9G THE PIGMIES. 



living in two rivers so far apart as the Nile and the Niger, must be 

 of different kinds. But it is not the case ; the question has been 

 specially studied in consequence of discussions which had arisen 

 between Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The former of these 

 two great naturalists attached so much importance to the debate 

 that he devoted, in his Begne Animal, a chapter of exceptional 

 length 0) to it. 



Cuyier was convinced of the specific identity of all crocodiles 

 inhabiting the large African rivers, whereas Geoffroy denied 

 it, and, in the Nile alone, asserted the existence of four distinct 

 kinds. Dumeril and Bibron, in their exhaustive work on 

 Herpetology, returned to the question with materials that had not 

 been at the disposal of the two celebrated antagonists, and confirm- 

 ed Cuyier's opinion. ( 2 ) In fact, the crocodile of the Niger, like 

 that of the Senegal, is the same as the crocodile of the Nile. 



Lastly, the Nasamons declared that they were taken to a town 

 of which all the inhabitants were black, and this again is perfectly 

 true. Although Tiinbuctoo was founded by the Touaregs, ( 3 ) who 

 still dispute with the Berbers and Peuls the right of sovereignty 

 over the city and the region drained by the central portion of the 

 Niger, (*) yet we know that they are strangers to the country, and 

 have settled there only at a comparatively recent date. In the 

 tenth century, according to Barth, the Negro land still extended 

 as far as the 20th degree of latitude. ( 5 ) At that time, and a 

 fortiori in the days of Herodotus, the whole of that region must 

 have been occupied by a black race. 



(i ) Le Regne Animal distribui d? cypres son Organisation pour servir de Base 

 a VHistoire des Animaux et d' Introduction a I Anatomic comparee — by Baron 

 Cuvier, new edition (2nd), 1820, vol. II, p. 21. 



(2) Collection of the Suites de Bouffon, published by Roeet : Histoire 

 Natiirelle des Reptiles — by MM. C. Dumeril and Bibron, vol. Ill, p. 104. 



(3) According to Ahmed-Baba, Timbuctoo was founded in the 5th cen- 

 tury of the Hegira (1100 A. d.) by Touaregs who were in the habit of halting 

 at that spot. (Barth. ) 



(±) The Peuls took possession of Timbuctoo in 1826. In 1814, they 

 were driven away by El-Mouchtar, chief of some Berber tribes who had made 

 an alliance with the Touaregs. (Barth, p. 32.) 



(5) Barth, p. 10. 



