476 VARIOUS LETTERS two, three, or four tents each : they resemble the Arabs of the Desert in their predatory excursions. I speak from practical knowledge, having twice travelled through their country, and visited their encampments.

Page 189. " Mr. Beaufoy's Moor says, that below Ghinea is the sea into which the river of Timbuctoo discharges itself."

This might have been understood to signify the sea of Sudan, if the Moor had not said below Ghinea, (by which is meant Genowa, or as we call it Guinea,) which implies, that the Neel El Abeed (Niger) discharges itself in the sea that washes the coast of Guinea ; this, therefore, corroborates Seedi Hamed's, or rather Richard's hypothesis.

Page 190. " This branch of the Niger passing Timbuctoo, is not crossed until the third day .going from Timbuctoo to Houssa."

This quotation from ** Dapper's Description of Africa," is corroborated by L'Hage Abdsalam, Shabeeni, whose narrative says, " Shabeeni, after staying three years at Timbuctoo, departed for Houssa, and crossing the small river close to the walls, reached the Neel in three days, travelling through a fine, populous, and cultivated country."

The confusion of rivers, made more equivocal by every new hypothesis, receives here additional ambiguity. If there were (as Mr. Bowdich affirms) three distinct rivers near Timbuctoo ; viz.

the Joliba, the Gambarro, and the Niger, (f. e.