and the other rivers, forming the Senegal, have a part of
their course at, or parallel with, the foot of these hills, collecting
the waters which descend from them. The next
river is crossed near to Madina, and is represented in the
map as formed by the confluence of the Furkomah and
Boki rivers, and not very greatly inferior either in magnitude
or in the length of its course even to the Ba Ping. All
that Mr. Park says of this great river, is, “ at eleven
o clock, crossed a stream, like a mill-stream, running
1 north” !* The last river we come to, is the Ba Woolima,
with its various streams, the Wonda, Ba Lee, Kokoro, &c..
which, after .what has been said of the Ba Ping, scarcely
require to be noticed; except, that by their windings and
the numerous streams crossed in each day’s journey, they
serve to shew the small distance, in which a considerable
river may be formed in, such a country. They are all
clearly bounded by the chain of mountains herein described,
which, a little further eastward, bends or returns
(as already observed) to' the north and north-west to the
kingdom of Kasson,f and forms the eastern angle of the
triangle, described by Major Rennell, in his Appendix to
Park’s first Journey; a description corresponding very
accurately with that here supposed; though the Major, in
his Map, still carries the sources of the Senegal (the Ba
Ping, &c.) -across to the Kong mountains, and represents
the mountains in that part of the country as running north
and south, and extending southward to the same chain of
mountains; and it is in this point only, that there appears
* Second Mission, page 197. f F irs t J o u rn e y , A ppendix, page xix„.
to be reason for doubting his correctness. In Konkodoo,
we have this northern range clearly described as running
east and west at a distance of about forty miles. By the
necessity for avoiding the difficulties of the Jalonka wilderness,
we there lose sight of them for a time; but when we
find them again at Toniba, they are there also running
east and west, for Mr. Park crossed them in a course nearly
from north to south,* and we have endeavoured to shew,
that the magnitude of the rivers passed in the intermediate
space, is not such as necessarily to induce a belief, that the
mountains do not there preserve the same direction ; especially
as the course of the greatest of these rivers is not
given, whether from the south, or rather from the eastward
of south, which seems the most probable; as the Major
represents (and we believe with correctness), that the
eastern level of the country is here the highest.
It is in the plain left between the Kong mountains afid
this ridge, which, according to Park, separates the Niger
from the remote branches of the Senegal ;j- that the Niger
has its course, “ rolling its immense stream along the
“ plain,” J and washing the southern base of these mountains.!
The extent of this plain to the west, and the
distance to which the Niger is navigable through it, are
points not yet known, and which, although of the very
utmost importance to the prosecution of our discoveries or
the extension of our trade in the interior, it does not appear
that any attempt has yet been made to ascertain. From its
* Second Mission, pages 253, 254, 255.
i Id em , page 256.
f Idem, p. 256.
§ Idem, page 231.