/* ON AFRICA. 517 the same foundation, the identity of the two Niles, and their continuity of waters, I have further to remark what will most probably ere long prove correct ; viz. that the Bahar Abiad that is to say, the river that passes through the country of Negroes, between Senaar and Donga, is an erroneous appellation, originating in the general ignorance among European travellers of the African Arabic, and that the proper name of this river is Bahar Abeed, which is another term for the river called the Nile-el-Abeed, which passes south of Timbuctoo towards the east (called by Europeans the Niger).

It therefore appears to me, and I really think it must appear to every unbiassed investigator of African geography, that every iota of African discovery, made successively, by Hornemann % Burckhardt, and others, tends to confirm my water communication between Timbuctoo andCairo, and the theorists and speculators in African geography, who have heaped hypothesis upon hypothesis, error upon error, who have raised splendid fabrics upon pillars of ice, will ere long close their book, and be compelled, by the force of truth and experience, to admit the fact stated about twelve years ago by me in my account of Marocco, &c. viz. that the Nile of " Bahar Abiad signifies White River ; Bahar Abeed signifies River of Negroes.

° Vide my letter in Monthly Magazine on this subject for March, 1817, p. 124.