168 Mr Murray on the Course of the River Niger. 
which has long carried on a great trade with Tombuctoo io 
qalt. 
3. The main stream of the Niger bearing, according to Mr 
Bowdich, the name of Quolla . — This is another instance of the 
perplexing transformations to which words transferred from the 
Arabic language are liable. I agree with Mr Bowdich in thinking, 
that this name of Quolla is essentially the same with Joli^ between 
which a link is formed by the name of Colle^ applied to the 
Niger by De Barros. I concur also in the opinion, that XheKuUao^ 
Browne is probably the very same name, river, and country. Its 
course is said to be southward of east, which confirms the autho- 
rity of Sidi Hamet, who first reported that direction to Biley ^ 3 ^ 
and also agrees with Browne. 
In regard to the termination of the Quolla or Niger, Mr Bow- 
dich found only one opinion among the merchants in Ashantee, 
as Mr Jackson had found in Morrocco, and Mr Horneman in 
Fezzan. They all considered it as the same stream with the 
Egyptian Nile. Such a general concurrence, though it cannot 
induce our assent to the opinion, seems at least a motive to 
state anew the grounds on which it is rejected. I Avould first 
remark, in addition to the defects already noticed in the testi- 
mony of land travellers, their imperfect view of the continuity 
^ rivers. When, after travelling along the bank of one river, 
they strike ofi* and come to another running in the same line, 
and perhaps the same direction, they are exceedingly apt, with- 
out farther evidence, to consider both as one and the same. 
Hence the extreme difficulty which Europeans long found in dis- 
tinguishing between the Senegal and Niger, though running in 
opposite directions, merely on account of their proximity, and 
forming apparently part of the same line. In several routes 
collected by Mr Bowdich himself, the Niger is represented as 
flowing along the frontier of Foota Jallo and Foota Jorra, 
which shews that the Faleme, the Senegal, and even the Gam- 
bia have been viewed as branches of it. The report of a land- 
* He likewise concurs as to its finally taking a southern direction. Mr Bow- 
dich did not hear of Wassanah; but African names undergo so many transfor- 
mations, that much importance cannot be attached to this circumstance. Okan- 
dec, or Osanga, might have undergone such a change. 
