ON AFRICA. 4S5 Critical Observations on Abstracts from the Travels of Ali Bey, and Robert Adams, in the Qjiarterly Jouimal of Literature, Science, and the Arts, edited at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Vol, /. No, IL page 264.

London, Dec. 19. 1817.

In the discussion on Aly Bey's Travels, in the Journal of Science and the Arts, above mentioned, p. 270. are the following words : — " Aly Bey has added, in a separate chapter, all the information he received, respecting a mediterranean sea, from a merchant of Marocco, of the name of Sidi Matte Buhlal, who had resided many years at Tombuctoo, and in other countries of Sudan or Nigritia, the most material of which was, that Tombut is a large town, very trading, and inhabited by Moors and Negroes, and was at the same distance from the Nile Abid, (or Nile of the Negroes, or Niger,) as Fez is from Wed Sebu, that is to say, about three hundred English miles.''

As this passage is quoted from Aly Bey, by the first literary society of Great Britain, and is, therefore, calculated to create a doubt of the accuracy of what I have said, respecting the distance of the Nile El Abeed from Timbuctoo, in the enlarged editions of my account of Marocco, &c. page 297« I consider it a duty which I owe to my country and to myself, not to let