The travellers, in embarking on the Atlantic, had solved the greatest problem in African, and even in modern geography;--one which had exercised the ingenuity and conjecture of so many learned inquirers, and in the efforts to solve which so many brave and distinguished adventurers had perished. This discovery divested the Niger of that singular and mysterious character, which had been one chief cause of the interest that it had excited--when seen rolling its ample flood _from_ the sea towards vast unknown regions in the interior. The circuit by which it reaches the Atlantic assimilates its character to that of ordinary rivers, without any much more remarkable windings than are found in others of similar length. It displays, however, a magnitude considerably greater than had been suggested by any former observation. We can now trace very distinctly, the entire line of this great river. Its source, though not actually visited, seems ascertained by Laing to exist in the high country of Kissi, about 200 miles in the interior from Sierra Leone. Thence it rolls through Foota Jallo and Kankan, where Caillie describes himself to have found it already a rapid and considerable stream. At Bammakoo, having received the tributary from Sankari in Manding, which Park mistook for the main river, it begins its course over the fine plain of Bambarra, where it forms a noble stream; and in passing Sego, the capital, has been considered as equalling the Thames at Westminster. Thence it pursues a north-westerly course, and flowing through the lake Dibbie, reaches Timbuctoo. Its course from that city to Youri has not yet been delineated; but the fact that Park navigated down from one place to the other, fully establishes the continuity. During this reach the Niger makes a great change of direction from north-east to almost due south. From Youri to the sea, it was navigated by the present travellers, and was found following generally a southern direction, though making in one part a rapid bend to the east, whence it gradually returns. If we measure two distances, one from the source to Timbuctoo, and the other from that city to the sea, we shall have nearly 2,000 miles, which may be considered as the direct course; and the various windings must raise the whole line of the stream to upwards of 3,000 miles. For several hundred miles of its lower course, it forms a broad and magnificent expanse, resembling an inland sea. The Niger must after all yield very considerably to the Missouri and Orellana, those stupendous rivers of the new world. But it appears at least as great as any of those which water the old continents. There can rank with it only the Nile, and the Yangtse-kiang, or Great River of China. But the upper course of neither is yet very fully ascertained; and the Nile can compete only in length of course, not in the magnitude of its stream, or the fertility of the regions which it waters. There is one feature in which the Niger may defy competition