Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/445

 NIGEIRA. the Nile in size. Claudian could not have intended by this river, the Ger of Pliny (v. 1), at the foot of Mt. Atlas, and a desert of black sand and burnt rocks (Xun f ), at which Paulhnus arrived in a few days' journey from the maritime part of Mauretania; though it is probable that he may have intended, not the Geir of Ptolemy, but the Nifieir. The ter- mination Ger was probably a generic word, applied to all rivers and waters in N. Africa, as well as tlie prefix Ki; both were probaldy derived from the Semitic, and came through the Phoenicians to the Greeks. By a not unnatural error, the word became connected with the epithet " Niger," and thus the name Nigritae or Nigretes was synonymous with Sikldn (the Blacks); the real etymology of the name tends to explain the common belief of the Africans, that all the waters of their country flow to the Nile. It is from this notion of the identity of all the waters of N. Africa that Pliny received the absurd account of the Nile and Niger, from the second Juba of Numidia. He reported that the Nile had its origin in a mountain of Lower Jlaure- tania, not far from the Ocean, in a stagnant lake called Nilis; that it flowed from thence through sandy deserts, in which it was concealed for several days ; that it reappeared in a great lake in Jlaure- tania Gaesariensis ; that it was again hidden for twenty days in deserts ; and that it rose again in the Kources of the Nigris, which river, after having sepa- rated Africa from Aethiopia, and then flowed through the middle of Aethiopia, at length became the branch of the Nile called Astapus. The same fable, though without the Nigeir being mentioned, is alluded to by Strabo (xvii p. 826; comp. Vitruv. viii. 2. § 16); while Mela (iii. 9. § 8) adds that the river at its source was also called Dara, so that the river which now bears the name El-Dhara would seem to be the stream which was the reputed commencement of the Nile. The Niger of Pliny was obviously a different river, both in its nature and po- sition, from the Ger of the same author. It was situ- ated to the S. of the great desert on the line separating Africa from Aethiopia; and its magnitude and pro- ductions, such as the hippopotamus and crocodile, cannot be made to correspond to any of the small rivers of the Atlas. Neither do these swell at the same season as the Nile, being fed, not by tropical rain, falling in greatest quantity near the summer solstice, but by the waters of the maritime ridges, which are most abundant in winter. The Niger is not mentioned by the Geographer of Eavenna, nor the Arabs, until the work of Joannes Leo Africanus — a Spanish Moor- — which was written at Rome, and published in Latin, a. d. 1556. Though his work is most valuable, in being the only account extant of the foundation of the Negro empires of Sudan, yet he is in error upon this point, as though he had sailed on the river near Timbuktu ; he declares that the stream does not flow to the E., as it is known to do, but to the W. to Genia or Jenne. This mistake led Europeans to look for its estuary in the Senegal, Gambia, and liio Grande. The true course of the river, which has iiovv been traced to its mouth, con- firms the statements of the ancients as to the great river which they uniformly describe as flowing from W. to E. [E. B. J.] NIGEIRA. [Nigritae.] NIGER-PULLUS, Nigropullum, or Nigropullo, in North Gallia, is placed by the Theodosian Table on a road from Lugdunum Batavorum {Leiden) to No- viomagus {Nymeguen). The distance is marked NILI PALUDES. 429 11 from Albiiiiana {Alfen'), ascending the Rhine. Ukert {Gallien, p. 533) quotes a Dutch author, who says that there is a village near Woerden still called Zwarte Kuikenbuurt. (D'Anville, Notice NIGRITAE, NIGRE'TES (Ni7prTai, Strab. ii. p. 131, xvii. p. 826; Ptol. iv. 6. § 16; Agathem. ii. 5; Jlela, i. 4. § 3, iii. 10. § 4; Phn. v. 8; Ni7pr)T€s, Strab. xvii. p. 828; Dionys. v. 215; Steph. B.), an African tribe who with the Pharusii were said to have destroyed the Tyrian settlements on the coast of the Atlantic, and though adjacent to the W. Aethiopians, were distant only thirty journeys from Linx or Lixus (El-Araish). Strabo, as it appears, had no knowledge, or, at least, placed no confidence, in any information which may have reached him as to the countries more to the S. than Fezzdn. But if he was so ignorant of Libya, and. particularly of the position of the W. Aethiopians (comp. p. 839), no great weight can be attached to his testimony, that the Nigritae and Pharusii, whom he expressly states to have been near those Aethio- pians, were only thirty journeys from Lixus, par- ticularly when he accompanies the remark with the doubtful word (paal, and with his mar'ellous stories about the productions of IMauretania. Ptolemy (I.e.} places them on the N. of the river Nigeir, from which they took their name. It may be inferred, therefore, that they are to be sought in the interior between the Quorra or Djolibd and the Sahara in the Biledu-l-Suddn. Their chief town was called NiGEiKA (Niyeipa iJLTiTpoiroAis, Ptol. iv. 6. § 27) : the NiGEiTis Lacus {Niyplns Xifxvri, § 14) may be identified with the lake Dihbeh to the SW. of Timbuktu. [E. B. J.] NIGRINIA'NA. [C..xdidiana.] NIGRI'TIS LACUS. [Nigritae.] NIGRUS. [JIoGRus.] NILI PALUDES (o( rov NelKov Xi/xvai, Ptol. iv. 9. § 3 ; Strab. xvii. p. 786) were described by the ancient geographers as two immense lagoons, which received the first floods of the periodical rains that from May to September fall upon the Abys- sinian highlands, and swell all the rivers flowing northward from that table-land. From these lagoons the Astapus (Bahr-el-Azrek, Blue River) and the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, respectively derived their waters; and since they were the principal tributaries of the Nile, the lakes wljich fed them were termed the Nilotic Marshes. The ancients placed the Nili Paludes vaguely at the foot of the Lunae Monies ; and the exploring party, sent by the emperor Nero, described them to Seneca the philo- sopher as of boundless extent, covered with floating weeds, and containing black and slimy water, im- passable either by boats or by wading. There is, however, some probability that this exploring party saw only the series of lagoons produced by the level and sluggish stream of the White River, since the descriptions of modern travellers in that region ac- cord closely with Seneca's narrative (Nat. Quaest. vi, 8). The White River itself, indeed, resembles an immense lagoon. It is often from five to seven miles in width, and its banks are so low as to be covered at times with slime to a distance of two or three miles from the real channel. This river, as less remote than the Abyssinian liighlands from the ordinary road between Syene and the S. of Iileroe (Sennaar), is more likely to have fallen under the notice of Neru's explorers ; and the extent of slimy water overspread with aqni'.tic plants, corresponds
 * 1) c.) [G. L.]