If my knowledge of the African Arabic can be of any service in giving you the signification or correct orthography of African words, in the event of your favouring the public with a future edition of your New Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, any information that I can communicate to you will be very much at your service; and you may in this and in any other respect that regards Africa freely command my services.
Observations on an Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Africa, by the late John Leyden, M.D., by Hugh Murray, Esq. F.R.S.E.
TO HUGH MURRAY ESQ. F.R.S.E.
London, Feb. 1818.
Sir,
You have certainly rendered to your country a service, in the publication of "The Travels and Discoveries in Africa, of the late John Leyden," the perusal of which has been to me a fund of instruction and entertainment; it is a most valuable work, and such a one as was wanted by the literary world, inasmuch as the judicious collection of the matter forms a most valuable epitome of African knowledge, collecting what was before distributed into many folios.
I anticipate that the information in this work, communicated to the public, will soon be circulated, and you will be called upon to supply a second edition. In the mean time, I take the liberty of submitting to your perusal a few cursory observations which I have made during the perusal of it, on the accuracy of which you may assuredly rely. These apply for the most part to Arabian words, which have been by the moderns, as well as the ancients variously corrupted and mutilated. Desirous (for the information of those who really seek after African knowledge) that this book will pass through many editions. I am, &c.
James Grey Jackson.
Cursory Observations.
"The Ludaia, are not inhabitants of Ludama, they are a very numerous and warlike tribe of Arabs, inhabiting the Sahara, of which there are two or three emigrations or encampments in different and distant parts of Sahara; the Emperor of Marocco has some thousands of them in his army, and they are esteemed (next to the negroes, called Abeed Seedy Bukaree) his best troops. See the Map of the tracts from Fas and Arguin to Timbuctoo, facing page 1. Lat. N. 24°. long. W. 3°.