THEORIES RESPECTING THE NIGER. 4$l 
tion, at which all the central waters take their 
course to the southward ? The account of the for- 
mer river, indeed, is not very clear. He calls it, 
at one place, a small river ; yet, if it be half the 
breadth from Mogadore to the island, or two hun- 
dred and fifty yards, this term could scarcely ap- 
ply. .At another place he calls it the same river 
with the Zolibib, which could scarcely be the case, 
either from its magnitude or situation. His ac- 
count of the small river, sometimes dried up, passing 
by Tombuctoo, scarcely answers to the Mar Zarah, 
which appeared to Adams three quarters of a mile 
broad. It is possible, however, that very simple 
explanations might remove the difficulty which 
very slight inaccuracies of observation and ambi- 
guities of expression are so apt to occasion. It 
may be observed, that upon these suppositions, this 
yet unexplored west-flowing river will be almost 
exclusively the river so famed in antiquity, the 
Niger of Ptolemy, the Nile of the Negroes of 
the Arabians. The latter, especially, could know 
nothing of the Niger traversed by Park, nor of 
that branch turning to the south, which has been 
delineated by Sidi Hamet. There might be room 
for further observations on the subject ; but, in- 
deed, we are " weary of conjectures," and entertain 
hopes that Mr Campbell and his party, to a certain 
extent, " may end them/* It seems probable 
