The latter part of the eighteenth century marks the commencement of the modern period of African exploration. So far all African enterprises had been instigated by governments for national aggrandisement, or by merchants with commercial objects in view. Early Portuguese discovery was a type of the one; the British expedition to the Gambia an example of the other. But now the time had come when, dissociated from both, African exploration was to start forth on a new line of unselfish research, and accomplish what governments and commercial communities had failed in doing.
To the African Association belongs the honour of inaugurating this new and more glorious era. Lord Rawdon, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, Sir Joseph Banks, the Bishop of Landaff, Mr. Beaufoy, and Mr. Stuart, were the first managers of this Association, whose objects were the promotion of discovery in Africa, and the spread of information, commercial, political, and scientific, regarding the still sadly unknown continent.
At first the Association devoted their attention to Northern Africa, and in a short time were instrumental in gathering together much reliable and valuable information as to the Mohammedan states of that region.
Their inquiries, however, were not to be bounded by the Sahara any more than the first onrush of the Mohammedan torrent.
The routes of the large caravans to the Sudan were made a subject of investigation, and the Arab writers laid under contribution to satisfy the demand for more light.
To the Niger especially their inquiries were turned, in the hope of solving the mystery of its true position and its course. Where did it commence and where did it end? was the double problem which puzzled the eighteenth century geographers more even than the question of the source of the Nile.
Not content with inquiries which only landed them in perplexities and endless discussion, they resolved to send out explorers. To such they offered no monetary inducements, no hope of tangible reward. The honour and glory of discovery were to be their prize: the Association at the same time undertaking, for their part, to defray the traveller’s expenses.
The inducements offered were quite sufficient. Admirably qualified men presented themselves in greater numbers than were needed, so that the chief difficulty of the Association was to choose rather than to seek.
The first of the heroic band of African pioneers was Ledyard, already a traveller of the most varied experience. His mission was to cross the African Continent from the Nile to the Atlantic. At the threshold of his enterprise he perished of fever in 1788.