168 Notes on the Congo River . 
In July, 1804, the ardent and irrepressible Scot 
wrote from Priors Lynn, near Longtown, to a 
friend, Mr. William Kier, of Milholm, that the 
river “ Enzaddi ” was frequented by Portuguese, 
who found the stream still as large as near the 
mouth, after ascending 600 miles. It is useful to 
observe how these distances are obtained. The 
slave-touters for the Liverpool and other dealers 
used, we are told, to march one month up country, 
and take two to return. Thirty days multiplied 
by twenty miles per diem give 600 miles. I need 
hardly point out that upon such a mission the 
buyer would be much more likely to travel 60 
miles than 600 in a single month, and I believe 
that the natives of the lower river never went be¬ 
yond Nsundi, or 215 indirect miles from Point 
Padrao. 
With truly national tenacity and plausibility 
Perfervidum Ingenium contended that the Congo 
or Zaire was the Nigerian debouchure. Major 
Rennell, who had disproved the connection of the 
Niger and the Egyptian Nile by Bruce’s baro¬ 
metric measurements on the course of the moun¬ 
tain-girt Bahr el Azrak, and by Brown’s altitudes 
at Darfur, condemned the bold theory for the best 
of reasons. 
Mungo Park, after a brief coldness and coquet¬ 
ting with it, hotly adopted to the fullest extent the 
wild scheme. Before leaving England (Oct. 4, 
