_On the Niger and the Nile._
London, 7th April, 1820.
In the 25th number of the Quarterly Review, (article Park's
Travels,) the hypothesis there laid down as almost indisputable, is
515 the non-continuity of the two Niles of Africa, or (according to the
European phraseology of the day) of the Niger and the Nile.
This hypothesis founded on the opinion of Major Rennel, carries
with it no evidence whatever, but the speculative theory of that
learned geographer. The identity or connection of the two Niles,
and the consequent water communication between[312] Cairo and
Timbuctoo receives (supposing the Quarterly Review to be correct),
as our intelligence respecting Africa increases, additional
confirmation: and even the Quarterly Reviewer, who denominated the
opinion recorded by me, the gossipping stories of Negroes, (_vide_
Quarterly Review, No. 25, p. 140.) now favours this opinion!
The Quarterly Reviewer appreciates Burckhardt's information on this
subject, and depreciates mine, _although both are derived from the
same sources of[313] intelligence, and confirm one another_: the
reviewer says, Mr. Burckhardt has revived a question of older date;
viz. "that the Niger of Sudan and the Nile of Egypt are one and the
same river: this general testimony to a physical fact can be shaken
only by direct proof to the contrary."
[Footnote 312: _Vide_ Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, p.
310.]
[Footnote 313: _i. e_. Intelligence from natives of Africa.]
This is all very well: I do not object to the Quarterly Reviewer
giving up an opinion which he finds no longer tenable; but when I
see in the same review (No. 44, p. 481.) the following words,--"we
516 give no credit whatever to the report received by Mr. Jackson, of a
person (several Negroes[314], it should be) having performed a
voyage by water from Timbuctoo to Cairo," I cannot but observe with
astonishment, that the Reviewer believes Burckhardt's report, that
they are the same river, when, at the same time he does not believe
mine.
[Footnote 314: _Vide_ Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, p.
312.]
Is there not an inconsistency here, somewhat incompatible with the
impartiality which _ought_ to regulate the works of criticism? I
will not for a moment suppose it to have proceeded from a spirit of
animosity, which I feel myself unconscious of deserving. But the
reviewer further says, the objection to the identity of the Niger
and the Nile, is grounded on the incongruity of their periodical
inundations, or on the rise and fall of the former river not
corresponding with that of the latter. I do not comprehend whence
the Quarterly Reviewer has derived this information; I have always
understood the direct contrary, which I have declared in the
enlarged editions of my account of Marocco, page 304, which has
been confirmed by a most intelligent African traveller, Ali Bey,
(for which see his travels, page 220.)
I may be allowed to observe, that although the Quarterly Reviewer
has changed his opinion on this matter, I have invariably
maintained mine, founded as it is on the concurrent testimony of
the best informed and most intelligent native African travellers,
517 and I still assert, on the same foundation, _the identity of the
two Niles, and their continuity of waters_.
I have further to remark what will most probably ere long prove
correct; viz. that the _Bahar Abiad_[315], that is to say, the
river that passes through the country of Negroes, between Senaar
and Donga, is an erroneous appellation, originating in the general
ignorance among European travellers of the African Arabic, and that
the proper name of this river is Bahar Abeed, which is another term
for the river called the Nile-el-Abeed, which passes south of
Timbuctoo towards the east (called by Europeans the Niger).
It therefore appears to me, and I really think it must appear to
every unbiassed investigator of African geography, that every iota
of African discovery, made successively, by Hornemann[316],
Burckhardt, and others, tends to confirm _my water communication
between Timbuctoo and Cairo_, and the theorists and speculators in
African geography, who have heaped hypothesis upon hypothesis,
error upon error, who have raised splendid fabrics upon pillars of
ice, will ere long close their book, and be compelled, by the force
of truth and experience, to admit the fact stated about twelve
years ago by me in my account of Marocco, &c. viz. _that the Nile
518 of Sudan and the Nile of Egypt are identified by a continuity of
waters, and that a water communication is provided by these two
great rivers from Timbuctoo to Cairo_; and moreover, that the
general African opinion, _that the Neel-el-Abeed_ (Niger)
_discharges itself into the_ (Bahar el Mâleh) _Salt Sea, signifies
neither more nor less than that it discharges itself at the Delta
in Egypt, into the Mediterranean Sea_!