ay which has taken place in
answering your letter to him, as well as that to myself.

HUGH MURRAY.

_On the Niger and the Nile._

London, 7th April, 1820.

In the 25th number of the Quarterly Review, (article Park's
Travels,) the hypothesis there laid down as almost indisputable, is
515 the non-continuity of the two Niles of Africa, or (according to the
European phraseology of the day) of the Niger and the Nile.

This hypothesis founded on the opinion of Major Rennel, carries
with it no evidence whatever, but the speculative theory of that
learned geographer. The identity or connection of the two Niles,
and the consequent water communication between[312] Cairo and
Timbuctoo receives (supposing the Quarterly Review to be correct),
as our intelligence respecting Africa increases, additional
confirmation: and even the Quarterly Reviewer, who denominated the
opinion recorded by me, the gossipping stories of Negroes, (_vide_
Quarterly Review, No. 25, p. 140.) now favours this opinion!

The Quarterly Reviewer appreciates Burckhardt's information on this
subject, and depreciates mine, _although both are derived from the
same sources of[313] intelligence, and confirm one another_: the
reviewer says, Mr. Burckhardt has revived a question of older date;
viz. "that the Niger of Sudan and the Nile of Egypt are one and the
same river: this general testimony to a physical fact can be shaken
only by direct proof to the contrary."

[Footnote 312: _Vide_ Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, p.
310.]

[Footnote 313: _i. e_. Intelligence from natives of Africa.]

This is all very well: I do not object to the Quarterly Reviewer
giving up an opinion which he finds no longer tenable; but when I
see in the same review (No. 44, p. 481.) the following words,--"we
516 give no credit whatever to the report received by Mr. Jackson, of a
person (several Negroes[314], it should be) having performed a
voyage by water from Timbuctoo to Cairo," I cannot but observe with
astonishment, that the Reviewer believes Burckhardt's report, that
they are the same river, when, at the same time he does not believe
mine.

[Footnote 314: _Vide_ Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, p.
312.]

Is there not an