Chap. LXX. anomalous RISmG OF THE NIGER. 7 
which, according to the most accurate information 
which I was able to gather on the spot, every year 
continues to rise till the end of December or the 
beginning of January, and does not begin to decrease 
before February ; while its eastern branch, the Be- 
nuwe, as well as the lower course of the Niger, where 
it is called Kwdra, exactly as is the case with the Nile, 
reaches its highest level by the end of August and 
begins to decrease steadily in the course of October. 
To explain the difference and anomaly of these 
phenomena we must attend to the different character 
of these rivers. For while the Benuwe after having 
once assumed a westerly direction follows it up with 
but very little deviation, the great western branch de- 
scribes three quarters of an immense circle, and having 
but very little fall in the greater part of its extra- 
ordinary winding course, the waters which flow towards 
it from the more distant quarters require a long time 
to reach its middle course, so that the rain which 
falls in the course of September and October in the 
country of the Wangarawa, or the South-eastern 
Mandigoes, will certainly continue to swell the river 
at Timbuktu till the end of November or even De- 
cember ; for that rain falls in those quarters behind 
the coast of Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas till the 
end of September, and perhaps even in October, we 
may conclude with some degree of certainty from the 
fact that such is the case on the coast * ; and this 
* See Isert in the Journal Hertha, vol. x. a. 1827, p. 374. ; M'Gill 
inBerghaus's Journal (Zeitschrift), vol. viii. a. 1848, p. 59 — 61.; 
B 4 
