Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/471

 equator. In this part of its course it is known to the Arabs as the Juba (Jub or Jeb), which has been identified with the Rio dos Fuegos of the old Portuguese navigators.

The volume of water sent down by the Juba is not sufficient to scour the estuary to any great depth. The consequence is that even vessels of light draught have great difficulty in crossing the bar by which its mouth is obstructed. In the

year 1798 an English man-of-war surveyed the waters about the entrance, but the boat which attempted to overcome this obstacle capsized and lost nearly all its crew, who were either drowned or massacred by the coast Somalis. In 1865 the explorer Von der Decken succeeded in penetrating into the river, but was soon after wrecked at the rapids. At lust the American Chaillé-Long, in the service of the Khedive, successfully crossed the bar in 1875, and ascended the river