sun, with its fiercest rays, cannot penetrate these dark recesses; it
only exhales from them pestilential vapours, which render this coast
the theatre of more fatal epidemic diseases than any other, even of
Western Africa. That human industry will one day level these forests,
drain these swamps, and cover this soil with luxuriant harvests, we
may confidently anticipate; but many ages must probably elapse before
man, in Africa, can achieve such a victory over nature.

The Niger, besides its own ample stream, has a number of tributaries,
equal perhaps in magnitude and importance to those of any other
river on the globe; with the exception of the united streams of the
Mississippi and Missouri. At no great distance above the point where
the Delta commences, the Tshadda, nearly equal in magnitude to itself,
enters it; after watering large and fruitful kingdoms, of which the
names only, and of these but a very few, have reached us. On this
river an extensive commerce and active navigation is said to prevail;
the existence of which is further confirmed by the great importance
attached to Funda, and other cities situated at or near the junction.
It would have been deeply interesting, and have given a new importance
to the river communications of Africa, could we have believed, what
was positively asserted by very credible witnesses, that vessels
by its channel sailed to and from the lake Tchad, and thus held
intercourse with the kingdoms of Loggun and Bornou. It seems certain
that the names Tshadda, Shary, and Tchad, are one and the same. But
the identity of the two first as rivers is what we are precluded from
all possibility of believing, by the circumstance that the Shary of
Loggun and Bornou, which Major Denham saw and sailed upon, was found
by him falling _into_ lake Tchad, while the Tshadda of Lander fell
_into_ the Niger; consequently they are distinct streams, flowing in
opposite directions. It is very probable indeed that their fountains