Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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Mr. Leake Says, That Leo Was Very
Young At The Time, And, Therefore That His Memory Probably Failed
Him, When He Came To Describe The City, Which Was Many Years After
His Return.]
Considering these circumstances, it will hardly be contended that the
late discovery of the Landers, has made any alteration in
The nature
of the question, as to the identity of the Quorra and Nigir; the
sudden bend of the river to the southward, through a country, which
has been equally unknown to the ancients and moderns, having always
left the best informed of them in ignorance of any part of the river,
except that of which the course was northerly or easterly. If then,
there be sufficient reason for the belief, that these latter portions
were known to the, ancients, we have only to suppose them to have had
some such imperfect knowledge of the interior of North Africa, as we
ourselves had attained previously to the expedition of Denham and
Clapperton, to justify the application of the name Nigir to the whole
course of the river. Although we find Ptolemy to be misinformed on
several points concerning central Africa, yet there still remains
enough in his Data, on Interior Libya and Northern Ethiopia, to show
a real geographical approximation, very distant indeed from the
accuracy at which science is always aiming, but quite sufficient to
resolve the question as to the identity of the Nigir, in which an
approximation is all that can be expected or required. Having been
totally ignorant of the countries through which that river flows in a
southerly direction, Ptolemy naturally mistook it for a river of the
interior; he knew the middle Ethiopia to be a country watered by
lakes, formed by streams rising in mountains to the southward; he was
superior to the vulgar error of supposing that all the waters to the
westward of the Nile flowed into that river, and he knew consequently
that the rivers and lakes in the middle region, had no communication
with the sea. It is but lately that we ourselves have arrived at a
certainty on this important fact. We now know enough of the level of
the Lake Tchad, to be assured that no water from that recipient can
possibly reach the Nile. This wonderful river, of which the lowest
branch is 1200 geographical miles from the Mediterranean, (measuring
the distance along its course, in broken lines of 100 G.M. direct,)
has no tributary from the westward below the Bahr Adda of Browne,
which is more than 1600 miles from the sea, similarly measured. It is
scarcely possible, therefore, that the latter point can be less,
taking the cataracts into consideration than 1500 feet above the sea,
whereas the following considerations lead to the belief that the
Tchadda is not more than 500 feet in height.
We learn from the information of Clapperton, confirmed and amplified
by that of Lander, that there exists a ridge, which about Kano and
Kashna, extends forth the Yeu to the Lake Tchadda on one side, and on
the other the river of Soccatoo, which joins the Quorra at a distance
from the sea of about 500 miles, measured in the manner above
mentioned. A similar process of measurement gives a length of 1700
miles to the whole course of the Quorra, the sources of which,
according to Major Laing, are about 1600 feet above the sea; the
stream, therefore, has an average fall of something less than a foot
in a mile in lines of 100 geographical miles. This would give to the
confluence of the river of Soccatoo with the Quorra, a height of less
than 500 feet above the sea, but as that confluence occurs above the
most rapid part of the main stream, 500 feet seem to be very nearly
the height.
As a knowledge of the origin and course of rivers, conducts in every
country to that of the relative altitude and directions of its
highlands, the late discoveries on the waters of Africa have thrown
great light on its orography. The sources of the largest, or rather
longest of its rivers, namely, the white or true Nile, now appears to
be in a point nearly equidistant from the Indian and Atlantic Oceans
in one direction, and from the Mediterranean and the Cape of Good
Hope on the other. These central summits, it is fair to suppose, are
at least as high as the snowy peak Samen, in Abyssinia, which is the
culminating point towards the sources of the minor branch or Blue
Nile, and that they are covered, therefore, with perpetual snow. From
hence flow the White Nile, the Djyr, the Bahr Culla, the Congo, and
several rivers of the coast of Zanguebar.
As a part of these great African Alps was described to Denham as
lying beyond the mountain of Mendefy, the latter would seem to be an
advanced northerly summit of them. The range is probably united to
the eastward with the mountains of Abyssinia, and to the westward,
terminates abruptly in some lofty peaks on the eastern side of the
delta of the Quorra, but not till after it has sent forth a lower
prolongation, which crosses the course of the Quorra nearly at right
angles, and terminates at the end of 1500 miles, at the sources of
the Quorra, Gambia, and Senegal. A minor counterfort advances from
the central range to the northwestward, commencing about the Peak of
Mendefy, and vanishing at the end of about 900 miles in the desert of
the Tuaricks. It gives rise to the two Sharys, which flow in opposite
directions to the Quorra and the Lake Tchadda, and further north to
the streams which flow to the same two recipients from about Kano and
Kashna.
Though the knowledge of interior Africa now possessed by the
civilized world, is the progressive acquisition of many enterprising
men, to all of whom we are profoundly indebted, it cannot be denied
that the last great discovery has done more than any other to place
the great outline of African geography on a basis of certainty.
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