rect, and the still later discoveries of De Caillé confirm the fact of its receiving large supplies from the S.E. in its early course, while the magnitude of the stream at Couroussa, nearly due east from Teemboo, 900 French feet broad, and 10 deep, in the dry season, goes to establish, as correct, the conjecture that it receives from the east the Coomba, or some other great river.

Amongst other "facts" adduced, I noticed the pointed facts stated by Robertson, (see notes on Africa, 1820,) that the natives on the coasts of Lagos and Benin all assured him that the rivers were derived from one great river to the northward, which made all the rivers in these countries. Subsequently to 1821, I had communications with different individuals who had traded on the parts of the coast of Africa mentioned, and in the mouths of the rivers in the Delta of Benin, particularly one gentleman belonging to Glasgow, and one very intelligent gentle man and excellent navigator, belong ing to Liverpool, who had traded with the places and on the rivers mentioned, (not in the slave-trade,) during a period of twenty years. The latter informed me that all the rivers in the Delta communicated with each other-that on these rivers he had yearly traded with natives, who, in canoes capable of containing 200 persons, and covered at one end, as the cabin for their wives and families, had descended the parent stream from countries two and three moons distant, and far above Boussa, The other, who had been up the Rio de Formosa in a large schooner, told me a similar tale, and described the magnitude, width, and depth of that noble stream, and the numerous branches diverging from it, with great accuracy, and with such precision as could leave no doubt on any mind capable of reflection, that these streams were the mouths of the mighty Niger. They completely confirmed the account given by Bosman; as noticed in my book, p. 129, when speaking of the Rio de Formosa, he says, "upwards" from its mouth, "it is sometimes broader (than four miles,) and sometimes narrower. It sprouts into innumerable branches, some of which may very well deserve the name of rivers. About

five miles from its mouth, it throws off two branches within two miles of each other. Agatton, a place of great trade, was situated 60 miles up the river. So far, and yet farther, ships may conveniently come sailing by hundreds of branches of the river, besides creeks, some of which are very wide. Its branches extend into all the circumjacent countries. The country all about is divided into islands by the multiplicity of its branches." The Portuguese also affirmed that it was easy, with a canoe, to get from the Rio de Formo sa into the circumjacent rivers, viz. the Rio Lagos, Rio Volta, Elrei, New Calabar, Bonny, and other rivers.

The lamented Major Laing told me, that a native of Kano, under his command, and a sergeant in the Royal African Corps, named Frazer, told him that he was, with 125 others, seized, when trading near Yaoorie. "After they were taken, they were put into a canoe rowed by six men, and in two weeks they reached Ecco, where they were sold. After being put into the canoe, they were one week on a small fresh-wa ter river, about 200 yards wide; then they got into a large river of fresh water, (took calabashes to drink it,) about two and a half miles broad— they were one week on it before they got to Ecco." Another man, a native of Houssa, told Major Laing that he went prisoner from Nyffe to Ecco, distant thirty days' journey, and that at Ecco, the river is called Quorra. Scarcely any thing can be more accurate than this account of the course and navigation of the Niger from Yaoorie to Ecco, in which we at once, and readily, discover the town named Egga, on the banks of the river, above the junction of the Tschaddi with the Niger, as mentioned and named by Lander. Clapperton, in his first journey, gives various accounts which he had received from travellers, that the Niger flowed south from Nyffe to the Salt Sea-(see Magazine, June, 1826, p. 697)—and Dupuis' accounts, derived from most intelligent Moslem travellers, were such, as that scarcely even prejudice itself could doubt or dispute them. "Whence," said Dupuis, to his informants, are the great rivers talked of in the Gharb, (Ismaelia,) and which the Arabs say run to Wanga

down from the interior. The whole country and coast, for a great extent, is intersected with arms and outlets of rivers communicating with each other inland. The bottom of the sea, along a great extent of coast, is all soft mud. From the Rio Lagos to the Rio Elrei Rivers, no fewer than twenty streams enter the ocean, several of them of surprising magnitude, and navigable for ships. Large floating islands are borne down by their waves, and carried into the ocean.' "In the Bights of Benin and Biafra, therefore, is the great outlet of the Niger, bearing along in his majestic stream all the waters of central Africa, from 10 deg. west long. to 28 deg. east long., and from the tropic of Cancer to the shores of Benin," &c.

The great geographical ignorance which the writer in the Quarterly Review has shewn regarding the interior of Northern Africa, renders it very unbecoming on his part to attempt, by his ipse dixit alone, to beat down all the authorities of antiquity upon that subject. Herodotus is dismissed in a moment as no authority. The account given by that celebrated historian is, that five young men of the tribe of the Nassamones, a people who resided south-east of the great Syrtes, south of Cyrene, and about the latitude of 29 deg. north, set out "to explore the deserts of Africa, and to endeavour at extending their discoveries beyond all preceding adventurers. The remoter parts of Lybia beyond the sea-coast, and the people who inhabit its borders, are infested by various beasts of prey; the country yet more distant is a PARCHED AND IMMEASURABLE DESERT.* The young men left their companions well provided with water and with food, and first proceeded through the region which was inha

bited. They next came to that which was infested by wild beasts, leaving which, they directed their course westward (pros zephuron anemon

towards the southwest wind) through the desert. After a journey of many days over a barren and sandy soil, they at length discerned some trees growing in a plain. These they approached, and seeing fruit upon them, they gathered it. Whilst they were thus employed, some men of dwarfish stature came where they were, seized their persons, and carried them away. They were mutually ignorant of each other's language, but the Nassamonians were conducted over many marshy grounds to a city, in which all the inhabitants were of the same diminutive appearance, and of a black colour. This city was washed by a great river, which flowed from (rein de apo hesperes auton) west to east (to the rising sun), and abounded in crocodiles." The Nassamonians afterwards returned to their own country, and told the dangers they had undergone, and the wonders they had seen.

This is the simple statement given by Herodotus, and if the account had come to him through fifty different hands, instead of three hands, it does not lessen the general accuracy of the account, that these men had crossed the Great Zahara, and reached the banks of the Niger. They certainly first travelled south through the inhabited country, and next through that inhabited by wild beasts, from whence, probably to the south of Mourzouk, they bent their course westward, not "directly west," as the Reviewer states, through the desert, which if they had not crossed in a southwesterly direction, they never could have reached either a cultivated country, or any river great or small. If their course was directed

south-westerly from the southward of Mourzouk, they would come to the cultivated land to the north of Timbuctoo, or, perhaps, still further to the west, and from whence they were captured and carried to the city on the river mentioned. Herodotus clearly points out his knowledge of the Zahara, when he mentions" α parched and immeasurable desert,” and which" immeasurable desert" was certainly the space which the adventurous travellers intended to explore, from their taking plenty of water and food with them; while any one has but to take up a map of Africa to see, that no man travelling due west from the country of the Nassamones, situated a little to the north of 30 deg. of north latitude, as the Reviewer says the travellers alluded to went, could have "a parched and immeasurable desert" to cross, or come to a " city washed by a great river, which flowed from west to east, and abounded in crocodiles." No river that flows on the south side of Mount Atlas can deserve the appel lation of "great;" because their courses are very short, and their courses are, moreover, from northwest to southeast until they are lost in the desert. It is impossible that the Ghir or Adjidi streams, mentioned by the Reviewer, can be the river mentioned by Herodotus; for who ever heard of crocodiles being in either of them, or in any stream that flowed on the south side of Mount Atlas, or in any stream that has not a communication with the ocean? while every one acquainted with African geography knows that crocodiles or alligators are numerous in the Niger. Also, that while there are marshy lands to the north of that river, there are none on the banks of the Ghir and the Adjidi.

Still more unfounded is the Review er's assertion and assumption, that the Ghir and the Adjidi of Mount Atlas, are the Gir and the Niger of Ptole my. However little acquainted Ptolemy might be with the extent of the Great Desert, still his knowledge of the countries and rivers to the south of it seems to have been obtained from good authority. The Gir he distinctly points out as rising in 9 deg. north latitude, and to the westward of the great western branch of the Nile, and flowing northwest, and af

terwards westward. In this portion of Africa, we not only find, from modern information, a river rising and running in the place and in the direction mentioned by Ptolemy, but we have the very name given upon the best authority. The river alluded to, is the Misselad of Brown, and Om Teymam of Burckhardt; and which, as the latter gentleman informs us, is also called by the natives of the country Dayr, and which long-lost name is to this day pronounced Gir in Egypt, the country wherein Ptolemy wrote. In attempting to expose the ignorance of the ancients, there fore, the Reviewer only exposes his own. Moreover, there is a remarkable fact which shews Ptolemy's knowledge of the interior of northern Africa, where he mentions the people called Leuco Ethiopeans, or White Ethiopians, and in these parts we at this day find the country of Goober, &c., the natives of which are almost white!

But quitting these subjects, the writer in the Quarterly Review knows very well that the map of Northern Africa, constructed by me, and the researches made to shew the course and the termination of the Niger in the Atlantic, was not made, nor undertaken for the purpose of seeking applause, or medals, or rewards from Government, or from any other quarter, but made to establish clearly an important geographical fact, in order, by that fact, to induce the Government to form and to support an establishment on Fernando Po; from thence to open up a trade with the adjacent coasts, and up the rivers into the interior of Africa, by which means the country would have been civilized, and the slave trade terminated, and also a great and beneficial trade opened up to and acquired by my country. I carried the offer of a commercial company to Government to undertake this. The President of the Royal Society, Lord Goderich, will, I dare say, remember the fact of the application having been officially made to the Board of Trade, in June and July 1820, when he was the President of that Board. This application was also made, and the map exhibited, to Earl Bathurst, the Secretary for the Colonies, to Mr Canning, President of the Board of Control, and to Lord Mel