of the ancients.

In the history of geography there are no examples of greater
perseverance and courageous determination than in the efforts made to
triumph over the difficulties presented in the solution of this
important question. Since 1815, there has scarcely a year passed in
which a new attempt has not been made; and of these, if we recede a
little farther back, twenty-five were made by our countrymen, fourteen
by Frenchmen, two by Americans, and one by a German; of which but a
small number, since the days of Houghton, have not fallen victims to
their heroic devotion.

Mungo Park first observed the direction of the stream which had become
as much an object of discussion as its termination; and, strange to say,
after the present discovery, it will, in some parts of its course, still
remain so. The unfortunate traveller just alluded to, previous to his
descent of the river, obtained some information from Moors and from
negroes, on its course by Timbuctoo. The Jinnie of Park is synonymous
with Jenne, Gine, Dhjenne, of other writers, as Jenne has again been
confounded with Kano or Kanno. It may be a figurative term--for the
Jinnie of Park was on an island, as was the Jenne of the Moorish
reports, while the Jenne of some travellers is at a short distance from
the river. This cannot be the case with regard to Timbuctoo, which is
visited by caravans twice a year from Morocco; nor is the name met with
any where, except the two first syllables in the town of Timbo, which
cannot be mistaken for Timbuctoo.

Major Laing had discovered the source of the Niger to be in the
mountains of Loma, in 9 deg. 15 min. west latitude, and had ascertained
its course for a short distance from its source. We were also aware of
the existence of one or two streams joining the great river, or
branching from it near Timbuctoo. De Lisle had marked a river Gambarra,
on his maps drawn up for Louis XV., and not without good authority. This
is the river coming from Houssa; and the Joliba of modern travellers is
a river, we could prove, from the concurring testimony of a variety of
sources, coming from the north-west, and joining its waters with, that
is to say flowing into the Niger, in the immediate neighbourhood of
Timbuctoo; still at that point the Kowarra, or Quorra of the Moors, or
Quolla of the Negroes, who always change the _r_ for _l_ a name which,
according to Laing, it has at its sources--according to Clapperton, it
preserves beyond Timbu