1829.]] Cottrse and probable Termination of the Niger. 183 



water in them is either blue or black. Now, it so happens, that m the 

 next page, Sir Rufane Donkin tells us that the Hindoostanee word for 

 black is " KoUa, or Kala." How he establishes the identity between 

 " Kolla" and " Neil" would be inscrutable to any but that learned 

 philologer, who discovered that King Ki and King Atoes were the same 

 person ; " for," says he, " you have only to change A' into A and / into 

 Toes, and you have it." To this, unluckily for the theory of Sir R. may 

 be added the fact in natural history that, with very few exceptions,* the 

 water of deep rivers is black, and that the colour of blue is confined to 

 the ocean.t Hence the saying, or half menace, of seamen, " Wait till I 

 get you into blue mater." 



One of the principal objects of the Lieut-General's work is the resto- 

 ration of Ptolemy's text — to show how often he has been misrepresented 

 by translators, and perverted by modern map-makers, and to demonstrate 

 more by " moral than by mathematical proof," that by adhering strictly 

 to what the Alexandrian geographer has said, we rescue him from " gross 

 inconsistencies, and place the geography of Ptolemy on the basis of 

 truth." 



Now before we folloAv our author in tracing the discovery which he 

 imagines he has made in the rectification of Ptolemy's first meridian of 

 longitude — namely, through the -westernmost of the Cape Verd Islands, 

 instead of through that of Ferro, as has been hitherto done, we ask what 

 good, in a geographical sense, can result from adhering strictly to the 

 authority of a man, whose entire system of the universe was founded in 

 error ? It is true that Ptolemy's system, though mistaken, was inge- 

 nious. The world, for many ages, was content with it ; and until it 

 was, with much difficulty,^ overturned by what BaiUy called " le veri- 

 table systeme" of Copernicus, the theory of the Alexandrian was consi- 

 dered to be founded upon irrefragable demonstration, and to be as sacred 

 as truth itself Sir Rufane Donkin has, however, told us that Ptolemy 

 committed an error of no less than teji degrees in the latitude of his own 

 astronomical observatory at Alexandria ! If, " with all appliances and 

 means to boot," and in his own native city he could have made so 

 egregious a blunder, how, we repeat, should we be justified in placing 

 the least dependance on the latitude and longitude which he has given 

 to many places in Central Africa ? The general himself, in the midst 

 of his vindication of Ptolemy exclaims — " I only wish I could also get 

 rid of an error in several of his latitudes ; but when he places INIount 

 Mandrus, one of the sources of the Ni-geir,§ in 19 deg. north, he must 

 be egregiously in error, both because that would throw the IMandago 

 IMountains, in which the Niger rises, a great way up the Great Desarf, 



* The Rlioiie, and one or two others. 



+ " A j,Teat intensity, or depth," says Sir R., " is implied by the word •' KoUa," or 

 " Kalla," IJlack, as " Kala Panee," or the " Black Water,''' which is the name given in 

 Hindoostan to the f^eat ocean, over which the English pass, say the natives, in going to 

 and coming from Europe." — P. G. 



X Spcalcing of Copernicus, Railly says — " Son systeme iit heaucoup de bruit dans 

 I'Europe, et occasionna des merveilles tres-vives pendant pres d'un siecle." 



§ " In regard," says the General, " to the Oir and the Niger, as we now see theni 

 written, I must first beg to be allowed to restore them to their original orthograi)hy, as- 

 given by Ptolemy, from whom we have taken these names of two rivers in Central Africa. 

 lie calls them Tu^, Geir, and Niy;i(;, Nigeir ; or, as I woidd write the latter^ name, Ni'-Hif, 

 Ni-Gcir ; for I conceive the Ni, added to Geir, implies some distinctive difference between 

 the two rivers in the aboriginal language." 



