xiv INTRODUCTION. 



nel 100 fathoms deep; at twenty-four or twenty-five miles 

 up the river, where the funnel or estuary is contracted to 

 the natural bed of the river, which is about two and a half 

 to three miles in width, the depth is still 100 fathoms. At 

 fifty miles, the stream is broken into a number of branches, 

 by islands and sand banks. Beyond ninety miles they are 

 again united into one channel, about a mile and a half in 

 Avidth, and the depth, in somG places fifty, in others thirty, 

 fathoms, continuing about the same width and depth to 

 the end of the survey, or about 130 miles from the moutli 

 of the river ; and it is stated, from information of the 

 native slave dealers at Embomma, that it is navigable be- 

 yond the termination of this survey from fifty to sixty miles, 

 where the navigation is interrupted by a great cataract, 

 which they call Gamba Enzaddi. He says, however, in 

 his letter to Mr. Keir, which was communicated to Park, 

 that, according to the accounts he had received from tra- 

 velling slave merchants, the river is as large at 600 miles 

 up the country as at Embomma, and that it is there called 

 Enzaddi. 



All these accounts prove the Zaire to be a river of very 

 considerable magnitude ; and though not to be compared 

 Avith the Amazons, the Oronooko, the Missisippi, St. Lau- 

 rence, and other magnificent waters of the New AVorld, 

 it was unquestionably the largest river an the continent of 

 Africa. If the calculation be true, that the Zaire at its 

 lowest state discharges into the sea two million cubic feet 

 of water in a second of time, the Nile, the Indus, and 

 Ganges, are but rivulets compared with it, as the Ganges, 

 which is the largest of the three, discharges only about one 

 fifth of that (Quantity at its highest flood. In point qf 



