GEOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
CHAPTER I. 
Concerning the Ideas entertained by the Ancient Geographers, as well as 
the Moderns , down to the Times of Delisle and D'Anville, respecting the 
Course of the River Niger. 
The late journey of Mr. Park, into the interior of Western Africa, 
has brought to our knowledge more important facts respecting its Geography 
(both moral and physical), than have been collected by any former traveller. 
By pointing out to us the positions of the sources of the great rivers Sene- 
gal, Gambia, and Niger,* we are instructed where to look for the elevated 
parts of the country; and even for the most elevated point in the western 
quarter of Africa, by the place from whence the Niger and Gambia turn in 
opposite directions to the east and west. W e are taught, moreover, the com- 
mon boundary of the desert and fruitful parts of the country, and of the 
* I here use the word Niger, as being the best understood by Europeans; but the 
proper name of this river in the country seems to be Guin or Jin. (Hartmann's Edrisi, 
p. 32. 48. 51.) At the same time, it is more commonly designed by the term Joliba, 
meaning the Great Water, or great river. In like manner, the Ganges has two names, 
Padda, the proper name ; Gonga, the great river. 
The Moors and Arabs call it Neel Abeed, the River of Slaves; but they have also 
a name to express the great water, that is, Neel Kibbeer. Neel appears to be employed 
in Africa, as Gonga in India, to express any great river. 
By Niger, the ancients meant merely to express the River of the Black People, or 
Ethiopians. The term was Roman : for the Greeks believed it to be the head, or a 
branch, of the Egyptian Nile. 
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