INTRODUCTION. XXXIii 
If this conjecture should turn out to be well founded, such an eastern stream, 
being next in point of interest, will claim the second place in point of attention ; 
and if it should appear to be navigable through the heart of southern Africa, 
to the high lands on the eastern coast, it may probably hereafter be considered 
as the first in point of importance ; by opening a convenient communication 
through a fine country, from the southern Atlantic to the proximity of the In- 
dian or eastern ocean; and with the once opulent kingdoms of Melinda, 
Zanzibar, Quiloa, &e. 
With regard to a large branch proceeding from the southward, out of a lake 
called Aquelunda, so many details, though loose and vague, have been given by 
the early Spanish and Italian missionaries, than one can scarcely be permitted to 
doubt of its existence. As this branch is likely to be, from the barren nature of 
the country to the southward, and along the western coast, the least important 
and least interesting, it will be adviseable to leave it unexplored until the re- 
turn of the expedition from examining the others ;_ unless indeed, what would 
be contrary to all expectation, and irreconcilable with the peculiar phenomena 
of the river, this southern branch should turn out to be the main trunk. But 
though less interesting than the others, this branch will require a more aecu- 
rate examination than has hitherto been given to it, which however may be 
left, until the more important branches, whose existence we have supposed, may 
have been explored. , 
If, after all, it should be found that unforeseen and invincible obstacles op- 
pose themselves to your penetrating, by any of the branches of the Zaire, to a 
considerable distance into the interior (obstacles which it is hoped may not oc- 
cur,) you are, in that case, after collecting all the information in your power, 
during your descent of the river, to proeeed without loss of time to the Bight of 
Benin, where you will endeavour to ascertain whether the great Delta, swppo- 
sed to be formed by a river, one branch of which usually known by the name 
of Rio del Rey, flows ito the Atlantic on the eastern, and the other the Rio 
Formosa, on the western side of the said Delta, be actually so formed: or whe- 
ther these branches be two separate and distinct rivers. The determining this 
question is the more interesting, as, on the supposition of the union of these two 
great streams, the continential geographers have raised an hypothesis that the 
Niger, after reaching Wangara, takes, first, a direction towards the south, and 
then bending to the south-west, discharges itself into the Gulf of Guinea. In 
the eventual prosecution of this discovery, the same instructions will apply as 
those for your guidance up the Zaire. 
Keeping therefore the general principles above mentioned in view, the mode 
of carrying the examination of either of the rivers into effect must be left, in a 
f 
