GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 846 



and this late floodino- of the lakes is obviously owins; to the 

 long easterhj 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 latitude, 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 2^ 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 Tucke\'. No other suj)position, in fact, than 

 that of its northern origin, will explain the rise of the Zaire 

 in the diy season ; and if its identity with the Niger, or, 



