ABSTRACT
The idea of a western branch of the Nile was, of course, not new: it had been put forward in antiquity (e.g. by Pliny, who made the branch rise in the Atlas Mountains, Natural History, book v, chap. 10). Moreover it was not altogether without foundation, for as early as Herodotus’s time some young Nasamonian travellers had penetrated southwards across the Sahara to “ a great river.. .running from west to east.. — presumably the Niger (Herodotus, History, book 11, chap. 32). For the most part, however, classical opinion followed Ptolemy, who held the Nile and Sudanese systems to be discrete.
