Note 215 — NEGROLAND divided into Nations.

Abú-l-fedá and Yakut wrote Kúra كُورَى; in one of the Routes (No. 4) published by Dupuis the river is called Koara كُوَرَا, though had the points been correctly written, we should probably have had Kúrá. Bello writes in his map Kowára كوارَ, or, as our travellers have called it, Quorra. In Brahima’s Itinerary (Bowdich, Mission, &c. p. 491), and in another translated by De Sacy, (Walck. Rech. p. 453), the Great River is named Lake Koad or Caudh كوض, which ought rather to be read Kúḍa. Further on we shall show that in these Itineraries the Arabic letter Dád ض is substituted for r; so that Lake Kúra is here intended. The Kowára, Kúra, or Quorra is frequently styled by the natives a sea or lake, according to some accounts, of forty-eight days’ sail in extent (Ali Bey Badia’s Travels, I. p. 338). Clapperton (Denham, Disc. II. p. 269) was told that the river Kowára falls into the sea (of Nyffi or Núfí) at Raka, where it is as wide as from Kano to Katagum, or about 150 miles. But not to multiply authorities, it will be sufficient to observe that Sultan Bello believed Raka (Rághá),—which has been recently reached by Mr. Jamieson’s steamer Ethiope,—to be a sea-port, and represented it as such in his letter to the King of England.