We can now trace very distinctly, the entire line of this great river. Its source, though not actually visited, seems ascertained by Laing to exist in the high country of Kissi, about 200 miles in the interior from Sierra Leone. Thence it rolls through Foota Jallo and Kankan, where Caillie describes himself to have found it already a rapid and considerable stream. At Bammakoo, having received the tributary from Sankari in Manding, which Park mistook for the main river, it begins its course over the fine plain of Bambarra, where it forms a noble stream; and in passing Sego, the capital, has been considered as equalling the Thames at Westminster. Thence it pursues a north-westerly course, and flowing through the lake Dibbie, reaches Timbuctoo. Its course from that city to Youri has not yet been delineated; but the fact that Park navigated down from one place to the other, fully establishes the continuity. During this reach the Niger makes a great change of direction from north-east to almost due south. From Youri to the sea, it was navigated by the present travellers, and was found following generally a southern direction, though making in one part a rapid bend to the east, whence it gradually returns. If we measure two distances, one from the source to Timbuctoo, and the other from that city to the sea, we shall have nearly 2,000 miles, which may be considered as the direct course; and the various windings must raise the whole line of the stream to upwards of 3,000 miles. For several hundred miles of its lower course, it forms a broad and magnificent expanse, resembling an inland sea. The Niger must after all yield very considerably to the Missouri and Orellana, those stupendous rivers of the new world. But it appears at least as great as any of those which water the old continents. There can rank with it only the Nile, and the Yangtse-kiang, or Great River of China. But the upper course of neither is yet very fully ascertained; and the Nile can compete only in length of course, not in the magnitude of its stream, or the fertility of the regions which it waters. There is one feature in which the Niger may defy competition from any river, either of the old or new world. This is in the grandeur of its Delta. Along the whole coast, from the river of Formosa or Benin to that of Old Calabar, about 300 miles in length, there open into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have scarcely been able to number. Taking this coast as the base of the triangle or Delta, and its vertex at Kirree, about 170 miles inland, where the Formosa branch separates, we have a space of upwards of 25,000 square miles, equal to the half of England. Had this Delta, like that of the Nile, been subject only to temporary inundations, leaving behind a layer of fertilizing slime, it would have formed the most fruitful region on earth, and might have been almost the granary of a continent. But, unfortunately, the Niger rolls down its waters in such excessive abundance, as to convert the whole into a huge and dreary swamp, covered with dense forests of mangrove, and other trees of spreading and luxuriant foliage. The equatorial sun, with its fiercest rays, cannot penetrate these dark recesses; it only exhales from them pestilential vapours, which render this coast the theatre of more fatal epidemic diseases than any other, even of Western Africa. That human industry will one day level these forests, drain these swamps, and cover this soil with luxuriant harvests, we may confidently anticipate; but many ages must probably elapse before man, in Africa, can achieve such a victory over nature.
The Niger, besides its own ample stream, has a number of tributaries, equal perhaps in magnitude and importance to those of any other river on the globe; with the exception of the united streams of the Mississippi and Missouri. At no great distance above the point where the Delta commences, the Tshadda, nearly equal in magnitude to itself, enters it; after watering large and fruitful kingdoms, of which the names only, and of these but a very few, have reached us. On this river an extensive commerce and active navigation is said to prevail; the existence of which is further confirmed by the great importance attached to Funda, and other cities situated at or near the junction. It would have been deeply interesting, and have given a new importance to the river communications of Africa, could we have believed, what was positively asserted by very credible witnesses, that vessels by its channel sailed to and from the lake Tchad, and thus held intercourse with the kingdoms of Loggun and Bornou. It seems certain that the names Tshadda, Shary, and Tchad, are one and the same. But the identity of the two first as rivers is what we are precluded from all possibility of believing, by the circumstance that the Shary of Loggun and Bornou, which Major Denham saw and sailed upon, was found by him falling into lake Tchad, while the Tshadda of Lander fell into the Niger; consequently they are distinct streams, flowing in opposite directions. It is very probable indeed that their fountains may be in the same mountain chain, and at no great distance; and even that some of their branches may approach very near, so that merchants may, by an easy portage, convey commodities between them. Nay, it is not quite impossible that they may be united by some connecting channel, as the Amazons and the Oronooka are; but this seems scarcely probable.
At no great distance above the Tshadda, enters the Coodonia, a smaller river, but which Lander had seen flowing through a very fertile and highly cultivated country. Considerably higher is the Cubbie, a large stream from the country and city of that name; and higher still the Quarrama, which has passed by Zirmie and Sackatoo. Between this point and Timbuctoo, we have no means of knowing whether any or what rivers fall into the Niger. The tributary which passes that city is of no great importance; but at the eastern boundary of Bambarra, Park describes the influx from the south of two great streams, the Maniana and Nimma; and it seems very doubtful if Caillie was not mistaken in supposing the latter to be a mere branch of the Niger. The higher tributaries, descending from the mountains, swell the stream, without themselves affording any important navigation.—Edinburgh Review.
Notes of a Reader.
LAURENCEKIRK SNUFF-BOXES.
[Probably one of the most amusing articles in Mr. Macculloch's bulky Dictionary of Commerce of 1,150 pages, is the following account of the manufacture of the celebrated Laurencekirk snuff-boxes. It is right, however, to explain, that Mr. Macculloch only mentions these boxes here for the purpose of giving the following details, not to be met with in any other publication.]
These beautiful boxes were first manufactured at the village of Laurencekirk, in Kincardineshire, about forty years since. The original inventer was a cripple hardly possessed of the power of locomotion. In place of curtains, his bed (rather a curious workshop) was surrounded with benches and receptacles for tools, in the contrivance and use of which he discovered the utmost ingenuity. The inventer, instead of taking out a patent, confided his secret to a joiner in the same village, who in a few years amassed a considerable property; while the other died, as he had lived, in the greatest poverty. The great difficulty of the manufacture lies in the formation of the hinge, which in a genuine box is so delicately made as hardly to be visible. Peculiar, or, as they are called, secret tools are required in its formation; and though they must have been improved by time and experience, the mystery attached to their preparation is still so studiously kept up, that the workmen employed in one shop are rigorously debarred from having any communication with those employed in another.