284 THE NIGEK PLATFORM. 



such was the prevailing opinion not only among the 

 Greeks, but also among the Arabs in the middle ages. 

 They did not know that the eccentric river again 

 wheels round, flows towards the sea near which it 

 rose, passes through the latitude of its birth, and, 

 having thus described three-quarters of a circle, de- 

 bouches by many mouths into the Bight of Benin. 

 So singular a course might well baffle the speculations 

 of geographers and the investigations of explorers. 

 The people who dwell on the banks of the river do 

 not know where it ends. I was told by some that it 

 went to Mecca, but by others that it went to Jeru- 

 salem. Mungo Park's own theory was ludicrously 

 incorrect ; he believed that the Congo was its 

 mouth ; others declared that it never reached the sea 

 at all. It was Lander who discovered the mouth of 

 the Niger, at one time as mysterious as the sources of 

 the Nile, and so established the hypothesis which 

 Reichard had advanced, and which Mannert had de- 

 clared to be " contrary to nature." 



The Niger platform or basin is flat, with here and 

 there a line of rolling hills containing gold. The 

 vegetation consists of high coarse grass and trees of 

 small stature, except on the banks of streams, where 

 they grow to a larger size. The palm-oil tree is not 

 found on this plateau, but the shea-butter or tallow 

 tree abounds in natural plantations, which will some 

 day prove a source of enormous wealth. As the river 

 flows on, these trees disappear, the plains widen and 

 are smoothed out ; the country assumes the character 

 of the Sahara. 



The negroes who inhabited the platform of the Niger 

 lived chiefly on the banks of the river, subsisting on 

 lotus-root and fish. Like all savages, they were jealous 



