166 Notes on the Congo River. 
twenty-five days, bring gold to Tinbuktu (the 
Tungubutu of De Barros, i. 220). Thus the 
lakes of Wangara would be the lagoons of the 
Slave-coast, in which the Niger may truly be said 
to lose itself. 
At length M. Reichard, of Lobenstein (“ Ephe- 
merides Geographiques,” Weimar, 1802), theoreti¬ 
cally discovered the mouth of the Niger, by 
throwing it into the Bight of Benin. He was 
right in essentials and wrong in details ; for in¬ 
stance, he supposed the Rio Formoso or Benin 
River and the Rio del Rey to join in one great 
stream beyond the flat alluvial delta : whereas 
the former is indirectly connected through the 
Wari with the Niger, and the latter has no con¬ 
nection with it at all. The truth was received 
with scant courtesy, and the hypothesis was pro¬ 
nounced to be “ worthy of very little attention/' 
There were, however, honourable exceptions. In 
1813, the learned Malte-Brun (“ Precis de la Geo¬ 
graphic Universelle,” vol. iv. 635) sanctioned the 
theory hinted at by Mungo Park, and in 1828 the 
well-abused Caillie, a Frenchman who had dared 
to excel Bruce and Mungo Park, wrote these re¬ 
markable words : “ If I may be permitted to hazard 
an opinion as to the course of the River Dhioliba, 
I should say that it empties itself by several 
mouths into the Bight of Benin.” In 1829, forti¬ 
fied by Clapperton’s opinion, my late friend, James 
