OLD KNOWLEDGE. 



39 



gotten by Europe, which thus unlearned to 

 derive with Herodotus the Nile from "Western 

 Africa. 1 As the pages of Marco Polo show, not 

 to quote the voyage of ' Sinbad the Sailor/ 

 Arabs and Persians still frequented these shores ; 

 and the Hindu Banyans, established from time 

 immemorial upon the Zanzibar coast, had dif- 

 fused throughout India some information touch- 

 ing the wealthy land. The veteran geographer 

 of Africa, Mr James Macqueen, has comment- 

 ed upon the curious fact that the Padmavan 

 of Lieut. Francis Wilford (vol. iii. of the old 

 Asiatic Researches, 6 Course of the River Cali,' 

 as supposed to be derived from the Puranas) is 

 represented by the beds of floating water-lilies 

 crossed by Captains Speke and Grant, and upon 

 the resemblance between the Amara, or Lake of 

 the Gods, with the Amara people on the N. E. of 

 the so-called Nyanza Lake. These, however, ap- 

 pear to be mere coincidences, or at best the re- 

 sults of tales learned upon the coast by the 

 Hindu trader. Before leaving Bombay I applied 



1 The 1 Father of History ' evidently held to the theory 

 that the modern Bahr el Grhazal (explored of late by Mr 

 Petherich and by the unfortunate Tinne family) was the 

 head reservoir of the White Nile. Nor is it impossible that in 

 long-past ages the lakes or waters in question were fed by a 

 watershed whose eastern declivities still discharge themselves 

 into the higher basin. 



