ARABIANS— LEO, 
till it is received into the Atlantic, or " Sea of 
" Darkness," as they term their supposed circum- 
ambient ocean. This system, to the extent in 
which it has been appHed, is no doubt quite er- 
roneous. But as Gana was the capital of the 
Arabian settlements, and the centre of their com- 
munications, it may deserve consideration whether 
there do not arise a probability, that, at Gana, the 
course of the river was such as these wTiters have 
universally described it to be. A more recent 
writer, and a native of Western Africa, (Schea- 
beddin,) states, that this branch does 7iot reach 
the sea. The receptacle is not specified, but a 
lake must necessarily be supposed. We shall find 
occasion hereafter to touch again upon this sub- 
ject. 
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 
