1829.J Course and probable Termination of the Niger. 187 



ating branch of the Niger, was arrested in his progress by two horsemen, 

 who were especially despatched after him to prevent him pursuing the 

 route he had so confidently taken. In a word, it is manifestly the policy 

 of all African princes, (if to semi-savages may be apphed the royal 

 appellative) to conceal every source of information connected with the 

 solution of this problem. Nothing can remove their natural suspicions, 

 that the periodical visits of the English to the interior of this vast con- 

 tinent, are preparatory to the accomplishment of an object, which they 

 imagine we have in view, namely, to over-run their territories, as we 

 have already done those of the East Indians. 



Our hmits, for we are really confined to a very short space, preclude 

 the possibility of our entering as fully into our author's work as we could 

 have wished. We have perused it with great attention ; but, with the 

 highest respect for the talents and erudition of the Lieut.-General, (for it 

 falls to the lot of few military men to bring so much learning to bear 

 upon the question,) we are compelled to confess, that what with digres- 

 sive disquisitions on the Greek grammar, appalling prophecies,* and com- 

 plimentary episodes to the press, and to the political premier of the day, 

 we could hardly keep up with, even, the " rear" of the General's reason- 

 ing, or follow him in his march of mystery. 



To satisfy the curiosity of our readers as to the light thrown on the 

 question by the learned writer, we extract his own summary of what has 

 resulted from a pursuit of his hypothesis : — 



* " In the same way shall perish the Nile of Egypt and its valley ! its pyramids, its 

 temples, and its cities ! The Delta shall become a plashy quicksand — a second Syrtis ! 

 and the Nile shall cease to exist from the Lower Cataract downwards, for this is about the 

 measure or height of the giant principle of destruction already treading on the Egyptian 

 valley, and who is advancing from the Libyan Desert, backed by other dese-rts whose 

 names and numbers we do not even know, but which we have endeavoured to class under 

 the ill-defined denomination of Sahara — advancing, I repeat, to the annihilation of Egypt, 

 with all her glories, with the sQence, but with the certainty too, of all-devouring time ! 



" There is something quite appalling in the bare contemplation of this inexorable onward 

 march of wholesale death to kingdoms, to mighty rivers, and to nations ; the more so, when 

 we reflect that the destruction must, from its nature, be not only complete, but eternal, on 

 the spot on which it falls ! 



" We have, however, in these our days, a broad and iripxtinguishable flood of light, 

 breaking in on this death-like gloom. The genius of expiring Egypt may point to the 

 Press, and say, ' Non omnis moriar;' for, until some universal and complete change 

 shall take place in this globe, the records of Egypt and her glories shall be preserved, shall 

 be embalmed, by a far more durable art than any the Egyptians ever possessed — the Art of 

 Printing. That giver of immortality, (as far as such a word can apply to any thing con- 

 nected with man on this side of the grave,) the Press, has produced, in almost countless 

 forms and languages, from Labrador to Cape Horn, from Lapland to New Zealand, all 

 that ancient and often solitary manuscripts, perishable in their nature, and trembling, as it 

 were, under their trusts, have brought down to us of the renowned land of the Pharaohs ; 

 while modern accounts, multiplied almost without end, will convey to the remotest posterity 

 in the completest, the minutest, and the most graphic manner, a knowledge of what Egypt 

 now is and has been for several centuries past. The glory of him who, pointing to the 

 Pyramids, told his victorious bands, ' to recollect that from their summits forty centuries 

 were looking down on them,' shall also descend to imperishable renown in the narratives 

 of all late and of all future writers of the history of modern Egypt ; but this glory will now 

 go down dimmed, eclipsed by the brighter star of Wellington ; and thus, when aU that we 

 now admire and venerate in that classic country shall be irretrievably obliterated by tlie 

 tremendous footstep of a destroying principle, the name of the great conqueror at the Pyra- 

 mids shall survive those Pyramids themselves, by the instrumentality of the frail, thougli 

 Infinitely reproducible material on which this record of his glory is now here traced ; but 

 the same art which gives immortality to the only once defeated Napoleon, will confer it a3 

 impcrishably on his great, and always successful conqueror at Waterloo !" 



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