| 8th | Top freshwater ecoregions in Africa and Madagascar |
| 4th | Top Benin-related topics |
| Niger River (Joliba, Isa Ber, Oya, gher n gheren) | |
| River | |
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| Name origin: Unknown. Likely From Berber for River gher | |
| Countries |  Guinea,  Mali,  Niger,  Benin,  Nigeria |
|---|---|
| Tributaries | |
| - left | Sokoto River, Kaduna River, Benue River |
| - right | Bani River |
| Cities | Tembakounda, Bamako, Timbuktu, Niamey, Lokoja, Onitsha |
| Mouth | |
| - location | Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria |
| Length | 4,180 km (2,597 mi) |
| Basin | 2,117,700 km2 (817,649 sq mi) |
 Map of the
Niger River, and Niger River Basin shown in green
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The Niger River (pronounced /ˈnaɪdʒər/ NYE-jər) is the principal river of western Africa, extending about 4,180 km (2,600 mi). Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km2 (817,600 sq mi) in area.[1] Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea. It runs in a crescent through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, known as the Niger Delta of the Oil Rivers, into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the Nile and the Congo River (also known as the Zaïre River). Its main tributary is the Benue River.
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Different African languages have a variety of names for the river. The Niger is still called Jeliba or Joliba "great river" in Manding, Isa Ber "big river" in Songhay, and Oya, a Yoruba River Niger goddess. A good possibility for a source of "Niger" remains the Tuareg phrase gher n gheren "river of rivers", shortened to ngher, a local name used along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu. As Tuareg is a Berber language which traveled from the Mediterranean basin with the Tuareg in the 10th century, it provides a linguistic link between the two regions.
Some Medieval and late Classical European maps used the name "Niger" applied only to the middle reaches of the river, in modern Mali, while Quorra or Kworra was used for the lower reaches in modern Nigeria. The name Niger was extended to cover the entire river on maps once Europeans realized that these were one and the same. It is worth mentioning that the Tabula Peutingeriana records a Flumen Girin ("River Girin") with the remark Hoc flumen quidam Grin vocant, alii Nilum appellant; dicitur enim sub terra Etyopium in Nylum ire Lacum,[2] "This river which some are naming Grin is called Nile by others, for it is said to flow under the ground of Ethiopia [i.e. Africa] into the Nile Lake".
When European colonial powers began to send ships along the West coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Senegal River was often postulated to be part of the Niger. The Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of tributaries along more than a hundred miles, was incorrectly identified by Europeans as coastal wetlands. It was only with the 18th century visits of Mungo Park, who travelled down the Niger River and visited the great Sahelian empires of his day, that Europeans correctly identified the course of the Niger. The name, even when Park and others reported its name correctly from local guides, persisted in the West as Niger.
The modern nations of Nigeria and Niger take their names from the river, marking contesting national claims by colonial powers of the "Upper", "Lower" and "Middle" Niger river basin during the Scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century.
It is often assumed, without evidence, that Niger derives from the Latin word for "black", niger, but it would have been more likely for the Portuguese explorers who first wrote this name on their maps to have used the Portuguese word, negro, as they did elsewhere in the world. In any case the Niger is not a blackwater river, which was the motivation for all other rivers that were called black. (See Rio Negro.) Some have rationalized that 'black' may have referred to the color of the people living on the river, but this did not happen to any other river in Africa. Therefore it would seem that the similarity between the name Niger and the Latin word niger is either coincidence, or that knowledge of Latin influenced the spelling of an indigenous name like ngher.
The Niger River is a relatively "clear" river, carrying only a tenth as much sediment as the Nile because the Niger's headlands are located in ancient rocks that provide little silt.[3] Like the Nile, the Niger floods yearly; this begins in September, peaks in November, and finishes by May.[3]
An unusual feature of the river is the Inner Niger Delta, which forms where its gradient suddenly decreases.[3] The result is a region of braided streams, marshes, and lakes the size of Belgium; the seasonal floods make the Delta extremely productive for both fishing and agriculture.[4]
The river 'loses' nearly two-thirds of its potential flow in the Inner Delta between Ségou and Timbuktu due to seepage and evaporation. All the water from the Bani River, which flows into the Delta at Mopti, does not compensate for the 'losses'. The average 'loss' is estimated at 31 km3/year, but varies considerably between years.[5] The river is then joined by various tributaries, but also loses more water due to evaporation. The quantity of water entering Nigeria measured in Yola was estimated at 25 km3/year before the 1980s and at 13.5 km3/year during the 1980s. The most important tributary of the Niger in Nigeria is the Benue River which merges with the river at Lokoja in Nigeria. The total volume of tributaries in Nigeria is six times higher than the inflow into Nigeria, with a flow near the mouth of the river standing at 177.0 km3/year before the 1980s and 147.3 km3/year during the 1980s.[5]
The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river, a boomerang shape that baffled European geographers for two millennia. Its source is just 240 km (150 mi) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs away from the sea into the Sahara Desert, then takes a sharp right turn near the ancient city of Timbuktu (Tombouctou) and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.
This strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. The upper Niger, from the source past the trading city of Timbuktu to the bend in the current river, once emptied into a now-gone lake, while the lower Niger started in hills near that lake and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. As the Sahara dried up in 4000–1000 BC, the two rivers altered their courses and hooked up. This explanation is generally accepted, although some geographers disagree.
The northern part of the river, known as the Niger bend, is an important area because it is the closest major river and source of water to that part of the Sahara desert. This made it the focal point of trade across the western Sahara, and the centre of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao.
The surrounding Niger River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the Sudan province, which in turn is part of the larger African massive physiographic division.
The origin of the river's name remains unclear. What is clear is that "Niger" was an appellation applied in the Mediterranean world from at least the Classical era, when knowledge of the area by Europeans was slightly better than fable. A careful study of Classical writings on the interior of the Sahara begins with Ptolemy, who mentions two rivers in the desert: the "Gir" and farther south, the "Ni-Gir".[6] The first has been since identified as the Wadi Ghir on the north western edge of the Tuat, along the borders of modern Morocco and Algeria.[7] This would likely have been as far as Ptolemy would have had consistent records. The Ni-Ger was likely speculation, although the name stuck as that of a river south of the Mediterranean's "known world". Suetonius reports Romans traveling to the "Ger", although in reporting any river's name derived from a Berber language, in which "gher" means "watercourse", confusion could easily arise.[8] Pliny connected these two rivers as one long watercourse which flowed (via lakes and underground sections) into the Nile[9], a notion which persisted in the Arab and European worlds – and further added the Senegal River as the "Ger" – until the 19th century. The connection to the Nile River was made not simply because this was then known as the great river of "Aethiopia" (by which all lands south of the desert were called by Classical writers), but because the Nile flooded every summer. In Europe and Western Asia, floods are expected in the Spring, following snow melt. Classical authors explained the summer flood by calculating the time it took for flood waters to move down a river, and calculating how long the Nile must have been for the waters to travel from a mountain range in the spring. The cycle of the Nile is based on tropical rain patterns though, not snow melt, something unknown to the Classical Mediterranean world.[10] Through the descriptions of Leo Africanus and even Ibn Battuta – despite his visit to the river – the myth connecting the Niger to the Nile persisted.
While the true course of the Niger was presumably known to locals, it was a mystery to the outside world until the late 18th century. Ancient Romans such as Pliny (N.H. 5.10) thought that the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile River, a belief also held by Ibn Battuta, while early European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the Senegal River.
Many European expeditions to plot the river were unsuccessful. In 1788 the African Association was formed in England to promote the exploration of Africa in the hopes of locating the Niger, and in June of 1786 the Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first European to lay eyes on the river. The true course was established in his book Travels in the Interior of Africa, which appeared in 1799.[11][12][13]
In the nineteenth century, the river steamer provided entry to the vast interior. The Laird shipyard built such a vessel in 1832. Macgregor Laird designed an iron paddle steamer, the Alburkah, which was capable of making its own way to West Africa, where the Lairds hoped to trade. Macgregor Laird took personal charge of the expedition. The Alburkah steamed south from Milford Haven in July 1832 with 48 on board, reaching the mouth of the Niger three months later, entering history as the first ocean-going iron ship. After making her way up one of the many streams of the Niger delta, the Alburkah progressed upstream on the main river as far as Lokoja, at the confluence with the Benue River. The expedition demonstrated that the Niger offered a highway into the continent for ocean vessels, and the performance of the iron steamer was a triumph. When the Alburkah returned to Liverpool in 1834, only nine of the original crew of 48 were alive, including a much weakened Macgregor Laird.
In 2005 Norwegian adventurer Helge Hjelland apparently became the first known man ever to successfully journey through the entire length of the Niger River starting in Guinea. The trip was filmed by the adventurer himself and made into a documentary titled "The Cruellest Journey".[14]
The water in the Niger River basin is partially regulated through dams. In Mali the Sélingué Dam on the Sankarani River is mainly used for hydropower, but also permits irrigation. Two diversion dams, one at Sotuba just downstream of Bamako, and one at Markala, just downstream of Ségou, are used to irrigate about 54,000 hectares.[5] In Nigeria the Kainji Dam and the Jebba dam are used to generate hydropower.
The water resources of the Niger River are under pressure due to increased water abstraction for irrigation and due to impact of climate change. The construction of dams for hydropower generation is underway or envisaged in order to alleviate chronic power shortages in the countries of the Niger basin.
The FAO estimates the irrigation potential of all countries in the Niger river basin at 2.8 million hectares. Only 0.93m hectares (ha) were under irrigation in the late 1980s. The irrigation potential was estimated at 1.68m ha in Nigeria 0.56m ha in Mali, and the actual irrigated area was 0.67m ha and 0.19m ha.[5]
In order to further coordinate their efforts, in April 2008 the riparian countries which form the Niger Basin Authority adopted a Niger Basin Water Charta, a basin-wide 30-year investment plan and a 5-year priority investment plan. The Charta promotes Integrated Water Resources Management, defines procedures for the examination and approval of new projects, provides a framework for the allocation of water resources between sectors, commits to maintain the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and defines mechanisms for the settlement of disputes between countries and for user participation. Investments include the expansion of irrigated agriculture to improve food security, the construction of the Taoussa dam in Mali and the Kandadji dam in Niger (the latter is under construction since August 2008), as well as the rehabilitation of the Kainji dam and Jebba dam in Nigeria. [15]
Most of the investments are funded or are expected to be funded through aid. For example, the Kandadji dam is financed by the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the OPEC Development Fund. The World Bank approved a US$500 million soft loan in July 2007 to finance projects in the basin over a 12-year period. Funding will be awarded in two phases. The initial $185 million credit will go to Nigeria, Guinea, Benin, Mali and Niger. The second, $315 million investment, is slated for Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad and Ivory Coast.[16] Besides financing the rehabilitation of dams in Nigeria, the loan will also fund the "sustainable management of selected degraded ecosystems and rehabilitation of small water infrastructure" and capacity building.[17]
In September 2009, the Nigerian government commenced a 36 billion naira dredging of the Niger River from Baro to Warri, a move which will see silt removed from several hundred miles.[18 ] The dredging is intended to make it easier for goods to be transported to isolated settlements located deep within from the Atlantic Ocean.[18 ] Estimated to be completed within six to eight months, it had first been proposed and then postponed for 43 years previously by the then government.[18 ] [19] Speaking in Lokoja, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua stated that the project would lead to "all-year-round navigability" on the River Niger and that he hoped that, by 2020, Nigeria would have become one of the twenty most industrialised nations in the world.[18 ] [19] Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, the Nigerian Minister of Transport, said his ministry would work to make certain the project would be completed within its designated timeframe. [19] Some activists have, however, opposed the project in the past, claiming it may have negative effects on waterside villagers.[18 ]
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NIGER, a great river of West Africa, inferior only to the Congo and Nile among the rivers of the continent, and the only river in Africa which, by means of its tributary the Benue, affords a waterway uninterrupted by rapids, and available for shallow-draught steamers, to the far interior. Rising within 50 m. of the sea in the mountainous zone which marks the N.E. frontiers of Sierra Leone and French Guinea, it traverses the interior plateaus in a vast curve, flowing N.E., E. and S.E., until it finally enters the Gulf of Guinea through an immense delta. Its total length is about 2600 m. About 250 m. from its mouth it is joined by the Benue, coming from the east from the mountainous region of Adamawa. From its mouth to the limit of navigability from the sea the river is in British territory; above that point it flows through French territory.
The source of the Niger lies in 9° 5' N. and 10° 47' W., and the most northerly point of the great bend is about 17° N. The area of the Niger basin, excluding the arid regions with a slope towards the stream, has been calculated by Dr. A. Bludau at 584,000 sq. m. The river is known locally under various names, the most common being Joliba (a Mandigo word meaning Great River) and Kworra or Quorra. By the last name the Niger was known in its lower reaches before its identity with the upper river was established. The stream considered the chief source of the Niger is called the Tembi. A narrow watershed separates it from the headwaters of the o P streams flowing south-west through Sierra Leone. The birthplace of the Niger is in a deep ravine 2800 ft. above sealevel. From a moss-covered rock a tiny spring issues and has made a pool below. This little stream is the Tembi, which within a short distance is joined by two other rivulets, the Tamincono and Falico, which have their origin in the same mountainous district. After flowing north for about roo m., the river turns eastward and receives several tributaries from the south. At its confluence with the Tankisso (a northern tributary), 2 10 m:'from its source, the river has attained dimensions sufficient to earn for itself the title Joliba. Taking at this point a decided trend northward, the Niger, roo m. lower down, at Bamako - the first considerable town on its banks - has a depth of 6 ft. with a breadth of 1300 ft. Seven or eight miles below Bamako the Sotuba rocks mark the end of what may be considered the upper river. From this point the navigable portion of the Niger begins. Thirty miles below Sotuba are the rapids of Tulimandio, but these are navigable when the river is at its highest, namely from July to October. A little lower down is Kulikoro, from which point the bed of the stream for over r000 m. is fairly free from impediments.
The river here turns more directly to the east and increases in volume and depth. At Sansandig the stream is deep enough to permit of steamers of considerable size plying upon the river. After Sansandig is passed the banks of The the stream become low and the Niger is split up into a number of channels. Mopti is at the junction of the main stream with a large right-hand backwater or tributary, the Bani or Mabel Balevel, on which is situated the important town of Jenne. The banks of the Niger below Mopti become swampy and treeless, and the first of a series of lakes (Debo) is reached. These lakes are chiefly on the left of the main stream, with which they are connected by channels conveying the water in one direction or the other according to the season. At high water most of these are united into one general inundation. The largest lake, Faguibini, is nearly 70 m. long by 12 m. broad, has high shores and reaches a depth exceeding, in parts, r60 ft. It is not until Kabara, the port of Timbuktu, is reached, a distance of 450 m. from Sansandig, that the labyrinth of lakes, creeks and backwaters ceases. Below Kabara the river reaches its most northerly point. At Bamba it is shut in by steep banks and narrows to 600 to 700 yds., again spreading out some distance down. At Barka (200 m. from Timbuktu) the stream turns south-east and preserves that direction throughout the remainder of its course. At Tosaye, just before the bend becomes pronounced, the Baror and Chabar rocks reduce the width of the river to less than Soo ft., and at low water the strength of the current is a serious danger to navigation. Below Timbuktu for a considerable distance the Niger receives no tributaries; from the north none until the region of the Sahara is passed. In places the desert approaches close to the river on both banks and immense sand dunes fill the horizon.
At Ansongo, 430 m. below Timbuktu, the navigable reach of the middle Niger, in all 1057 m., ends. Four huge flint rocks bar the river at Ansongo and effectually prevent further navigation except in very small vessels. From Ansongo to Say, some 250 m., the river flows through several rocky passes, the current attaining great velocity. Throughout this distance the river is a hopeless labyrinth of rocks, islands, reefs and rapids. From Say, where the stream is about 700 yds. in breadth, to Bussa, there is another navigable stretch of water extending 300 m. After the desert region is past the Niger receives the waters of the river Sokoto, a considerable stream flowing from the northeast. Some distance below this confluence are the Bussa rapids, which can only be navigated with considerable difficulty. These rapids - though not such a hindrance to navigation - are of a more dangerous character than any encountered between Ansongo and Say. "In one pass, some 54 yds. wide, shut in between two large reefs, a good half of the waters of the Niger flings itself over with a tremendous roar" (Hourst). The rapids extend for 50 m. or more; in a less obstructive form they continue to Rabba, but light-draught steamers ascending the stream during flood season experience little difficulty in reaching Bussa. A little above Rabba the river makes a loop south-west, at the head of the loop being (right bank) Jebba. Here the river is bridged by the railway from Lagos. Sixty miles lower down is the mouth of the (left hand) tributary the Kaduna, a river of some magnitude which gives access to Zungeru, the headquarters of the British administration in Northern Nigeria. The head waters of the Kaduna are not far from Kano. Below the mouth of the Kaduna, on the right bank of the Niger, is Baro, the starting-point of a railway to Kano. In 7° 50' N. 6° 45' E. the Niger is joined by its great tributary the Benue. At their confluence the Niger is about three-quarters of a mile broad and the Benue rather more than a mile. The united stream forms a lake-like expansion about 2 m. in width, dotted with islands and sandbanks; the peninsula at the junction is low, swampy, and intersected by numerous channels. On the western bank of the Niger at this point is situated Lokoja, an important commercial centre. The stream, as far south as Iddah (Ida), a town on the east bank, rushes through a valley cut between the hills, the sandstone cliffs at some places rising 150 ft. high. Between Iddah and Onitsha, 80 m., the banks are lower and the country flatter, and to the south of Onitsha the whole land is laid under water during the annual Delta. floods. Here may be said to begin the great delta of the Niger, which, extending along the coast for about 120 m., and 140 or 150 m. inland, forms one of the most remarkable of all the swampy regions of Africa. The river breaks up into an intricate network of channels, dividing and subdividing, and intercrossing not only with each other but with the branches of other streams, so that it is exceedingly difficult to say where the Niger delta ends and another river system begins. The Rio Nun is a direct continuation of the line of the undivided river, and is thus the main mouth of the Niger.
From the sea the only indication of a river mouth is a break in the dark green mangroves which here universally fringe the coast. The crossing of the bar requires considerable care, and at ebb tide the outward current runs 51knots per hour. For the first 20 In. (or as far as Sunday Island, the limit of the sea tide in the dry season) dense lines of mangroves 40, 50, or 60 ft. in height shut in the channel; then palm and other trees begin to appear, and the widening river has regular banks. East of the Nun the estuaries known as the Brass, Sombrero, New Calabar, Bonny, Opobo (or Imo), &c. (with the exception, perhaps, of the first-named), seem to derive most of their water from independent streams such as the Orashi, rising in about 6° N., which is, however, linked with the Niger by the Onita Creek in 52° N. Behind the town of Okrika, some 30 m. up the Bonny river, the swampy ground gives place to firm land, partially forest-clad. West of the Nun all the estuaries up to the Forcados seem to be true mouths of the great river, while the Benin river, though linked to the others by transverse channels, may be more properly regarded as an independent stream. (See Benin.) In this direction the largest mouth is the Forcados, a noble stream with a safe and relatively deep bar. Its banks in its lower course are densely wooded, but the beach is sandy and almost free from marsh and malaria. The mouth is 2 m. wide. It has supplanted the Nun river as the chief channel of communication with the interior. There are 17 to 19 ft. of water over the Forcados bar, as against 13 ft. at the Nun mouth. Moreover the Forcados bar shifts little laterally, and within the bar is a natural harbour with an area of 3 to 4 sq. m. having a depth of 30 ft. at low water spring tides. From the mouth of the Forcados to the main stream is 105 m., with a minimum depth in the dry season of 7 ft. A northern arm affords ocean-going vessels access to Wari and 675 Sapele. The other western mouths of the Niger have as a rule shallow and difficult bars. The delta is the largest in Africa and covers 14,000 sq. m.
The Benue is by far the most important of the affluents of the Niger. The name signifies in the Batta tongue "Mother of Waters." The river rises in Adamawa in about 7° 40' N. and 13° 15' E. a little north of the town of Ngaundere, at a height of over 3000 ft. above the sea, being separated by a narrow water parting from one of the headstreams of the Logone, whose waters flow to Lake Chad. In its upper course the Benue is a mountain torrent falling over 2000 ft. in some 150 m. With the Chad system it is connected by the Kebbi or Mayo Kebbi, a right-hand tributary whose confluence is in about 91° N., 131° E. The Kebbi, fed by many torrents rising in the eastern versant of the Mandara Hills, issues from the S.W. end of the Tuburi marshes. These marshes occupy an extensive depression in the moderately elevated plateau east of the Mandara Hills, and are cut by 10° N., 15° E. The central part of the marshes forms a deep lake, whence there is a channel going northward to the Logone and navigable for some months during the year. The Kebbi flows west, and soon after leaving Tuburi passes through a rocky barrier marked by a series of rapids and a fall at Lata of 165 ft. Below these obstructions the Kebbi to its junction with the Benue has a depth of not less than 6 ft. In places, as at Lere and Bifara, it widens into lake-like dimensions.
Below the Kebbi confluence the Benue, now a considerable river, turns from a northerly to a westerly direction and is navigable all the year round by boats drawing not more than 21 ft. For some 40 m. below the confluence the river has an average width of 180 to 200 yds., and flows with a strong steady current, although a broad strip of countr y on each side is swampy or submerged. It is here joined by the Faro, which, rising in the Adamawa Mountains S.E. of Ngaundere, flows almost due north. About 50 m. below the junction of the Faro is Yola, the capital of Adamawa. It lies on the southern side of the Benue, some 850 m. by river from the sea and at an altitude of 600 ft. Here the width of the stream increases at flood time to woo or 1500 yds., and though it narrows at the somewhat dangerous rapids of Rumde Gilla to 150 or 180 yds., it soon expands again. About 50 m. below Yola the Benue receives, on the right bank, the Gongola, which rises in the Bauchi highlands and after a great curve north-east turns southward. It is over 300 m. long, and at flood time is navigable for about half of its course. The Benue receives several other tributaries both from the north and the south, but they are not of great importance. It flows onwards to the Niger with comparatively unobstructed current, its valleys marked for the most part by ranges of hills and its banks diversified with forests, villages and cultivated tracts. But though exceptionally free from obstruction by rapids, the river falls very low in the dry season, and for seven to eight months is almost useless for navigation. The Benue lies within British territory to a point 3 m. below the mouth of the Faro, in about 13° 8' E. East of that point the river is in the German colony of Cameroon.
As the Niger and the Benue have different gathering grounds, they are not in flood at the same time. The upper Niger rises in June as the result of the tropical rains, and decreases in December, its breadth at Turella expanding from between 2000 and 2500 ft. to not less than 11 m. The middle Niger, however, reaches its maximum near Timbuktu only in January; in February and March it sinks slowly above the narrows of Tosaye, and more rapidly below them, the level being kept up by supplies from backwaters and lakes; and by April there is a decrease of about 5 ft. In August the channel near Timbuktu is again navigable owing to rain in the southern highlands. The Benue reaches its greatest height in August or September, begins to fall in October, falls rapidly in November and slowly in the next three months, and reaches its lowest in March and April, when it is fordable in many places, has no perceptible flow and at the confluence begins to be covered with the water-weed Pistia Stratiotes. The flood rises with great rapidity, and reaches 50, 60, or even 75 ft. above the low-water mark.
The two confluents being so unlike, the united river differs from each under the influence of the other. Here the river is at its lowest in April and May; in June it is subject to great fluctuations; about the middle of August it usually begins to rise; and its maximum is reached in September. In October it sinks, often rapidly. A slight rise in January, known as the yangbe, is occasioned by water from the upper Niger. Between highand low-water mark the difference is as much as 35 ft.
The geological changes which have taken place in the Niger basin are imperfectly known. The French scientists E. F. Gautier and R. Chudeau, summing up the evidence available in 1909, set forth the hypothesis that the existing upper Niger and the existing lower Niger were distinct streams. According to this theory the upper Niger, somewhat above where Timbuktu now stands, went north and north-west and emptied into the Juf, which in the beginning of the quaternary age was a salt-water lake, the remnant of an arm of the sea which in the tertiary age covered the northern Sudan and southern Sahara as far east as Bilma. Lake Fagubini is regarded as a remnant of the ancient course of the upper river. When the upper Niger had this direction, the Wadi Taffassassent, now a dried-up river of the central Sahara, which rose in the Ahaggar mountains, is believed to have formed the upper course of the existing lower Niger. While the upper and lower parts of the Niger have all the appearance of ancient streams, the middle Niger is the result of a "recent" capture; "it has no past, it scarcely has a present" (see R. Chudeau, Sahara soudanais, Paris, 1909).
Vague ideas of the existence of the river were possessed by the ancients. The great river flowing eastward reached by the Nasamonians as reported by Herodotus can be no other than the Niger. Pliny mentions a river Nigris, and ex- ploration. of the same nature with the Nile, separating Africa and Ethiopia, and forming the boundary of Gaetulia; and it is not improbable that this is the modern Niger. In Ptolemy, too, appears along with Gir (possibly the Shari) a certain Nigir (NL'yap) as one of the largest rivers of the interior; but so vague is his description that it is impossible definitely to identify it with the Niger.' Arabian geographers, such as Ibn Batuta, who were acquainted with the middle course of the river, called it the Nile of the Negroes. At the same time contradictory opinions were held as to the course of the stream. It was supposed by some geographers to run west, an opinion probably first stated by Idrisi in the 12th century. Idrisi gave the Nile of Egypt and the Nile of the Negroes a common source in the Mountain of the Moon. Fountains from the mountain formed two lakes, whence issued streams which united in a very large lake. From this third lake issued two rivers - the Nile of Egypt flowing north, and that of the Negroes flowing west (see R. Dozy and M. J. de Goeje's Edrisi, Leiden, 1866: Premier Climat, 1st 4 sections). From Idrisi's description it would appear that he regarded the Shari, Lake Chad, the Benue, Niger and Senegal as one great river which emptied into the Atlantic. 2 That the Niger flowed west and reached the ocean was also stated by Leo Africanus. The belief that a western branch of the Nile emptied itself into the Atlantic was held by Prince Henry of Portugal, who instructed the navigators he despatched to Guinea to look for the mouth of the river, and when in 1445 they entered the estuary of the Senegal the Portuguese were convinced that they had discovered the Nile of the Negroes (see Azurara's Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, Beazley and Prestage's translation, vol. ii., London, 1899, chaps. lx. and lxi., and introduction and notes). The Senegal being proved an independent river and the eastward flow of the Niger assumed, the theory that it ran into the Nile was revived, and almost to the very year in which the course of the river was actually demonstrated geographers and travellers, such as J. G. Jackson in his Empire of Marocco, first published in 1809, fought zealously for the identity of the Nile of the Negroes with the river of Egypt. The highest scientific authority of the day, Major James Rennell, believed, however, that the Niger ended, by evaporation, in the country of "Wangara" - a region located by him, through a misreading of Idrisi, far too much 1 Sir Rufane Donkin in a curious and learned work, A Dissertation on. .. the Niger (1829), made the Niger join the Gir, which last stream he calls the Nile of Bornu. The united river ran north, disappeared underground in the Sahara and reached the Mediterranean at "the quicksands of the gulph of Sidra." Donkin believed that the desert, advancing eastwards, would overwhelm the Egyptian Nile also in its lower course. "The Delta," he exclaims, "shall become a plashy quicksand, a second Syrtis ! and the Nile shall cease to exist from the Lower Cataract downwards." 2 The hydrography of northern central Africa as now known largely explains the medieval belief in a connexion between the western rivers and the Egyptian Nile. Leaving out of account the Welle-Ubangi (and Idrisi's description of the two Niles may infer a knowledge of that stream, which was supposed by Schweinfurth to form part of the Chad system), there is an almost continuous waterway from the mouth of the Senegal to that of the Nile. The upper waters of the Bakoy branch of the Senegal and those of the navigable Niger are less than 40 m. apart; the Niger communicates directly through the Benue, Lake Tuburi and the Logone with the Shari; the easternmost affluents of the Shari and the most western tributaries of the Bahr el Ghazel affluent of the Nile are within 20 m. of one another. With but three short porterages a boat could be navigated the whole of this distance. Moreover, from the confluence of the Ghazel the Nile is navigable (at high water) the entire distance to the Mediterranean. (See also Shari.) to the east, between 15° and 20° E. (see Rennell's map in Hornemann's Travels, 1802). To Rennell the Benue was an eastflowing continuation of the Niger.' The imagined existence of mountains - called Kong in the west and Komri (Lunar) in the east - stretching in a high and unbroken chain across Africa about 10° N. long prevented geographers from thinking of a possible southern bend to the Niger. That the vast network of rivers on the Guinea coast, of which the Nun was the chief, known as the Oil Rivers, formed the delta. of the Niger does not appear to have been suspected before the beginning of the 19th century. Consequently it was from the direction of its source that the river was first explored in modern times. In 1795 Mungo Park was sent out by the African Association, and was the first European to see and describe the upper river. Park landed at the Gambia, and struck the Niger near Segu (a town some distance above Sansandig) on the 10th of July 1796, where he beheld it "glittering in the morning sun as broad as the Thames at Westminster and flowing slowly to. the eastward" (Travels, 1st ed. p. 194). He descended the river some distance, and on his return journey went up stream as far as Bamako. In 1805 Park returned to Africa for the purpose of descending the Niger to its. mouth. He started as, before from the Gambia, reached the Niger, sailed down the river past Timbuktu, and on the eve of the successful accomplishment of his undertaking lost his life during an attack on his boat by the natives at Bussa (Nov. or Dec. 1805). Park held to the opinion that the Niger and Congo were one river, though in 1802 C. G. Reichard, a German geographer, had suggested that the Rio Nun was the mouth of the Niger. 4 Owing to Park's death the results of his second journey were lost, and the work had to be begun afresh. In 1822 Major A. G. Laing (who had reached Timbuktu by way of Tripoli) obtained some accurate information concerning the sources of the river, and in 1828 the French explorer Rene Caillie went by boat from Jenne to the port of Timbuktu. In 1826 Bussa was reached from Benin by Hugh Clapperton, and his servant Richard Lander. On Clapperton's death Richard Lander and his brother John led in 1830 an expedition which went overland from Badagry to the Niger. Canoeing down the river from Yawri-60 m. above Bussa - to the mouth of the Rio Nun they finally settled the doubt as to the lower course of the stream. In 1832 Macgregor Laird established the African Steamship Company, and Richard Lander and R. A. K. Oldfield (as members of its first expedition) ascended the Niger to Rabba, and the Benue as far as Dagbo (80 m.). In 1841 an expedition, consisting of three steamers of the British navy, under Captain (afterwards Admiral) H. D. Trotter, went up to Egga (Egam), but was forced to return owing to sickness and mortality.
Heinrich Barth (1851-1854) made known to Europe the course of the river from Timbuktu to Say. Barth sailed down from Saraiyamo (situated on a tributary stream south-west of Timbukutu) to Kabara; then skirted the left bank to a small town called Bornu in 16° N., and the right thence to Say. In1880-1881the German E. R. Flegel ascended the Niger to Gomba opposite the confluence of the Sokoto river with the main stream, and about 70 m. below Barth's southmost point. Zweifel and Moustier, sent out by M. Verminck, a Marseilles merchant, discovered (1879) the sources of the Falico, &c., and in 1885 the Tembi source was visited by Captain Brouet, a French officer. Indeed the additions to the knowledge of the Niger during the last two decades of the 19th century were largely the work of French officers engaged in the extension of French influence throughout the western Sudan. From 1880 onwards Colonel (afterward General) Gallieni took a leading part in the operations on the upper river, where in 1883 a small gunboat, the Niger, was launched for the protection of the newly established French posts. In 1885 a voyage was made by Captain Delanneau In 1816 James McQueen correctly divined that there was a great west-flowing tributary (the Benue) to the Niger, and that after its confluence the river ran south to the Atlantic. See his View of Northern Central Africa (1821) and Geographical Survey of Africa (1840).
4 See Ephemerides ge'ographiques, vol. xii. (Weimar, Aug. 2803).
past the ruins of Sansandig, as far as Diafarabe. In 1887 the gunboat made a more extended voyage, reaching the port of Timbuktu, and correcting the mapping of the river down to that point. In1894-1895attention was directed to the middle and lower Niger, to which several expeditions started from the coast of Guinea. A still more important expedition was that of Lieutenant Hourst, who, starting from Timbuktu in January 1896, navigated the Niger from that point to its mouth, executing a careful survey of the river and the various obstructions to navigation. A voyage made in 1897 by Lieutenant de Chevigne showed that at low water the section between Timbuktu and Ansongo presents great difficulties, but the voyage from Timbuktu to Say was again successfully accomplished in 1899 by Captain Granderye. In 1901 Captain E. Lenfant ascended the river with a flotilla from its mouth to Say, and he demonstrated the "normal practicability" of the route, despite the Bussa rapids. The delta of the Niger has been partially surveyed since it became British territory by various ship captains, officials of the Royal Niger Company and others, including Sir Harry Johnston, sometime British consul for the Oil Rivers.
In addition to the main stream, the Niger basin was made known by exploration during the last quarter of the 19th century and the early years of the loth. The journeys of the German traveller G. A. Krause (north from the Gold Coast, 1886-1887) and the French Captain Binger (Senegal to Ivory Coast, 1887-1889) first defined its southern limits by revealing the unexpected northward extension of the basins of the Guinea coast streams, especially the Volta and Komoe, a fact which explained the absence of important tributaries within the Niger bend. This was crossed for the first time, in its fullest extent, by Colonel P. L. Monteil (French) in 1890-1891. At the eastern end of the basin much light has been thrown on the system of the Benue. In 1851 Barth crossed the Benue at its junction with the Faro, but the region of its sources was first explored by Flegel (1882-1884), who traversed the whole southern basin of the river and reached Ngaundere. Other German travellers added to the knowledge of the southern tributaries, the Tarabba, Donga and others, which in the rains bring down a large body of water from the highlands of southern Adamawa. British travellers who have done work in the same region are Sir W. Wallace, L. H. Moseley, W. P. Hewby, P. A. Talbot and Captain Claud Alexander. The last-named two were members of an expedition led by Lieut. Boyd-Alexander, who himself crossed Africa from the Niger to the Nile. Messrs Talbot and Claud Alexander surveyed the country between Ibi on the Benue and Lake Chad, mapping (1904) a considerable part of the Gongola.' In 1854 the Benue itself was ascended 400 m. by the "Pleiad" expedition, and in 1889 to 131° E., and the Kebbi to Bifara by Major (afterwards Sir Claude) Macdonald, further progress towards the Tuburi marsh being prevented by the shallowness of the water. The upper basin of the Benue was also traversed by the French expeditions of Mizon (1892) and Maistre (1892-1893), the latter passing to the south of the Tuburi marsh without definitely settling the hydrographical question connected with it. This was accomplished by Captain Lenfant in 1903. He ascended the Kebbi and discovered the Lata Fall, continuing up the river to its point of issue from Tuburi. Crossing the marshes he found and navigated the narrow river leading to the Logone. Save for the porterage round the Lata Fall the whole journey from the mouth of the Niger to Lake Chad was made by water. The Benue in the neighbourhood of Yola was mapped in1903-1904by an Anglo-German boundary commission.
From 1904 onwards the French undertook works on the Niger between Bamako - whence there is railway communication with the Senegal - and Ansongo with a view to deepening the channel and removing obstructions to navigation. In 1910 the British began dredging with the object of obtaining from the mouth of the river to Baro a minimum depth of 6 ft. of water.
1 Captain Claud Alexander died of fever in northern Nigeria on the 30th of November 1904. His brother, Lieut. Boyd Alexander, in a subsequent expedition across Africa was murdered in Wadai on the 2nd of April 1910.
- Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. .. in the Years 1 795, 1 79 6 and 1797 (London, 1799). A geographical appendix by Major James Rennell summarizes the information then available about the Niger. R. and J. Lander, Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course and Termination of the Niger.. . (3 vols. London, 1833); H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa.. ., vols. iv. and v. (London, 1857-1858); Gen. J. S. Gallieni, Mission d'exploration du Haut Niger . (Paris, 1885); E. Caron, De Saint Louis au Port de Timbouktou; Voyage d'une cannoniere francaise (Paris, 1891); M. Hourst, Sur le Niger et au pays des Touaregs (Paris, 1898), English translation, French Enterprise in Africa. .. Exploration of the Niger (London, 1898). The political references in this book are marked by jealous hostility to the British. Col. J. K. Trotter, The Niger Sources . (London, 1897); Sir H. H. Johnston, "The Niger Delta," Proc. R.G.S. (December 1888); Sir F. Lugard, "An Expedition to Borgu on the Niger," Geo. Jnl. (September 1895); E. Lenfant, Le Niger; voie ouverte a notre empire africain (Paris, 1903), chiefly a demonstration that the Bussa rapids are not an absolute bar to navigation.
The foregoing books deal almost entirely with the Niger. For the Benue see, besides Barth's Travels, A. F. Mockler Ferryman, Up the Niger; Narrative of Major Claude Macdonald's Mission to the Niger and Benue Rivers ... (London, 1892); L. Mizon, "Itineraire de la source de la Benoue au confluent des rivieres Kadei et Mambere" and other papers in the Bull. Soc. Geog. Paris for 1895 and 1896; C. Maistre, A travers l'Afrique central du Congo au Niger (Paris, 18 95); E. Lenfant, La Grande Route du Chad (Paris, 1905); Col. L. Jackson, "The Anglo-German Boundary Expedition in Nigeria," Geo. Jnl. (July 1905); P. A. Talbot, "Survey Work by the Alexander Gosling Expedition: Northern Nigeria 1904-1905," idem (February 1906); Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, vol. i. (London, 1907). The British Blue Books, Correspondence relating to Railway Construction in Nigeria (1905) and Further Correspondence, &c. (1909), contain information about the navigability of the lower Niger and of the Kaduna. The best maps are those published by the French and British War Offices; an Atlas du tours du Niger de Tombouctou aux rapides de Boussa in 50 sheets on the scale of I: 50,000, by Lieut. Hourst and others, was published in Paris in 1899. (F. R. C.)
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Nigeria >> |
The Niger River is the main river of western Africa. It is over 4180 km (2500 miles) long. It has a crescent shape and it goes through Guinea, Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria. Finally, it reaches the sea at a large delta, called the Niger Delta of the Oil Rivers. This part of the Atlantic Ocean is called the Gulf of Guinea. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa. (Only by the Nile and the Congo are longer. Its main tributary is the Benue River.
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No-one knows the origin of the name Niger. Many people think that it comes from the Latin word for "black", niger, but there is no evidence for this, and Portuguese explorers would probably have used their own word (negro) on their maps. Also, the Niger is not a blackwater river (see Rio Negro). (Some people think that 'black' may mean the color of the people in this area, but this did not happen with any other river in Africa.)
Therefore, most people think the name is from the original people of the area in the middle of the river where early European maps used the name "Quorra". One possibility is the Tuareg phrase gher n gheren "river of rivers", shortened to ngher or "niger", from the middle of the river near Timbuktu.
The Tabula Peutingeriana says "Flumen Girin" (River Girin) and "Hoc flumen quidam Grin vocant, alii Nilum appellant dicint enim sub terra Etyopium in Nilum ire Lacum.", which means "This river which some are naming Grin is called Nile by others and is thought to flow under the ground of Ethiopia (i.e. modern Africa) into the Nile Lake."
Nigeria and Niger take their names from the river. The people who live beside the river have many names for it, such as Jeliba or Joliba ("great river" in Manding), Isa Ber ("big river" in Songhay), Oya, (a Yoruba River Niger goddess), and Kworra or Quorra. The last name was the name that Europeans used for the lower part of the river before they knew that the upper and lower parts were connected.
The Niger River is quite a clear river. It has only 10% as much sediment as the Nile because the Niger's source is in very old rocks that have little silt.[1] Like the Nile, the Niger River has a flood every year; this starts in September, becomes strongest in November, and finishes by May.[2]
An unusual feature of the river is the Niger Inland Delta. This forms where the river suddenly becomes less steep.[3] This makes a region of connected streams, marshes, and lakes over an amount of land the same size as Belgium. The yearly floods make the delta very good for fishing and farming.[4]
The Niger takes an unusual route. It is a boomerang shape and this confused Europeans for 2000 years. Its source is only 240 km (150 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river flows away from the sea into the Sahara Desert, then turns near the ancient city of Timbuktu (Tombouctou). From here, it goes southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.
Ancient Romans thought that the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile River and Ibn Battuta had the same opinion. Early 17th-century European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the Sénégal River. Many local people probably knew the real route, but Europeans only knew it in the late 19th century, when it was mentioned in the book Travels in the Interior of Africa by the Scottish explorer Mungo Park. This unusual route happened because the Niger River is two ancient rivers which are joined together. The upper Niger, from the source, past Timbuktu, to the bend in the river, used to empty into a lake, but the lake has now gone. However, the lower Niger started in hills near the lake and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. The Sahara Desert dried up in 4000-1000 BC, and the two rivers changed their routes and they joined. (Some people disagree, but most people think this is true.)
The northern part of the river, which is called the Niger bend, is important because it is the Sahara Desert's closest big river. Therefore, trade across the west of the Sahara came here, and it became the center of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao.
Pictures of the Niger River in Mali
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