[Footnote 263: See Monthly Magazine, March, 1817, page 125.]
[Footnote 264: See Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, &c. page 309.]
[Footnote 265: For full particulars, see New Supp. to Ency. Brit. article "Africa."]
[Footnote 266: This Bernou, or according to the Arabic orthography, _Ber Noh_, is asserted by the Arabs to be the birth-place of the Patriarch Noah.]
Mr. Barnes states, that the Niger discharges itself into a large lake; that he has heard from the Black traders that there are white 450 inhabitants upon the borders of this lake; and has been told, by people who have seen them, that they dress in the style of Barbary Moors, and wear turbans, but do not speak Arabic. See Report of Committee of Council.[267]
[Footnote 267: See Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, &c. p, 309.]
Park, in his second journey, was informed, that "one month's travel south of Baedo, through the kingdom of Grotto, will bring the traveller to the country of the Christians, who have their houses on the banks of the _Ba Seafeena_[268], which they describe as incomparably larger than the lake Dehebby (Dibbie)."--This is another corroboration of the accuracy of my account of the interior of Africa; but before I dismiss this subject, I should observe, that from the general ignorance of the African Arabic, an important circumstance respecting this _Ba Seafeena_, is not yet (it appears) discovered. It is this:--the words _Ba Seafeena_, or, according to the correct Arabic orthography, _Bahar Sefeena_, literally translated into English, signifies the Sea of Ships, and is evidently only another name for the Sea of Sudan, declaring it to be a sea wherein ships are found!
[Footnote 268: See New Supp. to Ency. Brit. article "Africa."]
Here then are two topographical facts first asserted by me, among the moderns, to exist in the heart of Africa, and since confirmed by Ali Bey, Park, and Dr. Sietzen, or, as the enlightened editor of the Supplement to the New Encyclopedia Britt. observes,
451 "We have thus three independent testimonies[269] from opposite quarters, meeting exactly in the same point; nor does there, as far as we know, exist any evidence _at all respectable_ to the contrary."
[Footnote 269: The testimonies here alluded to are Hornman, Park, and Jackson.]