Observation had demonstrated to the moderns that no
large river emptied itself into the ocean on the north-west coast,
though it required a more accurate acquaintance with the Senegal and the
Gambia before it was fully ascertained that they were not the outlets of
this great stream. The progress of navigation along the south-eastern
shores of Africa also showed that no large river emptied itself into the
sea along that coast; while the settlements of the Portuguese on the
coast to the south of Cape Lopez, led them, at an early period, to adopt
the opinion afterwards supported by Mungo Park and Mr. Barrow, that one
or more of the rivers in their vicinity were the outlets of the great
river of the interior of Africa. Two celebrated geographers, D'Anville
and Major Rennell, however, espoused the theory of the waters emptying
themselves into the Wangara, or great marsh; which argument underwent
various modifications in the hands of different geographers; and though
the probability of its emptying itself into the Gulf of Guinea had been
pointed out on the continent, and vigorously supported in this country,
an expedition was fitted out to explore the Congo or Zaire, which,
though unfortunate to the individuals concerned, was yet satisfactory in
a geographical point of view, and demonstrated that the rivers south of
Cape Lopez were not the outlets of the waters of the Niger, and gave
origin to a speculation which partook of all the characters of a romance
of the desert, beneath the sands of which its author buried the gigantic
stream, loaded with the waters of the Wangara or Lake Tchad, to make it
flow into the Mediterranean at the Syrtis of the ancients.
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