from Soccatoo; and Lieutenant Becher observes, it is a remarkable instance of the accuracy of the present and former route, that the coincidence falls within a mile or two. Lower down is Egga, a town of two miles in length, populous, and the people clothed with Benin and Portuguese stuffs, from whence it is inferred that they have a communication with the sea-coast-the more probable, as their canoes are large, and have a shed in the middle, under which the owners and their families live. The river now took a southerly direction, and at the distance of three or four days' navigation, was joined by another river nearly as large as itself, falling in from the north-eastward. This stream was also in a state of inundation, and from two to three miles in width. It was called the Tshadda. The travellers understood that Funda, of which Clapperton heard so much when at Soccatoo, was at the distance of three days' journey on the banks of this river, and not, as had been supposed, on the Quorra. There is little doubt, that when the Arab sheikh stated the Quorra to flow past Funda and turn to the eastward, the Tshadda, flowing in a contrary direction, was intended; and the mistake made Denham conjecture that the Shary might be a continuation of the Quorra.

Below the junction of the Tshadda the Quorra passes through the mountains, which appear to increase in height towards the south-east quarter, and probably terminate in those lofty peaks which are seen from the Bight of Benin, and have been found by trigonometrical measurement to be from twelve to thirteen thousand feet high. Having cleared the mountain pass, the voyagers arrive at a town called Kirree, at which place the great delta of the Quorra may be considered to commence, extending southwesterly to the mouth of the river Benin, and south-south-east to that of Old Calabar, the distance between these two mouths being about two hundred and forty miles, and that from Kirree to the mouth of the river Nun, about the same. This great delta is intersected with numerous branches of the Quorra, the banks generally overflown, and the mangrove trees growing in the water; the whole surface low, flat, and swampy, abounding with creeks, on the sides of which were everywhere seen the huts of the slave-dealers, and lying before them, for carrying on this inhuman traffic, the long canoes and the vessels.

The course of the Quorra is well illustrated by a map constructed from the compass-bearings and distances as laid down in the journal. Lieutenant Becher says,

The accompanying sketch of the course of the Quorra is combined with Captain Clapperton's map on a reduced scale, and it is due to the Society to offer a few remarks on the method which has been adopted in tracing it. The only instrument possessed by the travellers was the

mariner's

mariner's compass, and even this was lost at Kirree, which is placed about one hundred and eighty miles in a direct line from the mouth of the river; therefore, in the absence of all means of ascertaining, with any pretensions to certainty, a single geographical point, the position of Boossà, and that of the mouth of the river Nun, lying nearly at the two extremes of the whole journey, were adopted as limits within which the course of the river navigation between these places must necessarily fall. The daily progress of the travellers in course and distance, according to their own estimation, was then subjected to rigorous scrutiny; and the probable distance supposed to have been travelled each day, in which allowance was made for the rate of the stream, (never exceeding three miles, and decreasing downwards,) was adopted and laid down on a large scale. This was next reduced into the five sheets that accompany the present paper, which, when joined together as they are marked, show the general course of the river, with such remarks from the journals relating to its banks as occurred during its construction. The materials, thus brought together, underwent a further reduction, on being copied in the general map, between the points before mentioned; and it is with some satisfaction, even after the necessarily rough manner in which the whole has been put together, that the following particulars may be pointed out as throwing a degree of probability on the course now laid down being nearly that of the Quorra, which was scarcely to have been expected. The mouth of the river Nun in the map is nearly due south of Boossà, and the course of the river to the east is about the same as that to the west, which corresponds with that condition. The river Coodoonia falls into the Quorra nearly in the same place as before laid down. The great Tshadda was also found to enter the Quorra at about the point before reported. And with respect to Yàoori it may be added, that Soccatoo was said to be five days' journey from it; while the distance from the former, as laid down by Lander, to the latter as given by Clapperton, is about one hundred miles, which nearly corresponds with a journey of five days.'-pp. 190, 191.

Thus at length has this geographical problem been solved, and for its solution we may thank the efforts by which hypothetical or speculative geography had kept alive curiosity. Since Park's first discovery of the Joliba, every point of the compass has been assumed for the ulterior course and termination of that river. M. Reichard the German hit upon the happy conjecture, for it was nothing more; he arrived at a conclusion which happened to be right, though every stage of his reasoning was grounded on false data; he had not a single fact to guide him; he assumed a large lake which has no existence, for our modern travellers have sought for Wangara in vain; he filled it with the waters of the Niger, and other rivers that are equally nonentities with the lake; he assumed dimensions for the one, and the volumes of water thrown in by the other; he calculated the waste by evaporation and absorption, and from the surplus he formed the waters which are discharged

through

through various channels into the Bight of Benin. Mr. M'Queen, almost as ingenious as M. Reichard, but a humble copyist, with an equal poverty of facts, claims the merit of the discovery; which however is due, and solely due, to Richard Lander, on whom the Society has very properly bestowed his Majesty's royal premium of fifty guineas.

Two questions are put-is this Quorra in reality the continuation of Park's Joliba? and is the Joliba or the Quorra the Niger? To the first we reply, without hesitation, YES; but, to the second, if by Niger is meant the river so named in the works of ancient geographers and historians, we say decidedly, No. That the Quorra is identical with the Joliba, we have the strongest testimony short of ocular proof. Mungo Park, on his departure from Sansanding, writes to Lord Camden and to Mrs. Park, to say he means to follow the river in his double canoe or schooner as, if our recollection serves us, he calls it, until he reaches the sea, and that he will probably come home by the West Indies. The Mandingo priest, who was sent to make inquiries after the fate of this traveller, reported the loss of his vessel, and the destruction of himself and remaining companions, at a place called Boossà. No one had before this ever heard of such a place as Boossà. When Clapperton went from Badagry on his second expedition, he found this Boossa situated on the right bank of the Quorra, and there ascertained the fate of Park, in the manner described years before by the Mandingo priest. He saw the ledge of rocks on which the boat was wrecked, and was told of books and papers in the hands of the Sultan of Nyffe. On the return of Lander he was kept by the Sultan of Boossà to clean some muskets which had the Tower mark on them. No reasonable doubt therefore can be enter tained that Park had arrived as far as Boossà. But the late voyage has produced something still more decisive; the old king showed the travellers a book of logarithms and a hymn book, on which was the name of Mr. Anderson, Park's companion, and which they brought home. There was also in the former book a note from a gentleman in the Strand, inviting Mr. Park to dinner; and another from Lady Dalkeith, thanking him for some drawings. These are sufficient proofs of Mungo Park's having been at Boossà; it is also clear that his canoe was wrecked there; and if so, the river must either have been continuous or he must have carried his vessel-his double vessel-over land into the Quorra; in which case he must have acted contrary to his avowed intention, and abandoned his quest of the Joliba's termination for the discovery of that of some other river. Such a supposition would be absurd.

Not less absurd is the notion of those who contend that Herodotus, Pliny, and Ptolemy, or any of them, were acquainted with,

or

or had the slightest knowledge of, any portion of the Joliba or Quorra under the name of Niger. That Herodotus should be lugged in by our modern writers, in support of this opinion, is inconceivable. He knew of no such river, nor even mentions the name. He tells a story (which he received at fourth hand,) of some young fellows who were supposed to have crossed the desert of Lybia, which desert he describes as extending from Egypt to the promontory of Soloeis; and who, as he says, had travelled directly west, (πgos ZεQugov aveμov,) and not either to the south or the southwest; they could never, therefore, let them travel all their lifetime in either of these directions, have come near to the Joliba. Of the great desert of Zahara, in point of fact, Herodotus knew nothing, and therefore says nothing. Beyond the Lybian desert, that is at the southern foot of the Mauritanian Atlas, these youngsters are related to have come to a city on a great river, running from the west towards the rising sun. The Adjidi, which flows into the Lake Melaig to the southward of Algiers, or one of the many streams in Segelmessa, running easterly, might be reached by travelling westerly; and one of these is called Ghir by Leo Africanus, and appears under that name on Carey's last map of Africa.

The Niger of Pliny points evidently at one of these streams. He informs us that the Roman general, Suetonius Paulinus, who first crossed the western Atlas, fell in with a river running to the eastward; that its name was Niger; that it lost itself in the sands, and after emerging and sinking two or three times, finally flowed into the Nile, dividing the Lybians from the Ethiopians. We may rest assured that when any of the ancient writers talk of Ethiopia, they mean nothing more than a complete terra incognita, peopled with all manner of monsters. The Ghir of Leo Africanus, or the Adjidi, may have been the Niger of Paulinus' expedition, and furnished materials for the confused and unintelligible description of the Geir and Nigeir of Ptolemy. Whatever Ptolemy was able to glean of Africa beyond Lybia (and this is the case with all the ancients) was obtained by the owners or pilots of coasting vessels on the west, and by means of the Nile of Egypt on the east of this continent. The Zahara was more recently and for the first time passed by the Arabs on their camels. But on this subject we must refer our readers to our review of Sir Rufane Donkin's 'Dissertation on the Course and probable Termination of the Niger' (No. lxxxi., p. 226); and after what is there stated, we trust that the word Niger, so vaguely employed by the ancients, will be expunged from the map of Africa.

ᎪᎡᎢ,

ART. IV-An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation. By the Rev. Richard Jones, A.M. of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. London. 1831. THIS

HIS work is the first systematic attempt that has been made to pursue the inquiry into the production and distribution of wealth upon the Baconian principle of cautious induction from an extended range of observations. The first book, which alone has at present appeared, is occupied by a dissertation on rent. The remaining books, we are told, will be devoted to the examination, in a similar manner, of the other main channels into which wealth distributes itself, namely, wages, profits, and taxation. In the glimpses which the author affords, in the preface to his present volume, of the conclusions at which he has arrived on these different subjects by a close process of induction from a wide survey of facts, we are pleased to perceive that they will be found to coincide almost wholly with our own views, as they were developed, with unavoidable brevity, in January last.*

Our opinions, as there given, upon rent, the subject matter of the volume we have now in review, agree likewise very closely with those which Mr. Jones has deduced from an examination of the nature of the tenure and occupation of land throughout the known and cultivated regions of the globe. He has dealt the finishingstroke to the miserable theory of rent' of the Ricardo school of economists, which declares what they call the decreasing fertility of soils to be the sole cause of rent, and the cause, at the same time, of a progressive reduction in the profits of capital and the wages of labour (that is, of the share of wealth which falls to every other class of society than the landlords), ' of such magnitude and power as finally to overwhelm every other,' +-to be, in fact, a great law of nature, from whose all-pervading influence the utmost efforts of human ingenuity cannot enable man to escape,' and 'which is sure in the long run to overmatch all the improvements that may occur in machinery or agriculture.' § Upon this theory,

* Since the article here alluded to was printed, Mr. Senior's 'Three Lectures on the Rate of Wages' issued from the press, and we were gratified to find this able writer completely agreeing with us on several of the points in which we ventured to differ most widely from the prevailing opinions; as, for instance, on the doctrine of absenteeism-the limitation of the principle of free trade-the separation of national wealth from national welfare-and the paramount importance of a sufficiency of food to all other considerations. We mention this not for the foolish purpose of establishing a claim to the original discovery of these principles, but as exhibiting a pleasing instance of independent thinkers arriving at the same conclusions at the same time, though in complete opposition to the current and accredited notions. The confirmation thus afforded to a chain of reasoning is greater than that derived from the subsequent assent of thousands.

+ Malthus, Principles of Political Economy, p. 317. M'Culloch, Principles, &c. p. 488, last ed. VOL. XLVI. NO. XCI.

G

§ Idem. p. 489.

narrow,