The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Mungo Park first observed the direction of the stream which had become
as much an object of discussion as its termination; and, strange to say,
after the present discovery, it will, in some parts of its course, still
remain so. The unfortunate traveller just alluded to, previous to his
descent of the river, obtained some information from Moors and from
negroes, on its course by Timbuctoo. The Jinnie of Park is synonymous
with Jenné, Giné, Dhjenné, of other writers, as Jenné has again been
confounded with Kano or Kanno. It may be a figurative term--for the
Jinnie of Park was on an island, as was the Jenné of the Moorish
reports, while the Jenné of some travellers is at a short distance from
the river. This cannot be the case with regard to Timbuctoo, which is
visited by caravans twice a year from Morocco; nor is the name met with
any where, except the two first syllables in the town of Timbo, which
cannot be mistaken for Timbuctoo.
Major Laing had discovered the source of the Niger to be in the
mountains of Loma, in 9 deg. 15 min. west latitude, and had ascertained
its course for a short distance from its source. We were also aware of
the existence of one or two streams joining the great river, or
branching from it near Timbuctoo. De Lisle had marked a river Gambarra,
on his maps drawn up for Louis XV., and not without good authority. This
is the river coming from Houssa; and the Joliba of modern travellers is
a river, we could prove, from the concurring testimony of a variety of
sources, coming from the north-west, and joining its waters with, that
is to say flowing into the Niger, in the immediate neighbourhood of
Timbuctoo; still at that point the Kowarra, or Quorra of the Moors, or
Quolla of the Negroes, who always change the _r_ for _l_ a name which,
according to Laing, it has at its sources--according to Clapperton, it
preserves beyond Timbuctoo, and is probably still the name of the same
stream at its embouchure in the Bight of Biafra. The Quarrama is another
tributary stream which passes by Saccatoo, and falls into the Quorra
above Youri, and above the point where Mungo Park was wrecked; and the
line of country between this river and the Shashum, comprising the hills
of Doochee, of Naroo, and of Dull, is the line of water-shed to the
rivers joining the Quorra on the one hand, and those emptying themselves
into the Wangara on the other. The course given by Sultan Bello, and the
information obtained by Major Denham, both pointed out a river coursing
to the east, which is probably the branch followed by the Landers: for
its termination in Lake Tchad had not even the air of probability;
though it is not, on the other-hand, at all improbable that other
branches empty themselves into the Bight of Benin, by the rivers
Formosa or Volta, according to information given to Captain Clapperton
and Major Laing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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