the Niger can flow between a great chain of mountains like the Kong, anciently called the Mountains of the Moon. And, 2dly, that it seems improbable that Nature should have formed the largest of her rivers in a tropical country: for if the Niger is really the Congo, it is the largest river in the world. It has certainly one unequalled circumstance attending it, viz. that of running in an almost perpetual state of flood; and of discharging at its mouth more than ten times the quantity of water that the Ganges does; being 4,000,000 cubic feet in a second of time. The ebbing of the tide, therefore, makes but little impression upon it; it runs at a rate of six or seven miles an hour; and rolls its waters some leagues

out to sea.

VIII.

Several rivers have excited interest, in respect to their sources; as the Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, and the rivers of America; but the Niger is the only one, the termination of which has not been regularly ascertained. Summits of high mountains, and sources of large rivers, have, in all ages, been objects of curiosity and research and it is curious to remark, that the Gambia, the Senegal, and the Niger, should not only rise in the same line of latitude; but that the first should flow to the west, the second to the north-west, and the third to the northThe Danube, the Rhine, and the Rhone, it is

:

1 Quart. Rev. xxv. p. 141.

2 The Romans were so ignorant of Asiatic geography, that even Sallust believed the Tigris and the Euphrates to arise from one fountain in Armenia. —— Boethius also:-"Tigris et Euphrates uno se fonte resolvunt."

true, rise at no great distance from each other, flow in different directions, and fall into different seas; but they do not, in their progress, encounter so many difficulties, nor involve so many remarkable phenomena, as the African streams: and it is equally worthy of remark, that though the large rivers of Asia flow into the various bays and gulfs, which indent its several seas, those of America, with one exception, flow into the Atlantic. There is only one large river (the Columbia) that empties itself into the Pacific. Vessels ascend to the length of 2,000 miles, by means of the Ohio, Alleghany, and Mississippi, without encountering a single lock. Schooners are fitted out from Pittsburgh, sufficiently large to be able to traverse the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and the Baltic; and so great is the evaporation of the Missouri, that though no less than twenty rivers flow into it, in the space of 1,000 miles, it does not, in all that distance, increase the weight or quantity of its waters. And here we may mark a curious coincidence in the contrast which the African and American rivers present. The large American rivers run east, except the Mississippi, which flows south; the large African rivers, on the contrary, run west, as if to meet their brethren of America; and as the Mississippi runs south, the Nile runs north. In most of these rivers, inundations are rapid; but, it would appear, not so much so as those of the Hawkesbury, in New South Wales. This river sometimes rises to the height of ninety feet', and with such little notice, that the inhabitants settled on its banks have little or no time for escape. Then a scene of great distress and con

1 Wentworth, p. 24.

fusion presents itself; for an immense expanse of water is every where interspersed with growing timber, stacks, and houses, crowded with horses and other cattle, with men, women, and children, clinging to the boughs of trees and the roofs of houses for security, and shrieking for assistance in all the agony of despair. But of all the rivers of the earth, perhaps the Orange1 of South Africa is the most dreadful; since it is, in every direction, infested with jackals, hyenas, zebras, tigers, camelopards, koedoes, lions, and all manner of reptiles; and those so numerous, that it is impossible to number them.

IX.

Statius gives a description of Grecian trees; and this is a passage, which has been more imitated than any other in that poet. Claudian began the imitation; and it has been followed by Tasso3, Chaucer, Spenser, Drayton, and Rapin 5. Lucan and Claudian, after the same manner, have enumerated the principal rivers in Italy and Greece; as Milton and Drummond of Hawthornden have those of England." Is it not noble to behold the Nile?" said Menander to Glycera; " and is not the Euphrates an object of admiration? But were I to visit all the noble rivers I would wish to see, my whole life would be lost, in absence from my Glycera. Oh! then,

1 Patterson's Travels in South Africa, ii. p. 64. 1790.

2 Theb. vi. Perhaps Statius had his eye upon a passage in the 10th Met. 1.90.

let it ever be my lot to be crowned with the ivy of Attica, and to be buried in the land of my fathers!"

Colonna once met a gentleman, as he returned from bathing in the Severn, early one summer's morning, near that part of the river, at Shrewsbury, which is called the Quarry. Entering into conversation with him, Colonna expressed a wonder, that he should bathe on a morning so little favourable. The stranger replied, that in doing so, he was chiefly actuated by a custom, he had adopted, of bathing in every remarkable river he came to. In pursuance of which, he had imbibed the waters of the Seine, the Loire, the Rhone, and the Moselle, in France; the Mersey, the Medway, and the Thames, in England; and he designed, in his progress through North Wales, to perform the same ceremony in the Dee, the Conway, and any other remarkable river he might chance to

come to.

Bathing in rivers and seas is a great luxury in warm countries. In ancient times, women assisted men in this exercise. Polycaste bathes Ulysses, in the Odyssey, and pours upon him fragrant oil; and the Roman women plunged into the same bath with the men, till the custom gradually gave way before improved manners, after it had been prohibited, to no effect, by the edicts of Hadrian, Marcus Antoninus, and Alexander Severus. The Otaheitans bathe frequently; and the negroes of Ardrah1 wash twice a day, and perfume themselves with aromatic herbs. To the former, the most agreeable of all amusements is bathing; and the higher the surf of the ocean, the greater is the diversion. The

Kaims, i. p. 321.

natives of the Sandwich Islands, also, are such excellent swimmers, that when a canoe with a woman and her children were overset, Captain Cook observed a child of four years old swim about, and appear highly delighted with the catastrophe, till the canoe regained its position.

I

Athenæus relates, that the Segrobrigian ladies presented water to the young men whom they chose for husbands. Ablutions were in frequent practice among the Jews, the Sampsoi, the Greeks, and the Romans 2. The Gentoo women bathe in a stream, before they sacrifice on the fu neral piles of their husbands; and the custom of immerging new-born infants in rivers and fountains, which was very prevalent in Syria, during the reign of Antiochus, prevails in the present day, in many parts of India, Turkey, and China. The Mexicans, in the same manner, bathe their children the moment they are born. This ceremony is performed by the midwife: while bathing them, she says, "Receive the water; for the goddess Chalciuhcueje is the mother. May this water cleanse the spots, which thou bearest from the womb of thy mother, purify thy heart, and give thee a good and perfect life!" In another part of the ceremony, she says, " May the invisible God descend upon this water, and cleanse thee of every sin and impurity, and free thee from evil fortune!" Then, "Lovely child! the gods have created thee in the highest place of heaven,

'Lomier wrote a curious work on Lustrations, entitled "Epimenides, sive de Veterum Gentilium Lustrationibus." Of Mahometan Ablutions, vid. " Tableau General de l'Empire Othoman, par M. de M*** d'Ohsson, p. 145. fol. 2 In the British Museum is a basin of granite, supposed to resemble those which were used in the temples, by those who wished to purify themselves before they were admitted to the sacrifices.