[ 387 J. 
A CONCISE VIEW of the Country along the Line of the 
Zaire,—its Natural History and Inhabitants,—collected 
from the preceding Narratives, and from the Observations 
of the Naturalists and Officers employed on the Expedition. 
THE RIVER.—Ir, from the lamentable and almost 
unaccountable mortality which brought to an untimely 
termination this ill-fated expedition, the grand problem re- 
specting the identity of the Niger and the Zaire still remains 
to be solved ; we have at least, by means of it, acquired 
a more certain and distinct knowledge of the direction and 
maenitude of the latter river, in its passage through the 
kingdom of Congo, as well as a more extended and correct 
notion of the nature of the country, of its inhabitants and 
productions, than had hitherto been supplied in the ac- 
counts (and they are the only ones) of the early Catholic 
missionaries. 
It now appears, that although this great river, which has 
been named promiscuously the Congo, the Zaire, and the 
Barbela (but which ought, as Captain Tuckey learned, to be 
called Mozenzi Enzaddi, «« the Great River,” or “ the river 
which absorbs all other rivers,”) falls short, in some 
respects, of the magnificent character given lo the lower 
part of its course ; yet in others, it has been much under- 
rated. Its great velocity, for instance, its perpetual state 
of being flooded, and its effectual resistance of the tide, 
are exaggerations ; but in regard to its depth at the point 
D.& < 
