Indeed, it presents far from an imposing sight, as it moves slowly, sluggishly along its broad, marshy valley bed. This valley bed is inclosed either by rocky ridges or by high dunes. These dunes are very probably mounds of mud and sand, brought down by the river in the course of ages, and heaped up along its banks.
The broad, marshy valley is thickly studded with water reeds and sedges. Its whole surface is, in fact, cut up into innumerable small creeks and streams.
At the ferry of Burri the Niger attains a breadth of eight or nine hundred yards. At this point the valley is about two miles broad. The land is fertile, carefully cultivated, and well populated.
Somewhat farther south the river passes through two towns. At this point in its course its bed becomes rocky, and navigation is, in consequence, dangerous.
At the town of Say the bed of the Niger becomes very much narrowed from its previous breadth of from twenty-five hundred to three thousand paces. At this point the bed of the stream is inclosed by rocky banks, and the current flows on at the rate of three miles an hour, with an average width of but one thousand paces.
The most beautiful and picturesque scenery on the Niger is in the section where it flows around the eastern shoulder of the so-called Kong Mountains. In solemn majesty these mighty peaks look from a height of from two thousand to three thousand feet upon the waters at their base.
The delta of the Niger may be described as a dense mangrove forest. This is cut up into beautiful islands by means of the many streams. It is said that there are upwards of twenty of these streams into which the river divides.
The existence of the Niger was known in ancient times. Accounts had been brought by travelers, who, coming from the southern shores of the Mediterranean, crossed the Great Desert, and discovered the course of a great river flowing towards the rising sun.
Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, born nearly five hundred years before Christ, supposed it to be a branch of the Egyptian Nile. Pliny, a famous ancient writer, born early in the first century after Christ, speaks of the Nigris of Ethiopia. He, also, believed that the river flowed into the river Nile.
Many were the attempts to gain definite knowledge of the river. Just before the middle of the present century the English government sent out an expedition. The result of the expedition proved that the river was navigable from Boussa to the sea.