great hydrographic basins of the Niger and the Congo, of North Africa and of Central Africa.  Men still wasted their vigour upon the Nigritis Palus, the Chelonides waters, the Mount Caphas, and the lakes of Wangara, variously written Vancara and Vongara, not to mention other ways.  Maps place “Wangara"to the north-west of Dahome, where the natives utterly ignore the name.  Dupuis ("Ashantee,” 1824) suggests that, like “Takrur,” it is an obsolete Moslem term for the 660 miles of maritime region between Cape Lahu and the Rio Formoso or the Old Calabar River.  This would include the three despotisms, Ashanti, Dahome, and Benin, with the tribes who, from a distance of twenty-five days, bring gold to Tinbuktu (the Tungubutu of De Barros, i. 220).  Thus the lakes of Wangara would be the lagoons of the Slave-coast, in which the Niger may truly be said to lose itself.

At length M. Reichard, of Lobenstein ("Ephemerides Geographiques,” Weimar, 1802), theoretically discovered the mouth of the Niger, by throwing it into the Bight of Benin.  He was right in essentials and wrong in details; for instance, he supposed the Rio Formoso or Benin River and the Rio del Rey to join in one great stream beyond the flat alluvial delta:  whereas the former is indirectly connected through the Wari with the Niger, and the latter has no connection with it at all.  The truth was received with scant courtesy, and the hypothesis was pronounced to be “worthy of very little attention.”  There were, however, honourable exceptions.  In 1813, the learned Malte-Brun ("Precis de la Geographie Universelle,” vol. iv. 635) sanctioned the theory hinted at by Mungo Park, and in 1828 the well-abused Caillie, a Frenchman who had dared to excel Bruce and Mungo Park, wrote these remarkable words:  “If I may be permitted to hazard an opinion as to the course of the River Dhioliba, I should say that it empties itself by several mouths into the Bight of Benin.”  In 1829, fortified by Clapperton’s opinion, my late friend, James Macqueen, who to immense industry added many qualifications of a comparative geographer, recommended a careful examination of the estuaries between the Rio Formoso and Old Calabar.  The question was not finally set at rest till 1830 (November 15th), when Richard and John Lander entered Yoruba via Badagry and, triumphantly descending the lower Niger, made the sea by the “Nun” and Brass embouchures.

Meanwhile, Mr. George Maxwell, a Scotchman who had long traded in the Congo, and who subsequently published a chart of the lower river proposed, at the end of the last century, to take from England six supernumerary boats for rowing and sailing, which could be carried by thirty people and portaged round the cataracts.  This gave rise to Captain Tuckey’s first error, depending upon labour and provisions, which were not to be had “for love or money” anywhere on the Congo above the Yellala.  With thirty or forty black rowers, probably Cabinda men, Maxwell advised navigating the river about May, when the Cacimbo or dry season begins; and with arms, provisions, and merchandize he expected to reach the sources in six weeks.  The scheme, which was rendered abortive by the continental war of 1793, had two remarkable results.  It caused Mungo Park’s fatal second journey, and it led to the twin expeditions of Tuckey and Peddie.