Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/67

 The lake discovered by Buker, and by him named the Albert Nyanza, is known to the people on its east bank as the Mwutan-Nzigé, or "Grasshopper Sea." Others cull it the "Great Water," although far inferior in extent to the Victoria Nyanza. It stretches south-west and north-east for a distance of about 90 miles, with a mean breadth of over 18 miles. According to Mason's rough survey it has a superficial area of 1,850 square miles, and stands at an altitude of 2,300 feet. From the Victoria to this lower basin the Nile has consequently descended nearly half of the entire elevation of the continent between the plateaux and the Mediterranean. Like the Dead Sea, the Mwutan-Nzigé seems to fill a fissure in the earth's crust. It is enclosed right and left by steep mountains, whereas at its northern and southern extremities it terminates in gently shoaling bays and low-lying beaches. The high cliffs on the east side, consisting of granite, gneiss, and red porphyry, form a first stage in the ascent towards the U-Nyoro and U-Ganda plateaux. The streams flowing from the swamps on these uplands have not yet completed their work of erosion by furrowing regular channels across the outer scarps of the plateau. Hence, like the Nile at Murchison Falls, they have all still to make their way through cataracts, where the volume of water is less but the fall much greater, being approximately estimated for most of them at about 320 feet.

Livingstone and other explorers of Central Africa supposed that Lake Tanganyka belonged to the Nile basin, sending its overflow north-eastwards to the Albert Nyanza. But subsequent investigation has shown that the two lakes have no communication with each other. During their trips round the latter, both Gessi and Mason ascertained that from the south it receives no affluent except a shallow, sluggish stream, almost choked with vegetation. In this marshy district it is covered with a floating or half-submerged forest of ambach (arabaj), a leguminous plant (heminiera elophroxylou), 18 or 20 feet high, with star-shaped leaves and golden yellow flowers like those of the broom. Its wood, which resembles cork in appearance, is the lightest known to botanists, so light that a raft strong enough to support eight persons forms the load of a single porter. It grows so densely that the native boats are unable to penetrate the tangled masses of vegetation springing from the muddy bottom of the lake. Beyond this aquatic forest Gessi beheld a vast prairie rolling away between two steep mountains, which formed a southern continuation of the coast ranges.

Lake Albert, continually renewed by contributions from the Nile, is everywhere sweet and pure, except in the southern shallows, where the water is turbid and brackish, and in some places on the east side, where it mingles with saline springs, utilised by the people of U-Nyoro. Although no distinct undercurrents have been observed, the navigation is rendered very dangerous by the sudden squalls sweeping round the headlands and down the mountain gorges. When embarking on their frail craft the natives never fail to cast some valued object into the lake as a propitiatory offering to the water-gods. A chief, one of Baker's friends.