Footnote 258:[ (return) ] See Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, Timbuctoo, &c. page 310.
Again: Parke's intelligence, in his second journey, demonstrates an union of waters in the (Baseafeena [259]) Sea of Sudan; for he says, the current was said to be sometimes one way, and sometimes another; which I will take the liberty to interpret thus:--
That the current from the Eastern Nile, was westward into the Sea of Sudan, and the current of the Western Nile was eastward into the same sea of Sudan: thus the current would be sometimes one way, and sometimes another, making the Sea of Sudan the common receptacle for the Eastern as well as for the Western Nile.
Ptolemy's Sea of Nigritia is undoubtedly the same with my Sea of Sudan; Lybia Palus [260] being the Latin denomination, as Bahar Sudan is the Arabic for the interior lake called the Sea of Sudan; but whether this sea of Sudan will ultimately prove to be situated [261] as I have described it, fifteen journies [262] east of Timbuctoo, or 450 English miles, or as Ptolemy has described it, or in the intermediate distance between the two extremes, must be left for future travellers to ascertain.
Footnote 259:[(return) ] Another name for the Sea of Sudan, as will hereafter appear.
Footnote 260:[(return) ] See Ptolemy's Map of North Africa.
Footnote 261:[(return) ] See Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, page 310.
Footnote 262:[(return) ] Fifteen journies horse travelling, which are the journies here alluded to, at thirty miles a-day, is 450 British miles.
The enterprising and indefatigable, the patient and persevering genius of Burkhardt, deriving incalculable advantages from a long residence in the eastern regions of Africa, may probably decree
him to be the person to clear up this long-contested geographical point, unless the fascination of Arabian manners, or some Utopia in the interior regions of that continent, should wean him from the desire to re-visit his native country.