GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 346 
and this late flooding of the lakes is obviously owing to the 
long easterly course of the Niger, collecting into its channel 
all the waters from the northward and the southward as it 
proceeds along. If, then, the ebb and flood of the Wangara 
lakes depend on the state of the Niger, it will follow, on the 
supposition of the identity of that river and the Zaire, that 
the flood and ebb of the latter, to the southward of the line, 
must correspond with the ebb and flood of the lakes of 
Wangara. The existence of those lakes has never been 
called in question, though their position has not been ex- 
actly ascertained ; but supposing them to be situated some- 
where between the twelfth and the fifteenth degrees of nor- 
thern latitade, the position usually assigned to them in the 
charts, and that the southern outlet is under or near the 
12th parallel, the direct distance between that and the spot 
where Captain Tuckey first observed the Zaire to rise, may 
be taken at about 1200 miles, which, by allowing for the 
windings of the river, and some little difference of meri- 
dians, cannot be calculated at less than 1600 miles. 
Admitting, then, that the lakes of Wangara should over- 
flow in the first week of August, and the current in the chan- 
nel of outlet move at the rate of 24 miles an hour, which 
is the average rate at which the Zaire was found to flow 
above the narrows, the flooded stream would reach that 
spot in the first week of September, and swell that river 
exactly in the way, and at the time and place, as observed 
by Captain ‘Tuckey. No other supposition, in fact, than 
that of its northern origin, will explain the rise of the Zaire 
in the dry season; and if its identity with the Niger, or, 
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