CAPTAIN TUCKEY» 
river, were struck with deep disappointment at 
its apparent magnitude. Hence they did not 
conceive that it could be derived from at all so 
remote a source as their mission supposed. Some 
particulars were formerly remarked, from which 
it might appear that this opinion was formed 
rather too hastily. The river, in fact, after being 
ascended for two or three hundred miles, was 
found to spread to a breadth, and to exhibit a 
grandeur of aspect and dimension, not inconsis- 
tent with its supposed derivation. From this and 
from other circumstances now to be mentioned. 
Captain Tuckey seems to have derived a convic- 
tion of its origin in the northern tropic. These 
circumstances are, " the extraordinary quiet rise 
" of the river in the beginning of September to 
" the height of eleven feet, without the occur- 
" rence of any rains at all adequate to produce such 
" an effect which he thinks " shows it to have 
" issued from some lake v/hich had received 
" almost the whole of its water from the north of 
" the line." This quietness he elsewhere ex- 
plains by stating, that though the rise is so con- 
siderable, yet the velocity is not at all increased. 
These facts are certainly strong in favour of the 
northern derivation of the Congo. Yet we must 
remark, that the period of the rise, considered 
singly, would lead us to form a very opposite 
conclusion. The rains of the northern tropic 
