An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa

by active 1820 Abd Salam Shabeeny

However fervent the zeal of Muhamedanism may be at Timbuctoo, it is not, I imagine, sufficient to convert the Negroes, who have not the best opinion of the Muhamedan tenets. The Negroes, however, are disposed to abjure idolatry for any other form of religion that they can be persuaded to think preferable, or that holds out a better prospect; a convincing proof of which has been seen by the readiness of the Africans of Congo and Angola, to renounce their idolatry for the Christian faith, by the conversion of thousands to that faith by the indefatigable zeal of the catholic missionaries, when the Portuguese first discovered those countries, and which, if the Sovereign of Portugal had persevered with that laudable zeal with which he began to promote the conversion of the Africans, the inhabitants of those extensive and populous countries might, at this day, have been altogether members of the Christian church!!

On the Junction of the Nile of Egypt with the Nile of Timbuctoo, or of Sudan.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. [²⁴⁶]

Footnote 246:[ (return) ] Inserted in March, 1817.

London, Jan. 25. 1817.

Sir,

Having read some annotations, in the Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, by Mungo Park, in 1805, which are calculated to persuade some persons, that my Account of the Interior of Africa is not altogether authentic, I feel myself called upon to offer some cursory observations to the public, in refutation of those aspersions. (Vide Appendix, No. IV. to Mungo Park's Second Journey, in 1805, pages 114. and 115.)

Although I assert, on the concurrent testimony of the best informed and most intelligent natives of Sudan, that there exists a [²⁴⁷]water communication between Timbuctoo and Cairo, I do not maintain that the [²⁴⁸]Nile of Sudan falls into the [²⁴⁹]Nile of Egypt, but that it hath a communication with it, or with some river that connects itself with the Nile of Egypt, which opinion is confirmed by Mr. Hornemann, on African authority.

Footnote 247:[ (return) ] Vide Jackson's Marocco, second or third edition, page 310.

Footnote 248:[ (return) ] (Nile el Kabeer) the Great Nile, (Bahar el Abeed, or Nile el Abeed) the Nile of Slaves or Negroes, (Nile Sudan) the Nile of Sudan or Nigritia, are the various names applied to the river that passes by Timbuctoo, and through the interior of Sudan, from west to east.