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 158 later on, again visited the Niger from Benin. Altogether these two travellers added some two thousand miles of route to our knowledge of West Africa. In 1826-27 Timbuctoo was at last visited by two Europeans—Major Laing in the former year, who was murdered there; and a young Frenchman, René Caillié, in the latter. His account aroused great interest, and Tennyson began his poetic career by a prize-poem on the subject of the mysterious African capital.

It was not till 1850 that the work of Denham and Clapperton was again taken up by Barth, who for five years explored the whole country to the west of Lake Chad, visiting Timbuctoo, and connecting the lines of route of Clapperton and Caillié. What he did for the west of Lake Chad was accomplished by Nachtigall east of that lake in Darfur and Wadai, in a journey which likewise took five years (1869-74). Of recent years political interests have caused numerous expeditions, especially by the French to connect their possessions in Algeria and Tunis with those on the Gold Coast and on the Senegal.

The next stage in African exploration is connected with the name of the man to whom can be traced practically the whole of recent discoveries. By his tact in dealing with the natives, by his calm pertinacity and dauntless courage, succeeded in opening up the entirely unknown districts of Central Africa. Starting from the Cape in 1849, he worked his way northward to the Zambesi, and then to Lake Dilolo, and after five years' wandering reached the western coast of Africa at Loanda. Then retracing his steps to the Zambesi again, he followed its course to its mouth on the east coast, thus for