APPENDIX. 
Ixxxvii 
(which is general over the country) is abated.* Leo, alone,t says, that the 
gold is found in the southern quarter of the kingdom ; which appears very 
probable, as the mountains lie on that side : so that it may be concluded, 
that the gold sand has not been brought there by the Niger, but by smaller 
rivers that descend immediately from those mountains. That a part of Wan- 
gara is bounded by mountains, we learn from Edrisi : for the lake on which 
Reghebil stands, has mountains hanging over its southern shore,+ 
It is supposed that most of tlie countries bordering oh these mountains, 
sliare in the riches contained within them, by means of the rivulets. ^ But con- 
sidering how amazingly productive in gold, the streams of this region are, it 
is wonderful that Pliny should not mention die Niger amongst the^ rivers that 
roll down golden sands : for although he speaks of the Tagus and others, 
in different quarters, no African river is mentioned.jj And yet Herodotus 
knew that the Carthaginians bartered their goods for gold, with the Africans 
on the sea coast, beyond the Pillars of Hercules : which was contrived 
without the parties seeing each other.H 
The common boundary of the Moors and Negroes, in Africa, forms 
a striking feature, as well in the moral, as the political and physical, geo- 
graphy of this condnent. The Moors, descendants of Arabs, intermixed 
with the various colonists of Africa, from the earliest to the latest times, 
overspread the habitable parts of the Desert, and the oases within it : and 
have pushed their conquests and establishments southward ; pressing on the 
Negro aborigines, who have in several instances redred to the southward of 
the great rivers ; but in others, preserve their footing on the side towards ihs 
* See Edrisi in particular, pages ii and 12. 
t Page 254. J Edrisi, page 12. 
§ Mr. jpruce. Vol. iii, p. 647, says the same of the mountains of Dyre and Tegla, 
which are a continuation of the great beltj towards Abyssinia. 
II Pliny, lib. xxxiii. c. 4. ^ Melppmene, c. 196. 
Dr. Shaw (p. 302) speaks of the same mode of traffic, at present, between the Moors 
and Negroes : whence the place of traffic ought to be very far removed from the Medi- 
terranean. There is a similar story related by Cadamosta of the exchange of salt for gold, 
in Melli; and by Dr. Wadstrom on the, windward coast of Guinea. 
