GEOGRAPHY. 
189 
recollected I am writing where I cannot satisfy myself, in a place 
destitute of literary facilities. If it is only to be found in the deli- 
neation, it is of course, as likely to be a branch running N. E. from 
the Niger, as a river running S.W. into it. . Mr. Park has described 
the Niger as dividing into two large branches after leaving Dibbie, 
and their re-union has been admitted by considerate investigators, 
to be a very improbable addition to that report.* Sidi Hamet 
assigns no course to the great river which he described as about 
an hour's ride with a camel south of Timbuctoo, and distinguished 
from the Niger, or, as he called it, Zohlib, by saying the latter was 
two hours ride. Adams placed La~mar-Zarah, about three quar- 
ters of a mile wide, two miles south of the town, without hesitation, 
but he only conceived that the course was S. W.-f Leo, ambiguous 
as the context may be, certainly writes that there is a branch of the 
Niger passing Timbuctoo, " Vicino a un ramo del Niger.'' Mr. 
Beaufoy's Moor says that below Ghinea is the sea into which the 
river of Tombuctoo disembogues itself; on which Major Rennell 
observes, " by the word sea, it is well known the Arabs mean to 
* " The fact of a large lake like the Dibbie, discharging its waters bj two streams 
floAving from distant parts of the lake, and re-uniting after a separate course of a hundred 
miles in length, has always appeared to us extremely apocryphal, at least we believe that 
the geography of the world does not afford a parallel case." Adams's Editor. 
-f- " According to these statements of the Moorish traders, Adams would seem to have 
Qnistaken the course of the stream at Tombuctoo. In fact, I do not recollect that he told 
me at Mogadore that it flowed in a westerly direction : but, I think, I am correct in 
saying, that he discovered some uncertainty in speaking upon this subject, (and almost 
upon this subject alone) observing, in answer to my inquiries, that he had not taken very 
particular notice, and that the river was steady, without any appearance of a strong 
current," Dupuis on Adams. 
Adams's name, La-mar-Zarah (for of course he did not attach La mar to indicate 
water, but pronounced La-mar-Zarah, as an integral name) seems accounted for by his 
confounding or connecting the Arabic name of the river, Lahamar, with the Negro name 
Y '}a (for we find these names in Marmol, tom. 3. liv. 8.) making Lahamar-y^a^ La-mar- 
Zarah. 
