NIGER. 
n like manner as Europe is divided 
cic ae farther afferts, that 
sof t iterranean, who 
toa a city on the banks 
t the people of this quarter were 
black, that 1 is, much blacker thon their vifitors. t — 
eaft, dividing Africa 
yt This 
“«* Bembotus”’ river as running into 
meaning to exprefs by it either the Gambia or Senegal 
river, and not the Niger. Ptolemy is pofitive in defcribing 
> 
@ 
by 
az 
— 
Tig 
ct 
egroes,’’ or Nige 
Atlantic, but alfo derived it from avs Egyptian pay 
n dire& contradiGion to the opinion of Herod 
‘Abulfeda followed Edrifi in the fame erroneous sehen re- 
{peéting the Niger ; which he calls a tevin river with that of 
Egypt, and alfo the Nile of ree ‘The fentiments of the 
moderns feem to have been ed in deference to 
the authorit 
geography. So that in T efpite of ae and ae the 
ancients in general, the great inland river of Africa was 
panei to run to od weft, and to form the head of the 
rotten 
parated into two channels, in the quarter of T’ombuctoo. 
Mr. Park’s obfervations ee ‘eftablifhed thefe pofitions, and 
the conclufion deduced from them. The Niger, from the 
place of its firft rife, a pears to run near 100 miles ina 
f we een Se it to be 
the fame river /_ pafles by Kaffina, and we know of no 
other, which place is 700 miles, or more, to the eaftward 
of Silla, it would doubtlefs receive by the wa at addi- 
tional fupplies of water, and be at leaft a much deeper river 
than where Mr. Park fawit. To Pliny it was well known 
by the Arabs a Moors 
or river of flaves ; a name that marks the idea of the peo- 
ple of the pee through which it flows, in the minds of 
that people. 
The to urfe of the Niger, or Joliba, is eftablifhed, by 
ocular pene arty as far as Silla; and may alfo ne ad- 
mitted as far as Houffa, about 400 miles farther to the eatt, 
on the foundation of the information collecte 7 by Ee 
Park, with which the reports o agra and major 
Ho oughton agree. ‘Thus, the firlt 700 geographical miles 
of its courfe from weff.to aft or rather from W.S.W 
to E.N.E appears from various authorities, that the 
waters of the Niger are continued from Manding to Wan- 
gara: as far as Silla its courfe is to the eaftward, and, with- 
out doubt, continues in the fame direction to Houffa, (ole) 
miles farther to the eaftward, if we may depend upon Mr. 
Park’s information. Other tefimonies are alfo decidedly in 
favour of an eafterly courfe of the Niger from Houfla to 
Wangara. 
Joliba or Niger terminates in lakes in the eattern quarter of 
Africa; and thofe lakes feem to be fituated in Wangara and 
Ghana ; which fee re{pectively. That it does not torm the 
upper part of the Egyptian Nile, may be inferred from two 
circumftances ; firft, the great difference of level that muft 
sarc exilt between the Niger and the Nile, admitting 
he Niger reached the country of Abyflinia. For b 
‘ha cn it would have ran at leaft 2300 geographical miles, 
in a direG& line; and near 2000 after it had defcended to the 
level of the Sahara, or Great efert. the 
the point where the White river, (which 
for the Niger, if the above fuppofition be aad: ) falls in, 
has more than a thoufand fuch miles to run before it reaches 
the fea; and has, moreover, two or more cataraéts to de- 
fcend in its way: not to add here, that Abyflinia is a very 
elevated tra&t. The fecond circumftance is, that the Niger, 
throughout the tra& of Nigritia, in common with all the 
rivers of that region, {wells with the periodical rains, and is 
at its higheft pitch, when the Nile is under the like circum- 
ftances in Egypt. ow, confidering how long atime it 
would require for the waters of Nigritia to reach Egypt, 
the effe&t ought furely to be, that inftead of what happens 
at prefent, the Nile ought to be kept up to nearly its higheft 
pitch, a very long time after the Niger. But without far- 
ther enlarging, it 1s certain, that if the eaftern waters do 
not run into Nile, (of which there does not appear a 
pofition hash convenient for the purpofe, and a river taken by 
e Niger, is a€tually faid to pafs near it. More- 
over, shears and Ptolemy concur in defcribing 
rivers of interior Africa as terminating as well a 
aioe 
