Large map of West Africa published at the end of the 18th century

A French map of West Africa, published in Year VII (1798) of the French Republic, despite having been first issued in 1700. In the 1790s there was much interest in West Africa, with Mungo Park's attempt to follow the Niger with its eastward flow. A century earlier Delisle noted: 'Some believe that the Niger is a branch of the Nile'.