516 



NOTES TO APPENDIX III. 



This communication states the information to have been ob- 

 tained from some people of respectability in that place, who were 

 well acquainted with the part of the African coast in question. 

 The substance of this detail is as follows : — ' That a river of im- 

 mense extent, known to the natives in its neighbourhood by 

 the appellation of the Neelo (Nilo), and said to have its 

 source in common with the Egyptian river of that name, dis- 

 charges itself in the Indian Ocean, in about 0'' G' N. lat. ; near 

 to its mouth it is called Govind Khala. That the length of 

 its course is about three months' journey ; and nine weeks' 

 journey from tlie mouth stands a large city named Gunamma,' 

 np to which, the river being navigable, immense quantities of 

 slaves, elephants' teeth, &c., are brouglit down within a short 

 distance of Brava, to which (the river then taking a more 

 southerly direction) these articles of niercliandise are after- 

 wards carried overland, and either disposed of there, or sent to 

 Zanzibar.' This story, though sufficiently plausible, would of 

 itself, considering the known credulity and extreme propensity 

 to exaggeration prevalent among the natives of tlie East, be 

 entitled to very little regard did it not happen to receive some 

 countenance from Herodotus, the Grecian historian, who says 

 that when in Egypt he was told tliat a branch of the Nile 

 bearing the same name took an easterly course, and was sup- 

 posed to fall into the Indian Ocean, somewhere on the coast of 

 East Africa.^ These taken together were strong, but still left 

 ample room to believe that the river called by the Portu- 

 guese Dos Fuegos, and known to us by the name of the Eogucs 



' Gnnana in Somalilniid : it cnnnot l»e a ]nrp;e ci(y. Here we iimy 

 observe tlie Coviiid (Gull»-\vtii). alia.s tlie Julia liiver, upon whose riglit 

 bank Ganana lies, is ( onlouiided willi tlie ' Kile of Ma/iJidoxo,' and the 

 eastern branch of the latter, called Webbe Guniana, has added to the 

 confusion. 



This may be the case if for Nile we read * P.lue Kiver.' The Webbo 

 CJamana, alias Nile of Makdisbu, may, like the Welbe Ganana or Juba, 

 rise in the S. Eastern counkr-slcpe of the Abyssinian Highlands, which 

 discharge to the N. West the liahr el Azrak. 



