Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/368

 308 WEST AFEICA. Towards the east, the Mger basin is separated by no continuous or clearly- defined divide from that of Lake Tsad, although the waterparting is doubtless more distinct than that between the Shari and the Benue, where certain marshy and lacustrine tracts seem to belong to both systems at once. In East Haussa the slopes are so imperceptible that in many places it is difficult to determine to which basin belong the running and stagnant waters which persist throughout the dry season. But the region of the divide is strewn with numerous sharp or rounded granite rocks, between which the rich humus supports an exuberant vegetation of palms and leafy trees scattered in picturesque clusters amid a labyrinth of bluffs and boulders, from which the groups of huts or houses cannot always be easily distinguished. Owing to the absence of a decided incline the waters have in many places failed to develop a fluvial system, but are collected in lakes or lagoons, which rise and fall, expand or disappear, according to the seasons. Even where the annual rains have carved out continuous channels, the streams for over half the year are reduced to a line of shallow waters, separated by intervening sandbanks. In its lower reaches alone the Sokoto presents an uninterrupted current, but even here winding so sluggishly over its pebbly bed, that the waters become unwholesome for man and beast. The rainfall, however, differs greatly in quantity in the two sections of the basin, one bordering on the Saharian steppes, the other comprised within the zone of Sudan. In this region the transitions are very abrupt from the dry to the wet zone, and while the rains are rare in the northern city of Sokoto, they are very copious at Gando, only 40 miles farther south. During the wet season the whole country becomes almost impassable, the rivers overflowing their banks, the saturated highways changing to quagmires, treacherous morasses filling every depression. Thanks to its arboreal vegetation, the southern section of the Sokoto basin presents a smiling aspect throughout the year, while in the north in many places nothing is visible in the dry season except parched and arid steppes. Flora and Fauna. As in Senegal, the landscape derives its distinctive character from the tamarind, baobab, and other giants of the vegetable kingdom. The three species of palm, the date, dum, and deleb, marking distinct zones in North Africa, are here found flourishing side by side in some district-s. The butter- tree is common in some parts of Sokoto, while others are noted for their forests of doria [parhia), whose parched seeds, prepared in the form of cakes like chocolate, form an important article of export to the northern districts, where the tree is rare, and to the Tsad basin, where it is not found. The banana, wrongly said to follow the Negro across the whole of Sudxn, is absent in the region some 600 miles wide intervening between Adamawa and Gando, but is very common and of excellent quality in the western part of Haussa. Rice is the cereal in a pre-eminent sense throughout the Sokoto basin, although unknown in Bornu, farther east. Onions are of exquisite flavour, and everywhere form an important article of diet. Of industrial