8o A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY and the course of the Upper and Middle Niger from its rise in the same mountains to its most northerly bend, almost on the parallel of 17°, and its descent in a southeasterly direction to that fall in its bed which has been rendered famous by Mungo Park's death in the rapids which are caused by it near Boussa. The same limits include Lake Chad and all the tributaries which drain to it from the highlands of the Haussa States. It will be observed that towards the northern portion of this territory the country has a general tendency to open into level plains ; while towards the southern portion hilly regions, drawing together, form a natural dividing-line from the countries of the coast. It will also be observed that the line drawn upon the parallel of 9° excludes from the area occupied by the fine races every one of those territories hitherto occupied by the nations of modern Europe in the maritime settlements made upon the southern portion of the coast, except the French settlement of the Senegal.

It becomes apparent, in looking broadly at the lines thus traced upon the map, that the country which lies between them is cut by its main watercourses into four principal divisions. There is the territory lying southwest of the Senegal, between the course of that river and the sea ; there is the country lying north-east of the Senegal, between that river and the Niger to the point where the Niger presses upon the desert at Timbuctoo ; there is the country lying south of the Niger enclosed in the bend of the river, and generally known now by the geographical expression — the Bend of the Niger ; and there is the country stretching from the eastern bank of the Niger to Lake Chad. Allowing something for the always too arbitrary nature of geographical boundaries, it will be found that the history of Negroland tends also to group itself within these four divisions.

The very earliest records which we have in point of date, exclusive of the tradition of ancient Egypt in the East, relate to the north-east of the Senegal, between that river and the Niger. This territory was known by a