[139] Is it possible to quote this estimable traveller, who united so many extraordinary qualities, without offering a tribute of regret to his memory? His loss has deprived science of more than one discovery: all, however, has not perished with him; the account of his travels has been preserved; and it is to be hoped that it will speedily be published, with his maps and drawings.
[140] See Mémoire sur la Communication du Nil des Noirs avec le Nil d’Egypte, p. 9.
[141] Funda appears to be less than a hundred leagues from the sea, measuring the distance by the current.
[142] A Dissertation on the Course and probable Termination of the Niger, London, 1829.
[143] M. Chauvet, however has just published a conjecture coinciding with several different accounts, and possessing the advantage of embracing the whole question of the rivers which traverse Northern Africa in every direction: his opinion is developed at great length, and I should here insist upon the merit of this explanation, had not the author prevented me, by quoting my opinion as an authority. (Revue Encycl. October 1829).
[144] The numerals are the same as in Bambara.
[145] I have added within parentheses the words given by Mungo Park to shew the frequent agreement between the two travellers, the differences arise from the diversity of the countries through which they travelled.
It is to be regretted that travellers, when collecting the words of an unknown language, do not select peculiar and characteristic terms: it would be easier, by following this method of comparing the different idioms, to discover their family resemblance or their original dissimilarity. With this view, I have formed a rather extended specimen of a vocabulary principally for the use of travellers in Africa, with a methodic mode of interrogation (See Atlas Ethn. de M. Ad. Balbi, page xlviij).
I have also formed a collection of vocabularies of more than thirty idioms of Northern Africa, which may serve as a second part of the Vocabulaire des Voyageurs.—E. J.
[146] The r is changed into l in this word and many others see below.—E. J.