canoe, made of bulrushes, scarcely fit to carry one man, could not find room to pass on them or across them. After this Pliny, Strabo, and other Roman authors took notice of this position of Africa, but without giving us anything important or new.” ---------------------------------------------------------------- EQUATORIAL AFRICA (SEGUNDO O MAPPA DE DAPPER) 1676. [Illustration: _London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited._ E. Weller, _Litho._] ---------------------------------------------------------------- I quote from Captain Burton once more certain passages. “Edrisi, who was born in Nubia, but who wrote in Egypt about A.D. 1400, says, in that part of Ethiopia south and south-west of Nubia is first seen the separation of the two Niles. The one flows from south to north into Egypt, and the other part of the Nile flows from east to west; and upon that branch of the Nile lie all, or at least the most celebrated kingdoms of the Negroes. ‘From the Mountains of the Moon,’ says Scheadeddin, ‘the Egyptian Nile takes its rise. It cuts horizontally the equator in its course north. Many rivers come from this mountain, and unite in a great lake. From this lake comes the Nile, the greatest and most beautiful of the rivers of all the earth. Many rivers derived from this great river water Nubia,’ &c. “From the Arabs we may fairly descend to our own times. The early Portuguese discoverers obtained a great deal of geographical information regarding the interior of Africa, and especially regarding two lakes near the Equator, from one of which, the most northern, the Egyptian Nile was stated to flow. This information was largely used by the French geographer (D’Anville), and the Dutch geographers of that time. Subsequently Bruce and others told us about the great disparity in magnitude between the Blue and the White Rivers; the latter, they asserted, rose far to the south, near to the Equator, and amongst mountains covered with eternal snow. Twenty-five years ago, Mohammed Ali, the clear-sighted and energetic ruler of Egypt, sent an expedition, consisting of several barques well provided with everything necessary, and under able naval officers, to explore the White Nile to its source, if possible. They did their work so far well, but were forced to turn back on the 26th of January, 1840, in lat. 30° 22′ N., for want of sufficient depth of water for their vessels. At lat. 3° 30′ they found the river 1370 feet broad and say six feet deep. In every day’s work on the voyage they gave the width of the river, the depth of the river, the force of its current, its temperature, and the miles (geographical) made good daily.”