explanation of what it is scarcely worth such pains to attempt to clear up, the palpable blunders of a Greek geographer.

It is a far more interesting inquiry, what was the great river which is supposed to have stopped the progress of the Nasamonian adventurers mentioned by Herodotus. A Quarterly Reviewer asserts, that Clapperton has completely demolished 'every possibility' of the Quorra's being the Niger of Ptolemy, or of Pliny, or that great river of Herodotus which stopped the Nasamones*. This is a gratuitous assertion, and savours of a dogmatism which, when applied to determine such doubtful points, becomes ridiculous. The large river running from west to east, and abounding with crocodiles, which the young men reached after passing the desert, could certainly not have been the Tafilet. Herodotus, it is true, seems to have had no idea of the extent of the desert, but he could never have imagined that the Egyptian Nile had its source in Mount Atlas.

But the Quorra is unquestionably, we are told, the Niger of 'Edrisi.' The Arabian Geographer knew nothing of such an appellation, but he supposed what he calls the Nile of the Ne'groes' to be a branch of the Egyptian Nile, flowing from east to west, and falling into a sea at the distance of a day's journey west from the Island of Oolil. The dwellings of the negroes 'are,' he says, 'along this river, or along another which falls 'into it.' The name which he applies to the river, corresponds to that by which the Arabs generally speak of Soudan, who style it Ber el Abeed, the land of slaves. And there can be no doubt that he refers to the countries of Bagharmi, Bornou, and Houssa. The eastern branch of the Nile must of necessity be the Bahr el Abiad or White River, which joins the Abyssinian Nile in about lat. 16o, but which, for want of more distinct information, Edrisi supposed to flow westward across the very heart of Africa, to the Sea of Darkness,' or unknown sea. As Ptolemy seems to have overleaped the Sahara in his geographical system, so, Edrisi appears to have had but an imperfect idea of the wide interval which separates Bornou from Sennaar; but he must have been informed, that a water communication existed between the two countries; and his error respecting the course

Niger, not to its termination, his information could not be drawn from Egyptian traders to Darfoor, but rather from maritime traders.

Quart. Rev. No. lxxvii. p. 177. This Journal we refer to as of some authority on such subjects; such it ought to be; but the ignorant and malignant attack upon Sierra Leone, tacked to this article upon Clapperton's Second Expedition, cannot have proceeded from Mr. Barrow. It is worthy only of McQueen.

10

Course of the Niger.

of the Niger (which was natural enough in the absence of positive information) does not, in our judgement, detract from the respectability of his authority as a geographer. Of the western coast, the Mohammedan Writer knew next to nothing, any more than the Moors do now: his information was doubtless obtained chiefly from the traders. The Alexandrian Astronomer, on the contrary, belonged to a maritime people, whose ships had long before passed the Columns of Hercules; and the most correct part of his information seems to have related to the islands and rivers of the Atlantic coast.

Dismissing these authorities, let us see what can be made of Ibn Batouta, the great Mohammedan traveller whom we had the pleasure of introducing to our readers in our last Number. Having resolved, he tells us, to visit Soudan, he left Fez, and came to Sigilmasa, a very handsome city.' From this place, he set out with a numerous caravan, in Feb. 1352; and, after a journey of five and twenty days, arrived at Thaghari or Tagazi, 'a village in which there is nothing good, for its houses and are built with stones of salt, covered with the hides of camels. There is no tree in the place; it has nothing but sand for its soil; and in this mosque are mines of salt. For this, they dig in the earth, and find thick tables of it, so laid together as if they had been cut and placed under ground. No one, however, resides here, except the servants of the merchants who dig for the salt, and live upon the dates and other things which are brought from Sigilmasa, as well as upon the flesh of camels. To them come the people of Soudan from their different districts, and load themselves with the salt, which, among them, passes for money, just as gold and silver do among other nations; and for this purpose, they cut it into pieces of a certain weight, and then make their purchases with it. The water of Taghari is poisonous; (brackish?) we found it injurious. Of this they take, however, to carry them over the desert, which is twenty stages in extent, and is without water. After passing this, we arrived at Tas-hala, a stage at which the caravans stop and rest three days, and then prepare to enter the great desert, in which there is neither water, bird, nor tree, but only sand and hills of sand, which are so blown about by the wind, that no vestige of a road remains among them. People can travel, therefore, only by the guides from among the merchants, of which there are many. over exposed to the light, and is dazzling. We passed it in ten days. The desert is moreWe then came to the city of Abu Latin (or Ayulatin). This is the first district of Soudan, which, as they say, belongs to a lieutenant of the Sultan of the counties of Farba. place, with a few small palm-trees in it, under the shade of which they .. It is an exceedingly hot sow the melon. The water of this place is found in pits, having been absorbed by the sand. Mutton is in great plenty. Their clothing is from Egypt. The greater part of the inhabitants are merchants. Their women are exceedingly beautiful, and more respectable than the men..... I then proceeded from Abu Latin to Mali, the distance of which is a journey of four and twenty days, made with effort. The

roads are safe and abound with trees, which are high, and so large that a caravan may shade itself under one of them..... After ten days from our leaving Abu Latin, we came to the village Zaghari, which is large, and inhabited by black merchants. We then left this place, and came to the great river, which is the Nile. Upon it is the town of Karsanju, from which the Nile descends to Kabara, then to Zaga, the inhabitants of which were the first in these parts to embrace Islamism. From this place the Nile descends to Tambactu, then to Kawkaw. It then proceeds to the town of Muli, which is the extreme district of Mali. It then goes on to Yuwi, the greatest district of Soudan, and the king of which is the most potent. No white person can enter here; for, if he attempt to do so, they will kill him before he reaches it. The Nile then descends from this place to the countries of Nubia, the inhabitants of which are Christians; then to Dongola, which is the largest district they possess. The Nile then descends to the cataracts, which terminate the regions of Soudan, dividing them from Upper Egypt.'

pp. 231-8.

Ibn Batouta advanced no further eastward than Kawkaw, which is described as large and beautiful, and has been supposed to be the Kaugha of Edrisi. The rest of his account is from hearsay; but it is not a little remarkable to find the same ideas entertained of the course of the Nile, by an African Mussulman of the fourteenth century, that were hypothetically advanced by the Father of History nearly eighteen centuries before. Of Ibn Batouta's own route, it is not very easy to ascertain the precise stages or direction. Salt-mines are found in different parts of the Sahara; but, as Thagari is said to depend for provisions upon Segelmessa, the latter must be the only place with which it has a direct communication, and we should be led to look for it in the Monselmine territory, where our maps have a place called Sukassa. It is evident that our Traveller did not take the eastern route to Timbuctoo by way of Gadames, but one considerably to the westward. Tas-hala (or Tasahla) may be Tisheet, where the caravans usually halt, and from which place the route leads direct across the desert to Ludamar *. This would

In Sidi Hamet's Narrative of a Journey from Wed Noon to Timbuctoo, it is stated, that the caravan, after leaving Wed Noon, travelled six days to the west, when they came to the end of the last mountain, and halted for six days. After this, they ascended the Desert, but kept as near the sea as they could, in order to find water.-Riley's Narrative, p. 349. Mr. Park obtained from a shereef the following itinerary of the route from Morocco to Benowm, in Ludamar :-To Suera, (Mogodore,) three days. To Agadeer, (Santa Cruz,) three days. To Jiniken, ten days. To Wadi Noon, four days. To Lakeneigh, five Jays. To Zeeriwin-zeriman, five days. To Tisheet, ten days. To Benowm, ten days;-in all, fifty days: but 'travellers usually rest a long 'while at Jiniken and Tisheet; at the latter of which places they dig

6

properly be styled the first district in Soudan, which, according to the Moors, is reckoned to commence immediately to the south of the Great Desert. Proceeding eastward, our Traveller would first come to the Niger, near the Sego of Park, the same, possibly, as the Zaga above mentioned; and if so, Karsanju must have been higher up the river. Kabara may then be the Kabba of Park, described as a large town in the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated country. Our Traveller now appears to have left the river, and to have struck up the country towards the Foulah kingdom of Massina. Mali is doubtless the Melli of Clapperton, and seems to comprehend all the Foulah countries. On leaving Mali, where he remained some time, he came to a 'gulf which branches out of the Nile', and upon the banks of which he saw hippopotami. This, of course, would be Lake Dibbie. Then, after some days, he arrived at the city of Tambactu, the greater part of the inhabitants of which, he tells us, are merchants from Latham, a district of Mali. 'Here is also 'a black magistrate on the part of the Sultan of Mali.' Now, it is remarkable that Timbuctoo, though a distinct territory, having its native sovereign, has always been tributary to some neighbouring state, and is understood to be, at this time, subject to the Foulah lord of Massina, who has a magistrate residing at Timbuctoo, and by whose orders poor Major Laing was sent out of the city. From the Shiekh himself, Seid Ali Boubokar, this Traveller met with the kindest reception, till a mandate was at length transmitted to him from his master, (who had doubtless been informed of the white man's arrival by some of these merchants from Mali,) which he durst not disobey; and our unfortunate countryman was basely murdered in his sleep by the Arab chief who had undertaken to escort him across the desert in safety. Mr. Park was assured at Benowm, that such would have been his own fate, had he attempted to make his way direct from Ludamar. Upon his making particular inquiry of a shereef from Walet, the capital of the neighbouring kingdom of Beeroo, respecting the distance from that place to Timbuctoo, the shereef asked him whether he intended to travel that way. Being answered in the affirmative, he shook his head, and said, it 'would not do, for that Christians were looked upon there as 'the devil's children, and enemies to the Prophet.' The real cause of this hatred, which is by no means common to the Moslem of Soudan, and from which the Foulahs in general appear to

the rock salt, which is so great an article of commerce with the Negroes.'-Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 138. The stage from Tisheet to Benowm answers to that of Ibn Batouta from Tashala to Ayulatin. * Park, vol. i. p. 137.

be laudably free, must be the mercantile jealousy of the Moors and Jews, who dread the loss of their monopoly of the Timbuctoo trade, and not without reason. To this jealousy, we are persuaded, Major Laing fell a victim.

Thus far, Ibn Batouta's account seems to tally remarkably with later information. His Kawkaw, it is not easy to place, as the name, under a varying orthography, seems common to many towns in Soudan. Our Traveller mentions one circumstance, however, which prevents our placing it very far eastward. " They here', he says, transact business with the 'cowrie, like the inhabitants of Mali.' In travelling from Kouka to Kano, Captain Clapperton first met with cowrie-shells in circulation as currency at Katagum in long. 11°. This is now on the frontier of the Fellatah or Foulah dominions, which has extended itself considerably to the eastward; and this singular currency, originally introduced from the western coast, and imported from the Maldive Islands, appears never to have extended to Bornou. Kawkaw, therefore, must have been within Mali or the Foulah country,-probably near the confluence of the Quarrama. Of this part of the river, we know nothing, except from Amadi Fatouma's Journal, who speaks of seeing 'a very strong Poul (Foulah) army' drawn up in one part, on one side of the river. Yuwi may possibly be Yaour, the first district in Houssa, in descending the river, where Amadi Fatouma's engagement terminated, and not far from Boussa, but on the opposite side of the river. Houssa might properly be described as the greatest district in Soudan, since, according to the MS. account of Soudan, brought home by Major Denham, it comprises the seven extensive provinces of Kano, Ghoober, Kashna, Zegzeg, Dowry, Ranoo, and Yareem (Guari?)* The northern part of this extensive territory has been made known to us by the adventurous travels of Captain Clapperton and his lamented colleagues; and great part of Zegzeg was traversed by Richard Landor as far south as about the parallel of 8° 30'. But he was stopped when just on the point, apparently, of solving the problem respecting the course of the Niger. What becomes of it after leaving Houssa?

Ibn Batouta, we have seen, states, that it descends to Nubia, (which must mean Sennaar,) and thence to Dongola; making it join the Egyptian Nile, like all the Arabian authorities. But the possibility of this has been called in question by our European geographers; and different hypotheses have therefore been invented, in order to provide it with a different termination. The Editor of the second volume of Park's Travels goes so far as to assert, that, of all the hypotheses respecting the

* Denham and Clapperton. Vol. II. (8vo. pp. 449.)