viii INTRODUCTION. 



whose surface is very considerably higher than the sink of 

 North Africa, through which the Niger is stated to tlow. 

 Secondh^ because the Nile of Egypt, in this case, must 

 necessarily be kept up at the highest pitch of its inunda- 

 tion for a lono- time after that of the Nisjer, which is well 

 known to be contrary to the fact. Neither was it probable, 

 that its' waters were discharocd into the sea on any part 

 of the eastern coast, there being no river of magnitude on 

 the whole extent of that coast from Cape Guadafui to Cape 

 Corientes. The hypothesis therefore, of the dispersion and 

 evaporation of the waters of the Niger, in lakes of an ex- 

 extended surface, was the most plausible, and perhaps the 

 more readily adopted, as it fell in with ancient opinion. 



The stream of this mysterious river being now traced 

 with certainty from west to east as far as Tombuctoo, so 

 little suspicion seems to have been entertained of the pro- 

 bality of its making a circuitous course to the sea on the 

 western coast, near to which it has its source, that the ex- 

 amination of this side of Africa seems entirely to have 

 been left out of the question. But when Park was pre- 

 paring for his second expedition to explore the further 

 course of this river, it was suggested, that the Congo or 

 the Zaire, which flows into the southern Atlantic about the 

 sixth degree of south latitude, might be the outlet of the 

 Niger; and as this suggestion came from a person who, 

 in the capacity of an African trader, had not only become 

 well acquainted with the lower part of this river, but had 

 actually made a survey of it, the idea was warmly espoused 

 by Park, who, in a memoir addressed to Lord Camden, 

 previous to his departure from England, assigns his reasons 

 for becoming a convert to this hypothesis ; and he adds, 



