Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/152

 Futa-Jallon highlands, whence the running waters flow in divergent beds towards the encircling main streams. The whole region, to which in its widest sense may be given the name of Senegambia, including the Saharian slope of the Senegal, and even some dried-up basins sloping southward, has a total area approximately estimated at 280,000 square miles. Sufficient data are still lacking to give any trustworthy estimate of the population, so that the current calculations naturally present the greatest discrepancies. If any dependence could be placed on the missionary De Barros' computation of fourteen millions, we should have a proportion of fifty to the square mile, a minimum ratio for a fertile and well-watered land, where the birth-rate is high and where the population rapidly increases in times of peace. Yet the data supplied by the European possessions, taken in connection with the reports of the most competent travellers, would seem to show that the actual population is far less than had been conjectured from the density of the villages in some of the coast districts, falling in fact to considerably under three millions.

Over five centuries have passed since Europeans first had any direct or hearsay knowledge of Senegambia. Apart from the Periplus of Hanno, J. Ferrer's expedition of 1346, in search of the "river of gold," and the voyages of the Dieppe navigators, begun in 1364, it is certain that through their friendly relations with Tunis the Venetians were already, in the fifteenth century, acquainted with the name of Timbuktu and other Sudanese towns. On the Catalonian map of 1375 are figured the inhabited lands which stretch south from the Sahara, and two names especially had become famous, Ginyia (Gineua, Ghenni, Ginea, Guinoye), the city rich in gold, identified by most geographers with Jenné, and the "river of gold," which is the Senegal. To reach "Guinea" and to discover the river of gold was the great ambition of navigators in those days. Béthencourt, conqueror of the eastern Canaries, had "the intention of opening the route to the river of gold" at "one hundred and fifty French leagues from the Cape of Bugader." But the systematic exploration of these mysterious lands was still delayed for another half century.

In 1434 the Portuguese Gil Eannes at last penetrated beyond the formidable reefs of Cape Bojador, and in 1443 his countryman Muno Tristam doubled Cape Blanco, and coasted the mainland for twenty-five leagues thence southwards. He brought back a few wretched fishermen captured on the Arguin Islands, and the sight of these slaves sufficed to rekindle the zeal of the shrewd traders, who were beginning to reproach Prince Henry for the costly and useless expeditions along the Saharian coast. Quite a little fleet sailed from Lasros in 1444 for the Arguin Archipelago, and its operations turned out greatly to the profit of the shippers. "It pleased God, rewarder of good deeds, to compensate the navigators for the many hardships undergone in His service, and to award them at last some triumph and glory for their sufferings, and compensation for their outlays, for they possessed themselves of one hundred and sixty-five heads of men, women, and children."