The calamitous termination of Park's second journey might have been thought sufficient to damp the ardour of even the most enterprising; but the impulse of curiosity, and the encouragement of hope, still prompted many to face the dangers of a tropical climate, and of a journey through suspicious and bigotted nations. In 1798, Frederick Hornemann, a German of good education, was engaged by the African Association to attempt to penetrate to the Niger from the eastward. In September of that year he joined the caravan from Cairo to Fezzan. Of this ancient caravan route he has given an excellent description. From Morzouk he paid a short visit to Tripoli, and then returned to the capital of Fezzan, with the intention of pursuing his journey into the interior. But after his departure from Morzouk no further intelligence was received from him. Major Denham learned that he penetrated as far as Nyffe, on the Niger, where he died of sickness brought on by the climate.

The great object of European research in the interior of Africa was first visited, in 1811, by a seaman named Adams, who, being shipwrecked on the African coast, was taken prisoner by the Moors, and, after a variety of adventures in his servitude, was at length carried to Tombuctoo. He remained there for six months, when he was again carried across the desert by the Moors, and ransomed by the British consul at Mogadore. After residing some time in London, in a state of extreme poverty, his adventures reached the ears of a gentleman who took much interest in African affairs.

The discovery of a north-west passage had “been always a favourite object with the British nation; and the voyages to which it gave birth, such as those of Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, Hudson, and others, exhibiting as they do incontestable proofs of perseverance and great nautical skill operating with slender means, reflect, perhaps, more credit on those who undertook them, than many voyages which were attended with brilliant discoveries. When the late war was at an end, and the British government had time to employ some portion of its marine in the labours of peace, it was determined to send an expedition to explore Baffin's Bay, in the hope that the examination of the shores of that great sea might detect the long-wished for north-west passage. For this purpose the Isabella and the Alexander were fitted out, and placed under the command of captain Ross, an officer well experienced in the navigation of northern seas: the Alexander was commanded by lieutenant Parry, a young officer whose name has since become honourably associated with north-western discoveries.

The ships put to sea on the 18th of April, 1818. On their arrival on the western coast of Greenland they found the ice abundant; and the governor of one of the Danish settlements told, them, that for some years he had found that the winters were growing uniformly more severe. From observations made at the Island of Wygat, it appeared that this coast was erroneously laid down in all the charts; the error in longitude in those of the admiralty amounting to more than 5°.

There are no objects in nature which mankind, in the early stages of society, are more prone to regard with gratitude and admiration than great rivers. The fame of the Ganges was widely spread abroad even in the earliest times; and it is no wonder that the British, when they became masters of India, should view with peculiar curiosity a river which was to the natives an object of the profoundest veneration. Of its sources nothing certain could be known; in most maps they were placed far to the north in Tatary, as it was thought necessary that the fountains of so great a stream should be situated at an immense distance from its mouth. A few only were disposed to think that it had its rise on the south side of the Himalyeh or Snowy Mountains, which form the northern boundary of India.

To decide this question, lieutenant Webb, accompanied by captains Raper and Hearsay, was despatched in 1808, with directions to proceed to Gangoutri, where he was to view the narrow of the Ganges called the Cow's Mouth, a spot held sacred by the Hindoos. They arrived at Haridwar on the 1st of April, and had the pleasure of viewing the immense crowds which are assembled on the plains here every twelfth year by the double motives of commerce and religion. At this point merchants arrive from all parts of India, as well as from Cashmere, and the countries beyond the Punjab and the Himalyeh: the numbers assembled at the fair was supposed by the British officers not to fall short of 2,000,000.