has of late proceeded, the domain of imagination is likely to be very speedily contracted within such narrow limits as to leave our theorists no disputable ground to occupy, and our adventurous travellers no more new kingdoms to discover. Timbuctoo, that golden city of African romance, the nucleus of so long a train of brilliant exaggerations, has been seen, not only by poor Major Laing, who did not return to tell his tale, but by Monsieur Caillé, who will tell us all about it. And when the secret is out, we shall find, that this splendid metropolis contains a tolerably numerous assemblage of mud huts, with two or three indifferent mosques; that it is a second-rate Mourzouk or Kouka, where salt is wealth, shells are money, slaves are cheaper than tobacco and muskets, and the fate with which Midas was threatened, is almost realised by the poorer class, who find food less plentiful than gold. There are no gold-mines, however, it appears, in the immediate vicinity of Timbuctoo, which is indebted for all its importance as an emporium, to its situation on the verge of the desert, at the northern limit of the negro population, and the extreme point to which the caravans from Morocco and Barbary advance. As soon as other and securer channels for commerce shall be opened, its consequence, which seems to have been long on the decline, will be annihilated.

But the Niger-will this unique and peculiar stream' ever be reduced to the rank of things trite and familiar? Will all its interest vanish, like that of some dark, intricate passage in pyramid or catacomb, when we know whither it leads?-Shall we have nothing then left to furnish matter for Mr. Barrow's entertaining reviews and editorial labours, but the North Pole or New Holland?-no other field of adventure for our Lyons, and Denhams, and Clappertons? Such an idea is almost sufficient to deter us from attempting to dispel any illusion which may yet hang over the subject; and we ought rather to be thankful, perhaps, to the inventor of a new hypothesis. Before we close our remarks, however, we shall attempt to shew, that, without sending our travellers on a wild-goose chase after Sir Rufane Donkin's waterless Nile, there is much that remains for them to ascertain and explore.

The present Writer is quite correct in remarking, that no stress can be laid upon the mere name of Nile or Niger. There are Niles and Nigers, blue rivers and black rivers, and great rivers, in all countries and languages. The Indus is a Nile, and is still so called by the Arabs. On the other hand, the river of Egypt was called Sihor and Melas, i. e. Black River, by the ancients. We have the same appellation in the various forms of Rio Negro, Rio Preto, Kara-Su, Black River, and Blackwater. Sir Rufane seems to imagine, that the word Niger is not Latin, because Ptolemy writes it Nyug; and he supposes,

that the names Geir and Ni-Geir were given to the two rivers by the natives, and adopted by Ptolemy, just as Quolla is by us. But we must be allowed to question whether the Alexandrian Geographer knew any thing about the native names; and it is clear, that the Niger was known by that appellation to the Romans, long before he flourished. It is also evident, that, whether the country has taken its name from the river which waters it, or from the complexion of the inhabitants, it has always been known under the name of Black Land, and Nigritia seems only a translation of the Arabic Soudan. The river itself bears all sorts of appellations, but having mostly for their common import, the Great River. No difficulty, however, one would think, could arise, in identifying it as the only great river in Central Africa which has an easterly course. But a question may be raised as to what was the Niger of the ancients,-in particular, of Ptolemy. This Geographer, after observing that all the rivers between the Salathus and the Massa, flow westward into the ocean, goes on to speak of the Geir and the Nigeir, apparently, as exceptions. The latter river, he says,

⚫ joining Mount Mandrus and Mount Thala, makes the lake Nigrites in long. 15° E. (corresponding to 10° W. of Greenwich) and 18° N.*; and towards the N. it has two branches upon Mount Sagapola and Mount Usargola; towards the E. it has one branch, which is (or makes) the Libyan Lake, whose position is 35° E. (equal to 10° E. of Greenwich), and 16° 30′ N. To the S., one branch or source above the river Daras, according to two positions taken, of which the medium is 25° E. (which corresponds to the meridian of Greenwich).'

p. 76. And this is all', adds Sir Rufane, that Ptolemy says of the Ni-Geir!' A tolerably plain indication that his knowledge was but very limited on the subject, and that of its ultimate course he was ignorant. But let us first attend to what is said respecting its origin. Adopting the present Writer's explanation of the expression (ETSEUYVEUWV), we must understand Ptolemy as saying, that the Niger has several heads, one of which, apparently the most westerly, has its sources in Mounts Mandrus and Thala; and that by this head-stream, or head-streams, was formed the lake Nigrites, in lat. 18° N. and long. 10° W. But this would be in the heart of the Sahara, to the N. of the Senegal. Nor will the case be materially mended, if we remove the lake seven degrees eastward, to correspond to long. 15° E. of the island of Ferro. It is not without reason, then, that our Author remarks, that Ptolemy is occasionally very wide in his

Mr. Murray renders it lat. 15°, long. 18°, &c.

'latitudes.' We must therefore dismiss his positions as altogether fallacious. Major Rennell remarks, that' Ptolemy has carried the head of the Niger seven degrees too far to the 'north, and about four or more too far to the west.' But the Major is himself almost two degrees out in his latitude, and three in his longitude. Ptolemy's inland positions in Africa', he adds, as well along the Niger as at a distance from it, are 'yet more to the west of the truth. But, notwithstanding this geographical error', it is added, he proves that he knew many facts relating to the descriptive part of the subject'*. This is but a sorry apology; and if we cannot depend upon his calculations, little stress can be laid upon his hearsay knowledge. Mount Mandrus may be Mount Loma, or some other mountain in the Mandingo country; which nation may be intended by the Mandori; and the lake Nigrites may be Lake Dibbie, if we understand Ptolemy to refer to an expansion of the river into a lake,-not, as Sir R. Donkin supposes, to a lake forming its source. But all these conjectures are so uncertain and so wholly unprofitable, that, we must confess, the labour bestowed upon the text of the Geographer, with a view to make it yield a distinct or accurate meaning, seems to us little better than learned trifling.

The source of the Niger has never been actually visited, but Major Laing reached within one day's journey of the spot, and, from the distance of twenty-five miles, was shewn the point from which it is said to issue. Having taken the bearings of Mount Loma from that spot and from the hill of Konko-doogore, he considers himself as warranted in laying down the position of the source of the Great River in lat. 9° 25′, long. 9° 45′ W., at an elevation of about 1600 feet above the level of the Atlantic. The source of the Rokelle, which falls into the bay of Sierra Leone, was ascertained, by barometrical measurement, to be 1470 feet above the sea t. At its source, Major Laing informs us, the Niger hears the appellation of Tembie, which, he was told, signifies water in the Kissi language. It runs due N. for many miles, its course being marked by a ridge of hills which branch off at right angles from the Sierra Leone range; till, on entering Kang-kang, it takes a more easterly direction, and receives the synonymous appellations of Ba-ba and Joli-ba, i. e. Large River, which it carries with it to Sego, Jinne, and Timbuctoo. What tributaries it receives in this early part of its course, which may dispute or share with the Tembie the ho

App. to Park's Travels, Vol. i. p. 445. In the Major's map, the head of the Niger is placed in lat. 11°, long. 6° 20′ W.

+ Laing's Travels, p. 325.

nour of originating the stream, we cannot tell. At Bambakoo, the point where Mr. Park reached it in his second mission, the river, which was then full, was about a mile in breadth; and at the rapids, it spread out to nearly twice that breadth. These rapids', he says, seem to be formed by the river passing 'through a ridge of hills in a south-easterly direction: they are 'very numerous, and correspond to the jetting angles of the 'hills. There are three principal ones, where the water breaks 'with considerable noise in the middle of the river, but the canoe-men easily avoided them by paddling down one of the 'branches near the shore. Even in this manner', he says, 'the velocity was such as to make me sigh.'* The current in the open river was nearly five knots an hour. Mr. Park embarked on the 22d of August; he passed the third rapid on the next day, and appears to have found no further obstacle in his course to Sansanding, where he constructed his flat-bottomed schooner, in which to prosecute his adventurous and fatal voyage. The general course of the river thus far was E., varying from E. & N. to E. N. E. and E. S.

At Sansanding, Mr. Park's journal breaks off, but he has given a fac-simile of a sketch of the course of the Niger, made by an old canoe-man who had often made the voyage to Timbuctoo. According to this rude chart, the Lake Dibbie is formed by the confluence of the Sego river with another river 'not quite half so large', called the Ba-Nimma, which rises in the Kong mountains ( Mount Thala, if you please'), and is joined, a short distance above its mouth, by a branch from Miniana. The Lake Dibbie has two outlets; or, in other words, the river is divided into two channels, by a large island called Jinbala. The eastern branch receives the Moosica Ba from the east, and both branches unite at Kabra, the port of Timbuctoo. An attempt was made, Amadi Footima says, to stop Mr. Park there by force; but they beat off the canoes, killing several of the natives, and reached the kingdom of Houssa in safety; having met with only one difficult passage, where the rocks stretched across the river, leaving only three narrow passages between them. At Yaour, Amadi's engagement terminated he landed, and Mr. Park proceeded to Boussa, where he was stopped by another cataract, and perished in an affray with the natives.

Thus far, and below Boussa as far as the mouth of the Moussa, in about lat. 9° N., the general course of the Great River has been ascertained. It is remarkable, that at this point, after a long circuit, the river appears to have crossed in

* Park, vol. ii. p. 258.

its course, the parallel under which it takes its rise 16° to the westward. Considerably to the N. of Boussa, in about lat. 12°, the Quorra (Quolla, or Kowara), as it is now called, receives on its eastern bank the Quarrama, or Soccatoo River, flowing from Lake Gondamee; which may possibly be the northern branch that Ptolemy is supposed to refer to, as proceeding from Mounts Sagapola and Usargola.

The longitude he gives to the medium of Mount Usargola,' says Sir R. Donkin, is 33° E., which corresponds to 8° E. of Greenwich. Now this is very near the longitude of the range in which the sources of Sultan Bello's river, Kowarrama, are placed, namely about 9o E., in Captain Clapperton's map. I think, then, that I may safely place the sources of the Kowarrama in Mount Usargola; and thus the northern branch of Ptolemy's Ni-Geir will be identical with that river.' p. 81.

But here, Ptolemy and Major Rennell, Mungo Park and Captain Clapperton, all fail us. As to Ptolemy, M. Gosselin maintains, that he knew nothing at all about Nigritia; that his Geir and Nigeir were only small rivers flowing down the southern declivity of Atlas; an hypothesis which treats his latitudes with still less ceremony, than that which is observed by the present writer, and which is, moreover, irreconcileable with Pliny's description of the Niger as the boundary between the Libyans and the Ethiopians. M. Malte Brun proposes to 'limit 'a little the information of Ptolemy,' by extending his rivers no further west than Lake Dibbie. Mr. Murray, while he admits the force of M. Gosselin's reasonings so far as regards the Gir, as apparently answering to the combined streams of the Adjidi and the Blanco, is not without reason staggered at the bold hypothesis which would remove ancient Nigritia to the north of the Sahara, and convert the mighty Niger into a paltry river of Sigilmessa. His proposed solution of the difficulty is very ingenious. He supposes, that Ptolemy was the D'Anville of his day, a closet geographer, very learned, but not always in possession of accurate information, who, to gratify his love of completeness, had often recourse to very arbitrary delineations.' Having a tolerably correct knowledge of the geography of northern Africa, and receiving some information respecting the Niger and Central Africa from the Egyptian traders, but having no suspicion of the existence of a desert spreading over ten parallels of latitude between the two regions, he linked together the geographical features of Central and Northern Africa,' making the Niger lock in with the southern extremity of the Atlas. This strikes us as, upon the whole, the most probable

* Murray's Hist. of Discoveries in Africa. Vol. ii. pp. 391-3. As Ptolemy's knowledge seems, however, to relate to the upper part of the