Note (return) — SPECIMENS

The confusion of rivers, made mere equivocal by every new hypothesis, receives here additional ambiguity. If there were (as Mr. Bowdich affirms) three distinct rivers near Timbuctoo; viz. the Joliba, the Gambarro, and the Niger, (i.e. the Neel El Abeed) how comes it that they have not been noticed by Leo Africanus, who resided at Timbuctoo; by Edrissi, who is the most correct of the Arabian geographers; or whence is it, that these rivers have not been noticed by the many Moorish travelling merchants who have resided at Timbuctoo, and whom I have repeatedly questioned respecting this matter 278, or whence is it that Alkaid L'Hassen Ramy, a renowned chief of the Emperor of Marocco's army, with whom I was well acquainted, and who was a native of Houssa, knew of no such variously inclined streams. This being premised, I am certainly not disposed to relinquish the opinion I brought with me from Africa in the year 1807, viz. that the Neel El Abeed is the only mighty river that runs through Africa from west to east; but I admit that its adjuncts, as well as itself, have different names; thus, in the manuscript of Mr. Park's death, a copy of which is inserted in "Mr. Bowdich's Account of Ashantee," it is called Kude; many hundred miles eastward it is called Kulla, from the country through which it passes; but Kude and Kulla are different names, and ought not to be confounded one with the other; neither ought Quolla (i. e., the Negro pronunciation of Kulla) to be confounded with Kude, the former being the Negro term for the same river, in the same manner as Niger is the Roman name for the Neel Elabeed, which is the Arabic name for the same river. There is a stream which proceeds from the Sahara, the water of which is brackish; this stream hardly can be called a river, except in the rainy season. It passes in a south-westerly direction near Timbuctoo, but does not join the Neel Elabeed. I could mention several intelligent and credible authorities, the report of respectable merchants, who have resided, and, who have had establishments at Timbuctoo, in confirmation of this fact; but as the authorities which I should adduce would be unknown, even by name, to men of science in Europe, I would refer the reader to the interesting narrative of an intelligent Moorish merchant, who resided three years at Timbuctoo, and who was known to the committee of the African Association; this travelling merchant's name is L'Hage Abdsalam Shabeeny, and his narrative, a manuscript of which (with critical and explanatory notes by myself) I have in my possession, has the following observation: 279--"Close to the town of Timbuctoo, on the south, is a small rivulet in which the inhabitants wash their clothes, and which is about two feet deep; it runs into the great forest on the east, and does not communicate with the Nile, but is lost in the sands west of the town: its water is brackish; that of the Nile is good and pleasant."