receive them at places so much nearer. It must be for a
trade down the river from populous countries situated above
Kancaba, that they are sent there. Nor is it easy to
believe, that a river, which Mr. Park states to be at Bam-
makoo, a mile across, and to be interrupted in its navigation
only by a local cause, should not be navigable above
that cause: or that a stream, which he states to be larger
even there (at Bammakoo) than either the Gambia or the
Senegal, should be distant from its source only 108 geographical
miles, and draw its supplies from a country, which,
by the map attached to Park’s last mission, appears to be
only 40 or 50 G. miles in breadth; when the Senegal has a
course of not less than 600 G. miles, measured by the same
map, across to the rock Gouvina, and from that to its mouth,
without making any further allowance for its windings;
and drains for its support, a country extending, according
to the same authority, in breadth, not less than 300 G.
miles. It will of course occur to any person, looking at the
maps attached to Park’s Journeys, that the places marked
out as the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, preclude
the possibility of the Niger’s extending farther to the
westward than is there represented ; but upon a careful
perusal of Park’s Last Mission, there seems strong ground
to believe, that the framers of his map, proceeding upon the
old idea that the Senegal and Gambia take their rise in the
Kong mountains, have here fallen into an error. It would
appear that there are two distinct ranges of mountains,
commencing at the Foot a 3alia hills. The Kong mountains
running to the east, but in a line curved considerably to the
south, and supposed to be the greatest mountains in Afrioa
the other proceeding in a more direct line and increasing
in its elevation, as it extends towards the east, seems to
approach nearly to its full height at the Konkodoo mountains,
and bending or returning to the North and N. VV.
beyond Toniba, where Mr. Park crossed it, to give birth
to all the streams, which, united, form the Senegal.
Of the sources of the Gambia, we have no particular-
account, but it seems probable that these two ranges of
mountains are united at their western extremity, and that
the Gambia does not extend beyond this union; an idea
in which there is ground to believe that Mr. Park would
have concurred from expressions in two of his letters to;
Sir Joseph Banks, the first dated from Kayee, River
Gambia, 26 April, 1805.* “ The course of the Gambia is
certainly not so long as is laid down in the charts.” The
second letter is dated Badoo, near Tambacunda, May
28th, 1805.f “ The course of the Gambia is laid down
on my chart too much to the south; I have ascertained
nearly its whole course.” The removal of the river more to-
the north by leaving a larger space for its course from the
mountains, renders it more probable that it should be terminated
at the point herein supposed; and if its sources
were as distant as they are represented to be in our maps,
it is difficult to imagine that Mr. Park could, as he states,
have- ascertained nearly its whole course.
The position of the northern range of hills is described by
* The Last Mission, p. 62. f Idem* page 69-