Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/267

 route. Its chief affluent, the Wed Miya, resembles the main stream in its general appearance, presenting a series of small basins, depressions, and shotts, interrupted by shifting sands. But the waters still flowing below the surface continually increase in abundance towards the confluence, where a well-marked depression begins, in which a succession of shotts, wells, pools, and springs, preserves the character of a watercourse. Such is the valley now known as the Wed Righ (Rhir). The confluence itself is indicated by a number of perennially flooded sebkhas, fringed by the palm groves of Temacin.

The Shott Meruan, which forms the natural basin of all these old streams from the south, is connected with the Shott Melghigh proper only by a narrow channel,

and ramifies eastwards in secondary sebkhas, which rise and fall according to the rainfall and greater or less evaporation. The Shott Melghigh, forming the northern division of the depression, terminates eastwards in the Shott Sellem, beyond which follow several others disposed north and south, and separated by a tongue of land from the Tunisian Shott Gharsa. This basin itself is separated only by Jerid from the vast sebkhas which stretch eastwards to the Isthmus of Cabes. At first sight it seemed natural enough to regard the whole of this lacustrine system as the remains of an ancient inlet, into which the mighty Igharghar discharged its waters, and this view was generally accepted before the