Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/342

 above sea-level, glides with a placid uniform flow, unimpeded by any farther obstacles for 450 miles to the coast. This section, which is joined above Egga by the copious river Lifun, or Kaduna, from Zaria, is now navigated by large steamers even in the dry season, when some

parts are over 60 feet deep, rising 30 or even 40 feet higher during floods.

The Benue, or "mother of waters," is a second Niger in volume, while it must be regarded as by far the more important of the two great arteries in economic value, as a navigable river flowing through thickly peopled and cultivated lands. The term Chadda applied to it by some of the riverain peoples and adopted by the early explorers, had its origin probably in a confusion between its upper course and Lake Chad or Tsad. Most of the other local designations are referable to a sort of mystic opposition between the two rivals, the Benue, or "Black," and the Kwara (Niger), or "White River," an opposition fully justified by the colour of the respective waters.

Of the Benue the most striking feature is its slight incline, estimated at scarcely 600 feet in a total course of as many miles, and falling from about 900 feet above sea-level at the head of the navigation to 270 at the confluence. Thanks to the explorations of Baikie, Ashcroft, and Flegel, the navigable section is well known; but the region of its farthest headstreams still remains unvisited. According to Vogel, Hutchinson, and others, the Upper Benue is connected, at least during the floods, by a continuous line of navigable channels with the Shari and Lake Tsad. From the Tuburi swamps, discovered by Vogel at an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the sea, the superfluous waters flow in one direction northwards to the Logon branch of the Shari, in another westwards to the Mayo Kebbi, apparently