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 Timbuctoo, and is probably still the name of the same
stream at its embouchure in the Bight of Biafra.
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