182 Course and probable Termiuaiion ^ the Niget: fAuG. 



instead of searching for a Nile, or a Niger ; and they have thus been 

 endeavouring to unite and reconcile in some one individual river, 

 qualities which have been predicated of several distinct rivers, and they 

 have thus confounded a specific appellation with a generic and descrip- 

 tive one." This argument is further illustrated by the General as 

 follows 



Major Denham gives us a notable instance of the generic application of 

 the word " Nile ;" and I only wonder that the question he records did not at 

 once awaken his attention to the fact, that " Nile" was the general appellative 

 of all large rivers, and not of a specific one only. " I had before been asked," 

 says Major Denham, " if the Nile was not in England ?" — the real meaning of 

 which was, "have you no Nile or large river in England?" But Major 

 Denham, not understanding it, said, " No, the Nile is not in England." 

 Now, if this Moor were a literary man, and kept, as Major Denham did, an 

 account of his travels, I can quite imagine such an entry as the following in 

 his journal : — " On such a day I met a white man called Major Denham, a 

 man of courage, discretion, and truth : he, like all the other travellers from his 

 country, which is far in the north, inquired constantly for a great river, calling 

 it The Niger, a name we know not of, — but it is clear that they all want to 

 see a great river. From this I conclude that they have no great river in his 

 country called England ; indeed I asked him, and he said there was none. I 

 suppose, therefore, that his country must be a dry, bad country, not like ours, 

 watered by a Nile ; and I begin to suspect that these men want to discover a 

 country where Niles arc to be found, that they may leave their own desarts 

 and come and live by our deep waters. 



Indeed it seems singular that Denham should have been ignorant of 

 the application of the oriental word "Nile" to all rivers; a philological 

 fact so generally known, as to be found even in ordinary works of com- 

 pilation. The " Universal Gazetteer," by Walker, published many 

 years ago, contains the following passage under the head of " Niger."^ — 

 " The Africans have two names for this river : namely, Neel il Abeed, 

 or River of the Negroes, and Neel il Kibeer, or the Great River. They 

 also term the Nile, Neel, Shein, that is the Egyptian river ! So that the 

 term Neel, whence our Nile* is derived, is nothing more than the appel- 

 lative of river." 



In being, however, over ingenious in his speculations, particularly as 

 to remote etymology, the learned General has rather weakened his argu- 

 ment ; for it does not follow that a meaning which is justified at any 

 particular period in the migration (so to speak) of a word, should be 

 equally true of it in all its travels, or even in its origin. Sir W. Jones 

 says that " Etymology has, no doubt, some use in historical researches ; 

 but it is a medium of proof so very fallacious, that when it elucidates one 

 fact it obscures a thousand." That this is true is shewn in Sir Rufane 

 Donkin's work ; who, not content with proving that the word " Nile" 

 or " Neil" means river, endeavours to ascertain, by inquiries into ancient 

 languages, jvhii it should be called so ? and here it is, we think, that Sir 

 W. Jones's observation is -illustrated, and that our too scrupulous 

 inquirer has stumbled into error. He says that the word Neil, in Hindoo- 

 stanee means " blue," and that this epithet is applied to rivers, because the 



" " This orthogra;)liy, Nile,''^ says Jackson, " has been imported from France : with 

 the P'rencli it is pronounced as we pronounce Neel ; and tliis is tlie intelligible pronuncia- 

 tion in Africa." In another place tlie same author says, that, " it is incorrect to say that 

 the word Nile is applied, in Africa, to any great river : the name, I can with confidence 

 declare, is never applied to any river in North Africa, except the Nile of Egypt, and that 

 of Siulan (Niger). M'lioever has propaga'tcd this 0]>inion has mistaken tlie matter 

 altogether." P. 417 Account of Timbucto, ^c. edited by G. Jackson. 



