaged in the arduous and irksome task of finding syntax and signification in documents not unfrequently devoid of either; and, to say the truth, the statutes at large are not altogether excluded from this unintelligible category. Then it is that the lexicographer exercises, through his work, one of his highest functions; it is his authority which traces the path Justice herself must tread, and by the barrier of a word arrests the arm of the law. How often in moments of legal perplexity have we seen judges of the most scholarlike attainments and the most subtle faculties, anxious to assist the memory and the judgment by a reference to Johnson, Todd, Forcellini, or even the great dictionaries of the continental languages! How much ingenious argument may hang on a shade of meaning, to be determined objectively, without reference to the fancied intentions of the legislator or the writer! And how valueless would a dictionary of the English language be which should fail to decide these questions with some degree of authority, based on sound philological principles and the usage of the best authors! The greatest controversies, the hardest problems, the keenest negotiations, the most momentous decisions turn at last upon the meaning of a Word; and not unfrequently a clear knowledge of language would resolve or avoid difficulties which the passions of men inflame with all the violence of strife. For if language is the mechanism by which our social relations are governed and maintained, that science and that authority which governs and maintains language itself has a paramount influence over thought and action in the world. Yet, it must be confessed, an accurate knowledge and use of the language we ourselves employ is not a common acquirement; and the books of reference to which we have recourse to determine a doubtful point in the history or value of a word are by no means perfect or infallible. No living tongue can boast of a complete dictionary, and the most cursory observation will satisfy any man versed in English literature of the numerous imperfections of all the dictionaries we possess. Languages no longer spoken have this advantage, that their literature is determined and their structure finished; but every language in actual use among men is subject to such mutations of fashion, and to so many causes insensibly affecting it, that the enumeration of its words is a task continually to be renewed. A dictionary a century old is necessarily a work out of date, not only from the changes the language has actually undergone in that interval, but from the increasing means of criticism applied to its origin, its cognate branches, and its history. In the little essay which is now before us, the deficiencies of the present dictionaries of our language are pointed out seriatim, and discussed by one to whom English philology is more deeply indebted than to any other critic of the age, and from whom all such observations must come with peculiar force. Dr. Trench has accomplished the arduous work of rendering a dry subject popular by his various publications, and Englishmen in general are under no small obligation to him for making them better aware of the wealth of their language. He has done this both by teaching and by example. Although, like the late Professor Blunt of Cambridge, fully master of all the copiousness and elegance of the languages of classical antiquity, he nevertheless delights, as the Professor did, in the homely vigour of our own Saxon. In his examination of the defects of our present dictionaries he has doubtless from the first had an eye to the construction of a new one. If not solely, yet in great measure by his exertions, considerable preparation has already been made for a new dictionary, by a division of labour upon a scale corresponding in grandeur to the importance of such a work. A list of books |