The two navigators, French and English, have each fairly earned a place in the history of the discovery of the Australian coasts, and it is unnecessary to praise one at the expense of the other.
In the preface to the second edition of his "Voyage de la Corvette Australis" which was revised and corrected by Louis de Freycinet, Péron has given each his due meed of praise; and to his able work we refer all readers who are interested in the question.
CHAPTER II.
AFRICAN EXPLORERS.
Shaw in Algeria and Tunis—Hornemann in Fezzan—Adamson at Senegal—Houghton in Senegambia—Mungo Park and his two voyages to the Djoliba, or Niger—Sego—Timbuctoo—Sparmann and Lavaillant at the Cape, at Natal, and in the Interior—Lacerda in Mozambique, and at Cazembé—Bruce in Abyssinia—Sources of the Blue Nile—Tzana Lake—Browne's journey in Darfur.
An Englishman named Thomas Shaw, a chaplain in Algeria, had profited by his twelve years' stay in Barbary to gather together a rich collection of natural curiosities, medals, inscriptions, and various objects of interest. Although he himself never visited the southern portion of Algeria, he availed himself of the facts he was able to obtain from well-informed travellers, who imparted to him a mass of information concerning the little known and scarcely visited country. He published a book in two large quarto volumes, which embraced the whole of ancient Numidia.
It was rather the work of a learned man than the account of a traveller, and it must be admitted that the learning is occasionally ill-directed. But in spite of its shortcomings as a geographical history, it had a large value at the time of its publication, and no one could have been better situated than Shaw for collecting such an enormous mass of material.