162 
EXAMINATION OF THE CHANNELS. 
to be the only access to the main branch of the Niger, 
unfortunately got aground and remained there all night, 
A boat, sent also to try the soundings all round 
Alburkah Island, found nine feet to be the least 
water in Louis Creek, while on the west side of the 
island, where the channel appeared to be very wide, in 
some places it was only one or two feet. Nothing in 
fact, can be moi’e deceiving than the outlets of the 
mighty Niger. While broad and imposing branches 
are seen in various directions, the only navigable channel 
hitherto discovered, is so narrow, that oui' vessels could 
not turn in it. Yet the embouchure which we had 
entered would appear to justify the most extravagant 
anticipations that could be formed of the river. This is, 
however, a mere reservoir, of which nature has pro- 
vided no less than twenty along a coast of more than 
one hundred and fifty miles in extent ; — the Delta, in 
fact, formed by the deposit brought down by the floods. 
The small rise and fall of the sea in this part — hardly 
six feet — appears to require such reservoirs to collect 
the prodigious volume of water which is deposited on so 
large a surface of Africa — and of which the river is the 
drainage — in order to discharge it at several points into 
the universal receptacle. 
The Rio Nun, from its size, has the appearance of an 
estuary, being more than a mile and a half wide and five 
miles in length ; the other outlets resemble this. The 
water is deep in every part of it. The rise and fall at 
spring-tides is 5 ft. 6 in., and at neaps 4 ft. 8 in. The 
