ra 
MISCELLANIE® 
been performed in the year 1780 
by a party of seventeen negroes, 
the particulars of which expedi- 
tion he says he received from 
“ a very intelligent man who has 
an establishment at Tombuctoo.” 
These negroes proceeded down the 
Niger from Jinnie, on a commer- 
cial speculation, and reached Cai- 
ro after a voyage of 14 months. 
They returned by thecaravan, and 
arrived at Jinnie, after an absence 
of more than three years. Some 
of the facts which they reported 
are not a little extraordinary :— 
viz. that in several places they 
found the Nile so shallow, in con- 
sequence of channels cut for irri- 
gating the lands, that they could 
not proceed in their boat, and 
were obliged to transport it some 
distance over-land ; that they saw 
between Tombuctoo and Cairo 
twelve hundred cities and towns 
adorned with mosques and towers, 
&c. &c. It is needless to com- 
ment upon such: hearsay state- 
ments, received from an African 
traveller or merchant more than 
20 years after the transaction is 
said to have happened ; nor would 
any allusion have been made to 
them in this place, if Mr. Jack- 
son’s book had not been much 
commended by distinguished cri- 
tics, and quoted as an autho- 
rity respecting the interior of 
Africa by several geographical 
writers. 
The principal, and apparently 
decisive, objection against this 
supposed junction of the Niger 
and the Nile, is grounded upon a 
comparison of the great difference 
of level between the beds of the 
two rivers. . From the authentic 
_ information we possess by means 
of Mr. Browne respecting the 
579 
countries west of the Nile, it is 
now clear, that if this junction 
takes place at all, it must be in 
the upper part of the Nile, before 
that river has quitted the higher 
regions of Africa, from whence it 
has still 1,000 geographical miles 
to run before it reaches the sea, 
passing in its way through several 
cataracts. But it is utterly incre- 
dible that the Niger, which in or- 
der to reach this part of the Nile, 
must have run at the least 2,300 
miles, should not in so long a 
course have descended to a level 
considerably lower than thatwhich 
ishere described. This objection 
is urged with great force by Ma- 
jor Rennell, who justly considers 
it as being entirely decisive of the 
question; but he has added se- 
vera] other arguments, which 
those who take an interest. in 
this question will do well to con- 
sult. 
III. The supposition, mention- 
ed in the text (p. 68), that the 
Niger terminates in the River 
Congo, or, as it is sometimes 
called, the Zayr, is entirely a re~ 
cent conjecture, adopted by Park 
in consequence of the information 
and suggestions of Mr. Maxwell, 
an experienced African trader, 
who appears, from his letters, to 
have been a man of observation 
and intelligence. The principal 
arguments in support of the opi- 
nion are shortly and clearly given 
in the memoir addressed by 
Park to Lord Camden; but the 
subject will receive additional 
elucidation from Mr Maxwell’s 
own statement, andespecially from 
his striking description of the ri- 
ver Congo, the vast magnitude of 
which seems at present to be lit~ 
tle known, and has not. suffici- 
2P2 
