ON THE COURSE OF THE DHIOLIBA. 
365 
V. 
OF THE COURSE OF THE DHIOLIBA ABOVE AND BELOW 
TIMBUCTOO. 
The attentive reader who may have patiently follow- 
ed me through the preceding pages, will, no doubt, have 
remarked the new and principal fact which results from 
M. Caillie's observations; the division of the Dhioliba in 
the environs of Sego into two branches equally broad and 
deep, and the existence of a large island. It elucidates 
the description of Mungo Park, and reconciles him with 
our traveller ; it explains the contradictions between the 
situations assigned to the same towns by different travel- 
lers, sometimes on the right, and sometimes on the left 
of the river, and finally it enlarges our ideas of the ad- 
vantages of navigation in the interior of the Soudan. 
This fact also accounts for the great collection of waters 
which forms the lake Dhiebou or Debo, because many 
considerable branches which separate from the western 
arm unite again with the main stream beyond the 
tributary which falls into it at Isaca ; and the want of de- 
clivity in the direction of this junction is the cause of the 
stagnation of the waters. 
It would appear that the river has different names which 
change with its course. Called at its source Tombia, Ba, 
