quiring information concerning the interior of Africa; and certainly Herodotus could not apply to fitter perfons for intelligence, than to the Cyreneans, who came from that place; probably merchants, with whom he conversed in Egypt.

*

But the authority of these accounts acquires additional strength, when we become acquainted with the people, to whom the travellers belonged, who had met with the above adventures, and from whom the accounts originated. The Nafamones were, as Herodotus informs us in another place, a numerous nomadical nation, who derived their fubfiftance from their flocks of sheep. They dwelt on the coaft of the Mediterranean,, in the caftern part of the Regio Syrtica, or the prefent kingdom of Tripoli, about what was called the great Syrtis, or the prefent bay of Sidra, nearly then in 30° north latitude, and 35 longitude eaft from Ferro. The whole of this Syrtic land, from 28° to 35° eastern longitude is a fand-land, which was therefore always inhabited by nomadical tribes, who were tributary to the Carthagenians. And of them principally were the caravans compofed, which traverfed the deferts, and were the means of keeping up the intercourfe of the Carthagenians with the countries in the interior of. Africa, For this reafon the expedition of the Nafamones is not defcribed as a journey into a country altogether unknown: They had, fays Herodotus, before undertaken many other bold enterprises; the object of their journey was only to try whether they might not penetrate farther than had hitherto been done by preceding travellers. And, although

the real adventurers amounted to no more than five, yet it is very probable that their retinue was more numerous, fo that they formed a small caravan; for they were fons of the chief men of the nation, and they carried along with them a great quantity of water and provifions.

They traverfed, fays Herodotus, firft the inhabited part of Africa, and then the region abounding with wild beafts: after which, they came into the fandy defert. For Herodotus divides North Africa into three regions; the most northen, on the Mediterranean, which we now call the coaft of Barbary; the region abounding with wild beasts, or the middle region, by the Arabs called Biledulgerid, or the land of dates and the fouthern region, or the de fert. To arrive at the laft, they were obliged to cross the two former obliquely from north to fouth.

;

On reaching the defert, they proceeded in a fouth-weft direction; for fo I tranflate the gos Qugov of Herodotus. Among the later writers, indeed, who exprefs themfelves with fcientific precifion, the zephyr is properly the weft wind; but Herodotus, who knows only the four principal winds, denotes by it a western direction in general, That he could not here mean the weft properly fo called, is evident from the flightest inspection of the map of the country; because they muft otherwife have remained on the northern border of the defert, and never could have, traverfed it. The great caravan road from the country of the Nafamones, as Herodotus elsewhere informs us, went in a direction exactly fouth: it should

feem then, that they purpofely took another, namely a western, direction, with a view of thus penetrating through the great defcrt of Western Africa, through which probably at that time no caravan road paffed.

1

They travelled, fays Herodotus, through a great defert during many days journeys, (unfortunately he does not tell us their number, and certainly it had not been told him.) On the other fide of the defert, they again reached a cultivated country, where fruit-trees grew, and black men dwelt, who were of a ftature fmaller than common; not dwarfs, however, for that our author certainly does not affert. These negroes gave the Nafamones a hofpitable reception, and became their conductors. They led them through great marthy regions, to a city, by which flowed a large river in a direction from weft to eaft. The inhabitants of the city all refembled their guides, and were much addicted to magic.

The queftion now is, whither had thefe adventurers come? It is evident, methinks, that they were ar, rived in the country of the negroes, and among a negroe nation, who received them with the fame hofpitality which yet fo honourably, diftinguishes this race of men from their barbarous neighbours, the Moors. This we learn not only from their black colour and their whole exterior appearance, by which they at first fight immediately prefented themselves to the eyes of the North Africans as a quite different race of men; but likewife particularly from the circumftance, that they were all magicians; when we recollect what Mungo Park, who, as it were, conjured his way, through these

people with the aid of his amulets, lays concerning the belief in magic generally prevalent among them. Concerning their diminutive ftature, I cannot immediately adduce any farther corroborating teftimony: but to maintain that, in that burning. clime, in the vicinity of the equator, no fuch people may be dif covered, would furely be hazarding a very precipitate decifion,

But the phenomenon moft worthy of attention undoubtedly is the river which flowed by the city in an eas tern direction. Is this river the Joliba? Were thefe bold adven turers the first discoverers of it? And did the tradition concerning it, though its name was loft in the deferts, nevertheless by a series of the moft fingular accidents, reach the ears of the father of hiftory, that he might record it, to be one day, at the clofe of the eighteenth century, again rendered intelligible?

Herodotus does not name the river, and thus far every thing remains mere conjecture. But this conjecture from fo many quarters gains confirmation, that, at last, it is almost impoffible to doubt.

First, if we attend to the direction of the route of our travellers, the question is, whither muft they neceflarily have come? If from their native land, on the bay of Sydra, or the great Syrtis, they traversed the defert in a fouth-weft direction, and thus reached the country of the negroes; this must have happened between 15 and 35° eaft longitude, which is about the length of the courfe of the Joliba, as will appear from a fingle glance at major Rennel's map. Proceeding as they did, they could not fail to arrive at the Joliba. It will however be perhaps objected, that there may poffibly be

fome

fome other river; for who knows how many fuch rivers exift in those regions of the interior of Africa? But with a person who, from the relations of traveller, has acquired a knowledge of thofe parts, this objection can have no weight. Herodotus expreffly fays, that it was a great river, running from weft to eaft. According to the beft accounts we poffefs of the western half of North Africa, not only is there in thofe regions no fuch river flowing in that direction; but from the very nature of the country, as far as we are acquainted with it, there cannot well exift any. To the north of the Joliba is the fandy defert, which contains no river; to the fouth, a chain of mountains, at the foot of which the Joliba flows, and which muft, therefore, have been the first large river the Nafamones met with.

Befides, Herodotus gives us like wife the following indications: First, they were obliged to pafs through large marfhy regions, before they reached the river; fecondly, a city ftood on its banks and laftly, crocodiles were found in the

river.

The first-mentioned of thefe three circumstances is highly important. According to major Rennel's neweft investigations, the fandy region of Africa has a floping declination towards the fouth; fo that to it fucceeds a low marthy tract, bounded to the north by the fandy defert, but to the fouth by a chain of mountains. Here the Joliba flows, receiving in its courfe a number of fmaller mountain rivers from the fouth; but not from the north. Like other tropical rivers, it has its annual inundations, when it, more or lefs, fills the valley

through which it paffes. The Jo liba is at last loft, as far as our information yet reaches, in inland lakes and marshes, which major Rennel looks for in the diftricts of Wangara and Ghana (or Cashna). We are told of one fuch lake in Ghana, and of three in Wangara. Thefe obfervations throw a clear light on the circumftance related by Herodotus, that the Nalamones had been conducted through great marfly tracts (in peyica). Without paffing through fuch tracts, they could not pofiibly reach the Joliba. Major Rennel has, therefore, marked Wangara and Ghana as marshy countries: they lie, however, too far to the east, for us, with any degree of probability, to fuppofe that the adventurous Nafamones had come thither. But then we are yet wholly ignorant how far thefe marshes extend to the weft: from the nature and fituation of the country we may reasonably conclude, that they ftretch along the greater part of the river. All that major Rennel has faid concerning the lower or eaftern half of the Joliba, whither no European has yet penetrated, is no more than conjecture drawn from ingenious combinations; and it certainly is a furprifing phenomenon, that what the greatest geographer at the end of the eighteenth century fo happily conjectures, the earliest of hiftorians and geographers was already enabled to defcribe in exprefs terms and to relate on good authority.

It cannot now be determined with certainty which was the city to which the Nafamones came: however, we probably ought to look for it between Tombuttu and Cafhna, That befides thefe cities, there are at prefent feveral others on the E e 4

banks

banks of the Joliba, fuch as Huffar, Tocrur, &c. we know: the exiftence, therefore, of a city here, even in those ancient times, would not feem to be any thing ftrange or incredible.

A third indication given by Herodotus, is, that the river contains erocodiles. Hère the father of hiftory knows more than even our latest travellers, in none of whose works I recollect to have feen any information relative to this circumftance. It is probable that thefe creatures infeft only the lower part of the Joliba and the narrations of Herodotus, which have fo often and fo ftrikingly been illuftrated and confirmed by new difcoveries, will, without doubt, be found true, with refpect to the existence of crocodiles in the Joliba, whenever another traveller fhall be able to penetrate into thofe diftant regions.

The conjecture which Herodotus adds at the end, and in which he coincides with the king of the Ammonians, (but which, however, is merely a fuppofition), that the river he had been treating of was the Nile, is connected with his hypothefis of the courfe of the latter. It is, namely, one of the most finguJar of phenomena, that Herodotus defcribes the course and state of the Nile above Egypt to near its fources, with an accuracy which has hardly been attained by any fucceeding writer: only that he is miftaken with refpect to the direction of this river; as he believes, that, until its entrance into Egypt, it flows obliquely through Libya from weft to eaft. This error cannot be other wife well accounted for, except by fuppofing that Herodotus had confounded the (either really, or only in imagination exifting) western

branch of the Nile, or the Nile of the Negroes, with the main ftream flowing from the fouth. The belief of the exiftence of fuch a western branch, as appears from the narrative of Herodotus, was then already generally prevalent in Africa. That the Joliba, however, is not this river, and that confequently Herodotus was mistaken in his conjecture, feems at prefent, no longer to admit of a doubt. But the non-existence of fuch a stream is yet far from being proved: on the contrary, the belief of its exiftence has fo conftantly and invariably prevailed throughout all antiquity and the middle ages, that here too we mult wait for farther difcoveries, before we can venture to give a final decifion.