If this paper were the first on African questions read before the Royal Asiatic Society, I should have to apologize for trespassing, but as our learned Honorary Secretary, Mr. Robert Oust, noticed,1 there is no African Society, and the Royal Asiatic Society has liberally opened its door to those who may bring information about the mysterious continent. For some time Africa has attracted so much attention that the Society in thus acting has been true to its scientific mission, and its Transactions contain already several most important papers on this interesting quarter of the globe.