THEORIES RESPECTING THE NIGER. 411 
" all." Upon this ground, he endeavours to over- 
whelm him, by the testimonies of Edrisi, Leo 
Africanus, Ludolphus, Labat, and other learned 
writers. Stibbs, however, though he did not pre- 
sume to compare himself, as to learning, with those 
great personages, continued not the less to assert 
the plain facts which he had seen with his own 
eyes ; so that Moore was left still in a very serious 
perplexity. 
In this state of fluctuation the question remain- 
ed, till the truly important discoveries of Park 
gave a new face to African geography. This il- 
lustrious traveller finally ascertained, that the Niger 
was entirely distinct from any of the rivers which 
fell into the Atlantic ; that it flowed eastward in- 
to the centre of the continent ; and that to it be- 
longed several hundred miles of the course which 
the best modern geographers had assigned to the 
Senegal. Upon these data, Major Rennell found- 
ed his theory of its course. It had been traced, 
indeed, by Park, only about 300 miles from its 
source ; but concurrent testimonies, ancient and 
modern, established the existence of a continued 
stream, upwards of 1000 miles farther, to the ex- 
tremity of Wangara. That country is described 
by the Arabian geographers as entirely surround- 
ed and intersected by branches of the Niger, (Nile 
of the Negroes ;) as containing, at least, two lakes, 
and is entirely overflowed during the rainy season* 
Major Rennell, therefore, very plausibly inferred. 
