APPENDIX. 
357 
the productions of the country, and its inhabitants, but they only 
present vague ideas of the physical geography of the region which 
extends beyond the cataracts of Felou in the Senegal, and those 
near Barancouda, in the Gambia. The greater number of 
travellers gave the name of Niger to the Senegal, represented it as 
coming from a great distance in the interior, placed its source in a 
lake, and considered the Gambia as one of its branches. European 
geographers, deceived by the identity of name, confounded the 
Senegal with the Niger of the ancients, which waters the interior 
of Africa, both in their maps and in their books. D'Anville, how- 
ever, shewed in a memoir printed in the 26th volume of the Recueil 
de r Académie des Belles Lettres, that these two rivers are distinct ; 
he would have perhaps expunged for ever the error committed by 
these geographers, if he had added one very simple observation to 
his memoir. Travellers had called the Senegal, Niger, because a 
part of the Negroes who inhabit the countries which it traverses, 
give it the name of Ba Fing, Black River. It is probable, that 
having asked these Africans the signification of this name, they 
were struck with the coincidence, and imagined that the river 
which they beheld was the Niger of the antients. They supposed, 
that those who represented this river as flowing from west to east 
were mistaken, and they never thought of entering upon any 
minute investigation to discover the cause of the error which they 
attributed to them. Notwithstanding the labours of D'Anville, the 
result of which he gave to the world in his fine map of Africa, which 
exhibits the course of the Niger, as contrary to that of the Senegal, 
