It may be added, that, whether from the difficulties that grew out of the subject, when the geographical documents came to be analyzed, or whether it was from actual information, both Delisle and D’Anville describe two lakes, near each other; one at the supposed head of the Senegal river, the other at that of the Tombuctoo river. I think it most probable, that it was occasioned by the want of their being made to comprehend, that the waters ran eastward to, and not westward from the lake Maberia; so that when they were told that the Tombuctoo river issued from a lake, they concluded it must be a different one from that at the head of the Senegal. Certain it is, however, that these geographers believed, that the waters ran to the west, from this lake.
I have now brought to a conclusion, what was meant to be said on the subject of the descriptions, and mistakes, of former geographers; in the course of which it may be observed, that a period of twenty-two centuries has brought matters round again to the same point. And having thus cleared the ground, I next proceed to the more important part of the subject, the proper discoveries of Mr. Park.
[26]I here use the word Niger, as being the best understood by Europeans; but the proper name of this river in the country seems to be Guin or Jin. (Hartmann’s Edrisi, p. 32. 48. 51.) At the same time, it is more commonly designed by the term Joliba, meaning the Great Water, or great river. In like manner, the Ganges has two names, Padda, the proper name; Gonga, the great river.
The Moors and Arabs call it Neel Abeed, the River of Slaves; but they have also a name to express the great water, that is, Neel Kibbeer. Neel appears to be employed in Africa, as Gonga in India, to express any great river.
By Niger, the ancients meant merely to express the River of the Black People, or Ethiopians. The term was Roman: for the Greeks believed it to be the head, or a branch, of the Egyptian Nile.
[27]Pliny, lib. v. c. 4.
[28]M. J. Lalande, almost at the moment of Mr. Park’s investigation, has determined its course to be to the west; notwithstanding the forcible reasoning of his countryman D’Anville. (Mémoire sur l’Intérieur de l’Afrique.) Mr. Bruce was of the same opinion. Vol. iii. p. 720. 724.
[29]Euterpe, c. 32.
[30]Lib. v. c. 9.
[31]Probably a corruption of Senhagi; or Assenhagi, as the early Portuguese discoverers write it. These were a great tribe.