27^ DISCOVERIES OF THE FRENCH. 
Hegal, made a voyage as far as Podor, a factory 
situated about sixty leagues up the river. Not- 
withstanding a few occasional shoals, he found 
the river easily navigable. Though then at its 
greatest ebb, it was always at least from twenty 
to thirty feet deep. The salt water is not felt 
more than thirty leagues up ; but the influence 
of the tide reaches as far as Podor. The greatest 
rise which Adanson ever observed the tide to 
cause at the mouth of the river was two feet and 
a half; whence he infers, that the descent from 
Podor to the sea does not exceed that measure ; 
so that this extensive track of country, with the 
exception of a few sand-hills interspersed, is al* 
most completely a dead level. 
At Podor, our traveller remarked a number of 
beautiful trees, particularly tamarisks, red gum 
trees, and several other sorts of thorny acacias. 
The button-tree also, from the ease with which 
it receives the tool, and its fine yellow colour, 
appeared to him superior for joiners' work to any 
in the world. He had now an opportunity of par- 
ticularly observing the ostrich. He saw in par- 
ticular two tame ones, which, with negro chil- 
dren on their backs, ran round the village with as- 
tonishing rapidity. He had the curiosity to cause 
two full grow^n negroes to mount the largest one, 
which set off with them, first at only a smart trot, 
but getting heated, and spreading its wings, soon 
