and, after a journey of twelve days, reached the lake Tritonis, situate in Lybia, in central Africa; and having launched her once more, they sailed down a stream which led them into the Mediterranean sea, through one of the mouths of the Egyptian Nile! so says the poet; and so Mr. Dudley undertakes to prove.

The first great point to be settled is the position of this lake Tritonis; and in doing this, a variety of ancient testimonies is referred to; and after some ingenious conjectures and comparisons with modern authorities, it is finally decided to be no other than Wangara (of which, by the way, neither Burckhardt, nor Ritchie, nor Lyon, could learn any thing decisive).* The whole argument, however, turns upon Tritonis being Wangara, and Wangara the Nou, and Nou the sea of Soudan. Adopting this exposition,' says our learned author, 'the Argonauts lifted the vessel from the sands of Syrtis, and with effort more than human, but such as was usually believed to be easy to heroes, they bore it on their shoulders, for twelve days and nights without a rest, across the Sahara, or Great Desert, which being in most places about eight hundred miles broad, they must have travelled at the rate of about seventy-two miles in each solar day, a space nearly quadruple of a day's journey in the present day:' much more, we say; for as Bornou or Birnie, situate on the north side of the lake, is in lat. 16°, and the bottom of the Syrtis is 31°, these heroes must have travelled, with the ship on their shoulders, at the rate nearly of ninety miles a day; as the one however is just as probable as the other, we shall not dispute the point of a few miles more or less. Be this as it may, they reached the Bahr-el-Soudan, and launched the Argo on it. Here, it seems, some difficulty occurred in finding their way through the numerous shallows of the lake; but guided by the darkness and tranquillity of the deep channels, and by that good fortune which always attends heroes and demigods, they at length succeeded in reaching the Nile of Egypt, by taking advantage of 'the first rush of the water from the lake, when the inundation of the Niger approached towards its greatest height.'

Though the aid of an inundation was not necessary for heroes to get over the swamps and shallows, yet, as Pliny has asserted that part of the waters of the Nile (which part is assumed to be the Niger) arrive at Egypt by subterraneous currents, it might have been inconvenient, even for heroes, to navigate the Argo, as Sinbad did his boat, under ground, and hence the rush of One per

# Wangara is a place of which we cannot obtain any decided account. son states it to be twenty days to the southward of Timbuctoo; another places it south of Kashna; and many even assert that it is beyond Waday but it is quite impossible, from the various accounts given of it, to form any idea of its actual situation, or even existence.'-Lyon, p. 148.

waters.

waters. But this inundation of the Niger answers another and a very important purpose. 'The grasses and aquatic plants, on the retreat of the waters, will clothe the greater part of the country with a most abundant vegetable harvest;' and this harvest being again immersed in water on the return of the rains, in such a state and in such a climate, must quickly become putrescent, and thereby render the waters of the lake one vast flood of inky fluid.' This vast flood, which is calculated to spread over an extent of 70,000 square miles, flowing onwards, gives to the Nile of Egypt that remarkable blue blackness, which has affixed in all ages names of such an import to both the river and the country over which the inundation flows.' If we admit this ingenious explanation, we have at once a satisfactory solution of a difficulty which the Argonauts unexpectedly encountered, (and which, we confess, has often staggered us,) after being fairly afloat on the lake of Tritonis-their unaccountable distress for want of water.

They sought a fountain, for fell thirst enhanced
Their miseries and pains.'

This

It might, indeed, have occurred to us, had we been aware of the fact, that'heroes and personages half divine' could not make use of such foul potations' as the inky fluid' of the lake; they were accordingly relieved by the benevolence of the nymphs Hesperides, whose sacred abodes, or gardens, appear to have been not far distant from the borders of the lake.' position of the celebrated gardens of these nymphs amidst the swamps of Wangara, to find which had puzzled so many authors and commentators, ancient and modern, seems quite a new discovery, the merit of which, we believe, is entirely due to Mr. Dudley. The feculent matter, engendered by the decayed vegetables of the Wangara, and carried down the Niger, offers likewise, in Mr. Dudley's mind, a satisfactory explanation of the black sediment deposited by the inundations of the Nile. We pass over the 'decisive argument' in proof of this, which Mr. Dudley draws from a chemical analysis of the slime of the Nile, because we would not be thought to speak slightly of his logical deductions; which, however, amount precisely to this-that,

The black mud of the Nile contains clay and silex:

But clay and silex are found in the plants of Wangara; Therefore, the black mud of the Nile is composed of the plants of Wangara.

And, by the same process of ratiocination, we cannot see why the Himalaya mountains and the Andes may not be proved to be composed of the plants of Wangara. This argument, however, most decisive' as it may appear to our author, will carry him but

a very little way; for, by his own showing, or Pliny's, the inky fluid,' penetrating through the sands, would necessarily leave the black feculæ behind, and, thus filtered, the water would join the Nile as clear as crystal.

We looked with some degree of anxiety for the spot where these waters of the Niger, whether black or white, were to form their junction with the Nile; but we looked in vain. Bruce, it seems, found but very little sediment at Sennaar; and not much more at the junction of the Nile and Astabaras, where the water was whiter, and the greatest part of the sediment, sand; at Syené, however, where the Nile enters Egypt, the sediment was amazingly increased; but unluckily, only a trifling part of it was black, the rest being sand. Hence it follows that the junction must be below the Astabaras; and in this case, it is somewhat singular, that neither Poncet nor Bruce, nor Burckhardt, nor Brown, nor Bankes, Belmore, Belzoni and a host of travellers, some of whom traversed both banks, and others of whom navigated the river, should have discovered this rush of waters,' which would hardly have escaped such scrutinizing eyes, even if not more remarkable than the junction of Fleet-ditch with the Thames.

But though Mr. Dudley does not inform us where it is that the Niger joins the Nile, he tells us where it does not, namely, by the channel of the Bahr-el-Abiad; and this for two reasons-first, 'because the details of Pliny strongly contradict it, and render somewhat improbable the idea of the Niger approaching the Nile in a sluggish stream;' and secondly, because it seems almost impossible that a river uniformly designated by names implying blackness, should, for a short part of its course, be called white: these are deemed so conclusive by Mr. Dudley, that he thinks they may incline the Inquirer' (referring to the Quarterly Review) to reject the opinion that the Niger and Nile may be the White River.'

With every possible respect for Mr. Dudley's course of reading, and willing to accord with him, that there can be no better application of learning, than that whereby the experience of past ages is rendered subservient to purposes of useful knowledge,' we cannot bring ourselves to reject the universal testimony in favour of a fact, on which, however, we have not declared any opinion:though we feel no hesitation in stating that an overweening confidence in the vague statements of ancient authors, and an overstraining of those statements to answer particular purposes, have betrayed our learned author into strange and inconsistent conclusions. We give him full credit for the benevolent intentions which he manifests, of saving the valuable lives of many Europeans,' and of preventing only one injudicious expedition;' but we cannot flatter

VOL. XXV. NO. XLIX.

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flatter him with the least hope of such important results from his present lucubrations. Pliny knew nothing of the Abiad; and he furnishes no details either to contradict or confirm the statement of Bruce, who saw it, and pronounced it a dead running river.' But this is nothing; and, seriously speaking, there are blunders in Mr. Dudley's pamphlet which grieve and astonish us. How he could suppose the name of Niger to be derived from the blackness of the water, instead of (as we thought every body knew) the blackness of the people inhabiting the country through which it flows, and to which they have given the name of Soudan, or (translated) Nigritia, is quite inconceivable. The fact of two different names being given to two different parts' of what is supposed to be the same river, when it is considered that they were given by two different people-Romans and Arabs, has nothing to surprize us; but we confess it does appear a little extraordinary to us, that it should not have occurred to Mr. Dudley, that the names of rivers, as well as of seas, are frequently the offspring of caprice or accident, and rarely appropriate to the nature of their waters, though occasionally so to that of their banks: thus we have the Black Sea and the White Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Red Sea, the waters of all which, we have no doubt, are green to the eye, and colourless in a glass.

On this interesting question we have recorded from time to time the opinions of modern travellers and of the Arab and Negro na-' tives, and endeavoured to try their validity as far as regards the possibility of each; from these we have unquestionably imbibed a particular leaning; but we have not pretended to decide the question. If called upon, however, to pronounce an opinion, we should not hesitate to take the Abiad against all the rest as the outlet of the Niger, notwithstanding the incongruity of the milky whiteness' of the one with the inky fluid' of the other, which, as well as we can understand, appears to form the only point of dif ference in the conclusions drawn by us and the Vicar of Humberstone, though we come to those conclusions from very different premises. Experience has, we conceive, clearly ascertained that the Niger can have no other channel of communication with the Nile than the Abiad; and, as we consider it to have been satisfactorily traced to the southward of Bhagerni, it must of necessity either fall into that channel, or be lost in the sands.

ART. III.-The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Fourth Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1821.

THIS is one of the best samples which we have yet seen of American literature; for though it is, as indeed it professes

to

to be, of a light and unpretending character, it is good of its kind; full of imagination, and embellished with a delicacy of feeling, and a refinement of taste, that do not often belong to our transAtlantic descendants.

The age of fine writing will always come late in the annals of a nation; and there is nothing in the history of the rise or progress of America to make her an exception to the general rule. The genius of her people, as might be expected from their origin and their pursuits, is rather directed to what is useful and mechanical; and indeed while they have still so much uncultivated land, we. can scarcely expect that any great encouragement should be given to the cultivation of mind. Accordingly, we find that, while she would gladly rival our broad-cloths and our cutlery, she is content to import our poetry, our romance, our philosophy and our criticism.

Though it may be difficult, perhaps, to decide what political circumstances are most favourable to the developement of the literary taste of a nation, it is easy to see what state of things must necessarily be the most adverse to it. In a newly peopled country the provision of the means of living must for some time be the care of all after these are secured, the pursuit of wealth, and the accumulation of property, will long continue to be the favourite objects. Thus in America, agriculture, commerce, politics, concerns which come home to the business and bosoms of men,engross the attention of all, employing the best hands and the best heads; and it is the fulness of time alone which can bring into existence that distinct class of men, who form the literary reputation of a nation.

At present, too, America is rioting in the first delicious intoxication of national vanity, and reveling in extravagant speculations of future greatness. The late war lasted just long enough to give her an appetite for the pomps and vanities of military glory, and not long enough to make her feel the inevitable consequences which must ensue, if this appetite should grow into a confirmed taste. The creation of a navy is now the darling object of her care; and the spirit which displays itself at the launch of every ship gives a sufficient indication of the confidence with which she looks forward to the realization of her ambitious day-dreams. Time and the hour may, perhaps, sober this calenture of the national brain; and when she shall have bought wisdom at the usual price of experience, by passing through the ordinary career of hope and disappointment, she will perhaps subside into a state of mind more propitious to the growth of good taste, and the advancement of literature.

The author of the work before us, under the assumed title of Geoffrey

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