with the languages of North
Africa, and a consequent ability to discriminate the accuracy of
the sources of my intelligence.

[Footnote 240: See my letter to the editor of the Monthly
Magazine, for March, 1817; page 125.]

This being premised, I now proceed to offer to the public my
animadversions on the above quotation from the Journal of Science
and the Arts.

I have actually crossed the Wed Sebu, or the River Sebu, alluded to
in the above quotation, which passes through the Berebber Kabyl of
Zimure Shelleh; I have crossed the same river several times at the
city of Mequinez, and also at Meheduma, where it enters the
Atlantic Ocean, in lat. 34 deg. 15' north, and from this experimental
knowledge of the course of that river, I can affirm, with
confidence, that it is not inaccurately laid down in my map of West
Barbary[241], and that it is not three hundred English miles from
439 Fas, but only six English miles from that city. I can also assert,
from incontestable testimony, that Tombut, or Timbuctoo, is[242]
not three hundred miles from the Nile El Abeed, but only about
twelve English miles from that stream, the latter being south of
the town.

[Footnote 241: For which see page 55.]

[Footnote 242: Vide Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, &c.
p. 297.]

Respecting the following passage in the above quoted Journal of
Science and the Arts, p. 272, "This river contains the fierce
animals called _Tzemsah_, which devour men," I shall only observe,
that _Tzemsah_ is the word in Arabic which denominates the
_crocodile_. Farther on, in the same page, we have the words,--"We
must suppose that the Joliba makes at this spot a strange winding,
which gives to the inhabitants of Marocco the opinion they
express." This supposed winding is actually asserted to exist, and
is denominated by the Arabs[243] _El Kose Nile_, i.e. the arch or
curve of the Nile, and is situated between the cities of Timbuctoo
and Jinnie.

[Footnote 243: Idem, note, p. 305.]

I should here adduce some further testimony respecting the course
of the Nile El Abeed; but as the quotation from Aly Bey in the
above Journal of Sciences and the Arts, page 271. asserts it to be
towards the east, and again, in page 272. declares it to be towards