Note 26 — Chapter I
Reading edition
I here use the word Niger, as being the best understood by Europeans; but the proper name of this river in the country seems to be Guin or Jin. (Hartmann’s Edrisi, p. 32. 48. 51.) At the same time, it is more commonly designed by the term Joliba, meaning the Great Water, or great river. In like manner, the Ganges has two names, Padda, the proper name; Gonga, the great river.
The Moors and Arabs call it Neel Abeed, the River of Slaves; but they have also a name to express the great water, that is, Neel Kibbeer. Neel appears to be employed in Africa, as Gonga in India, to express any great river.
By Niger, the ancients meant merely to express the River of the Black People, or Ethiopians. The term was Roman: for the Greeks believed it to be the head, or a branch, of the Egyptian Nile.