Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/201

 the mouth of the Paniéful emissary, and the Dagana station, founded in 1821 nearly opposite the Lake Cayor outlets.

In the middle Senegal region the chief trading places are Aéré, on the branch of the Senegal skirting the south side of Morfil Island; Saldé, on the main branch, and Matam, above another bifurcation of the river.

Bakel, above the Toucouleur country, is the natural port of the Upper Senegal, for here converge the trade routes from Guidimakha and Kaarta in the east, from Bambûk in the south-east, and from Bondu in the south. The fort, erected in 1820, and completed by three towers on the adjacent heights, is the strongest citadel and the bulwark of French power in the Upper Senegal regions. It is also the centre

of a considerable local and export traffic, and it lies almost exactly on the ethnological parting line between the Berber and Negro populations.

South of Bakel, the Mohammedan Fulah kingdom of Bondu occupies the almost imperceptible watershed between the Senegal and Gambia basins. Tere passes the chief trade route followed by Rubault, Mungo Park, Gray, Dochard, Raffenel, and other explorers. Bulébané, capital of the kingdom, lies on a little affluent of the Falémé, on a plain encircled by rocky hills, not far from the ruins of an earlier capital.

On the lower Falémé the chief military station is Sénu-débu, south of which

lies Keniéba, which for a time enjoyed some celebrity as the centre of the Bambûk