SENEGAL-RIVER, see NIGER. As so little is known respecting this river, which is one of the greatest in Africa, any additional information must be interesting.
Senegal. We shall therefore present our readers with the account contained in the communications presented to the Association for promoting the discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, which, as far as we know, is the latest and most authentic.
The river known to Europeans by the name of Niger or Senegal runs on the south of the kingdom of Cassina, in its course towards Tombuctou; and if the report which Ben All heard in that town may be credited, it is afterwards lost in the sands on the south of the country of Tombuctou. In the map (A), only the known part of its course is marked by a line; and the supposititious part by dots. It may be proper to observe, that the Africans have two names for this river; that is, Neel il Aheed, or river of the Negroes; and Neel il Kibee, or the great river. They also term the Nile (that is the Egyptian river) Neel Shem; so that the term Neel, from whence our Nile, is nothing more than the appellative of river; like Ganges, or Sinde.
Of this river the rise and termination are unknown, but the course is from east to west. So great is its rapidity, that no vessel can ascend its stream; and such is the want of skill, or such the absence of commercial inducements among the nations who inhabit its borders, that even with the current, neither vessels nor boats are seen to navigate. In one place, indeed, the traveller finds accommodations for the passage of himself and of his goods; but even there, though the ferry-men, by the indulgence of the sultan of Cassina, are exempted from all taxes, the boat which conveys the merchandise is nothing more than an ill-constructed raft; for the planks are fastened to the timbers with ropes, and the seams are closed both within and without by a plaster of tough clay, of which a large provision is always carried on the raft, for the purpose of excluding the stream wherever its entrance is observed.
The depth of the river at the place of passage, which is more than a hundred miles to the south of the city of Cassina, the capital of the empire of that name, is estimated at 23 or 24 feet English. Its depth is from 10 to 12 pecks, each of which is 27 inches.
Its width is such, that even at the island of Gongoo, where the ferry-men reside, the sound of the loudest voice from the northern shore is scarcely heard; and at Tombuctou, where the name of Gnetes, or black, is given to the stream, the width is described as being that of the Thames at Westminster. In the rainy season it swells above its banks, and not only floods the adjacent lands, but often sweeps before it the cattle and cottages of the short-sighted or too confident inhabitants.
That the people who live in the neighbourhood of the Niger should refuse to profit by its navigation, may justly surprise the traveller: but much greater is his astonishment, when he finds that even the food which the bounty of the stream would give, is uselessly offered to their acceptance; for such is the want of skill, or such the settled dislike of the people to this sort of provision, that the fish with which the river abounds are left in undisturbed possession of its waters.