404 
THEORIES RESPECTING THE NIGER. 
river was such as these writers have universally de- 
scribed it to be. A more recent writer, and a 
native of Western Africa, (Scheabeddin,) states, 
that this branch does not reach the sea. The re- 
ceptacle is not specified, but a lake must neces- 
sarily be supposed. We shall find occasion here- 
after to touch again upon this subject. 
The information and ideas of European geo- 
graphers during the sixteenth century, were de- 
rived from two sources ; the description of Africa 
by Leo Africanus, and the early settlements of the 
Portuguese; on the western coast. Leo agrees 
with the Arabians in assigning a western course to 
the Niger, but he does not, like them, derive it 
from the Nile. It takes its rise, according to him, 
from a lake situated to the south of Bornou, pro- 
bably the lake of Cauga, and thence flows west- 
ward till it reaches the ocean. Leo, indeed, had 
heard it asserted, at Tombuctoo, that it rose in 
a mountain, flowed eastward, and fell into a 
lake ; but this he asserts to be contradicted by his 
own actual observation of the navigation from 
Tombuctoo to Ginea (Jinnie). Upon this ex- 
traordinary statement, an opportunity will occur 
of making some farther remarks, at the close of the 
chapter. 
The above observations of Leo entirely con- 
curred with those which the Portuguese them- 
