Page images
PDF
EPUB

river, rising among the Alps. And Parnell adorns the subject of a good man's admitting doubts of the benevolence of Providence, in the following manner:

So when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm Nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow,
And skies beneath with answering colours glow.
But if a stone the gentle sea divide,

Swift ruffling circles curl on every side;

And glimmering fragments of a broken sun,
Banks, trees, and skies, in thick succession run.

The following reflection is eminently beautiful:

Yet rolling Avon still maintains its stream,
Swell'd with the glories of the Roman name:

Strange power of Fate! Unshaken moles must waste;

While things, that ever move, for ever last!

It is curious to observe analogies in objects and ideas, apparently at wide distances from each other. The sinuosities of the Meander gave Dædalus the first conception of a labyrinth; and who would suppose, in the first instance, that our familiar word rival, could trace its origin to a river? Yet this Donatus presumes to do; because, in ages when beasts were less of private property than now, they always engaged at the brook where they came to drink.

Claudian compares Theodosius to great rivers. "The Nile," says he, "glides along vast countries, never breaking its banks; yet is it one of the most useful rivers in the world. The Danube, still more rapid, flows without noise; and the Ganges, more extensive than either, silently mingles its waters with those of the ocean. is the majesty of Theodosius. His soul, calm and serene

Such

`in the midst of vast projects, rises over the caprices of fortune, as Olympus, rearing itself above the clouds, hears the storms and thunders which echo along its girdle 1."

1

A still more instructive illustration is presented by Castera. "Behold what makes great writers. Those, who pretend to give us nothing but the fruit of their own growth, soon fail, like rivulets which dry up in summer. Far different are those which receive, in their course, the tribute of a hundred and a hundred rivers; and which, even in the dog-days, carry mighty waves triumphantly to the ocean?."

Guicciardini says, that by numberless examples it is proved, that human affairs are as subject to fluctuation as the waters of the sea, agitated by the wind3. Montesquieu has several instances. Thus Charles XII. having left Sweden to conquer Russia in Poland, exposed his own kingdom, by enabling his enemy to make settlements along the Baltic; therefore, says Montesquieu*, Sweden resembled a river, whose waters are cut off at the fountain head, in order to change its course. Again: a fear of the Persians supported the laws of Greece. Carthage and Rome were alarmed, and strengthened by each other. Strange that the greater security those states

Lente fluit Nilus, sed cunctis amnibus extat
Utilior, &c. &c.

Nec te tot limina rerum,

Aut tantum turbavit onus, sed ut altus Olympi
Vertex, qui spatio ventos, &c. &c.

2 Camoens. Mickle. Castera, in Notis. B. ix.

[blocks in formation]

Beautiful Scenery on the Ba Bing and Ba Bee. 21

enjoyed, the more, like stagnated waters, they were subject to corruption 1.

With these associations continually floating in the imagination, how delightful were it, in the season of autumn, to listen to the melody of innumerable birds, animating the immense forests, which bound the country between the Ba Bing and the Ba Bee; two tributaries of the Senegal'; presenting scenes rugged and grand, beyond all power of description. What interesting reflections, too, are excited by the mere mention of the Congo and the Niger! The former unknown in its source: the latter in its termination. D'Anville3 and Rennel believed, that the Niger loses itself in the Wangara and Ghana; Hornemann, Jackson, and other writers, esteem it a branch of the Nile". Reichard believes, that it empties itself into the Gulf of Guinea, by the name of Formosa; while Park and Maxwell seem strongly impressed with the belief, that the Niger and the Congo are the same river. Park was so well convinced

[blocks in formation]

3 For D'Anville's Memoir on the Rivers of the Interior of Africa, vide Mém. Acad. Inscript. tom. xxvi.

Appendix to Park's Travels, 4to. p. lxxvii. Also Proceedings of the African Association, vol. 1. p. 533.

5 Lucan says, that Nature concealed the origin of this river, in order tha it should never be seen as a rivulet.

Arcanum Naturæ caput non protulit ulli,

Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.

PHARSAL. X.

Bernini, designing to show the obscurity of its origin, covered the head

[merged small][ocr errors]

of this, that he undertook a journey into the interior of Africa, in order, if possible, to prove it: and having reached the Niger, which the natives say flows to the rising sun, he proceeded some way beyond the Lake Wangara; where all authentic trace of him is lost. But it has been supposed, that he was seized upon the Niger, and taken to Haoussa, where, being detained two years, he died of a fever. Reichard believes, that the Niger, after passing Wangara, takes a southerly direction, till it approaches the Gulf of Guinea; where, dividing itself after the manner of the Rhine and the Ganges, it discharges itself into the Atlantic by several channels; of which the Formosa is the western branch, and the Rio del Rey the eastern1. The whole of this supposition rests merely upon conjecture; yet there are many reasons to render it quite as probable as the hypothesis of Maxwell.

Pliny, Strabo, Hornemann, Jackson, Burckhardt, Ritchie, and Mollien, associate the Niger with the western branch of the Nile, called the White River: thus making a communication between Tumbuctoo and Grand Cairo; a voyage which, Jackson says, was absolutely performed by seventeen Negroes, in 1780, in the space of fourteen months. To this two difficulties may be opposed. First, that the inundations of the two rivers rise precisely at the same season of the year, and fall nearly at the same time. If they were the same river, it may

1 Savary says, that the Ethiopians of his time believed, that the branch of the Nile, known by the name of Aserac, or the Blue River, traversed the African continent from east to west; and, after joining the Niger, flowed into the Atlantic!-Letters, vol. 1. 108.

[ocr errors]

be contended, that the inundations of the Nile would last a considerable time longer than those of the Niger; as the waters have to travel more than a thousand miles. And, secondly, that the Niger, in that instance, would seem to flow up hill; for Bruce1 states, that Abyssinia is so elevated a country, that, from barometrical observation, he calculated the source of the Nile, in Gojam, to be upwards of two miles above the level of the sea; whereas the Niger is not more than one-third of that height above the level of the Atlantic.

These objections, however, are met by the probability, that Bruce's calculation is erroneous. It certainly wants confirmation, let the result be as it may. In respect to the coincidence of the inundations, some have endeavoured to account for it upon the principle, that the Nile would be soon exhausted, if it were not joined by the waters of the Niger. Bruce says, it would be dry eight months in the year, unless it were joined by the Abiad, which alone enables the Nile to keep a regular stream. Added to this, it is stated, that almost all the Arabs of Africa are of opinion, that the Niger of the Soudanis the same river as the Nile of Egypt: and when Hutchinson3 said to the Moors, that the Niger was lost in a large lake, the Moors answered, "God made all rivers to run to the sea: you say that small rivers go there: the Quolla is the largest in the world; and why should it not go there also?" This hypothesis, however, like all the others, requires actual experiment. But should it be, hereafter, proved, the circumstance will constitute one of

1 Vol. 3. p. 642. 652. 712.

2 Eschylus (in Prometheo) calis the Upper Nile the " Nigris."

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »