Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/472

 for 165 miles above its mouth. Had he not been recalled, he might have even penetrated farther inland, for the stream was still sufficiently deep beyond the point actually reached by him.

The waters of the river being arrested at its mouth by the chain of red sandhills which here fringes the coast, are displaced towards the south-west, and consequently flow in the same direction as the coastline and the neighbouring marine current. In this direction are also disposed the lateral lagoons and swampy depressions which have been developed above the estuary, and which receive the overflow from the mainstream during the periodical inundations. The river Sheri,

which takes its rise in this marshy district, and which flows south-westwards in a depression parallel with the coast and chain of dunes, seems to be nothing more than an old branch of the Juba, although the two estuaries are now separated by a distance of no less than 80 miles.

The southern estuary, known to the Somali natives by the name of Mto Bubashi, and by the English called Port Durnford, but again recently re-named Hohenzollern-Hafen by the Germans, forms an excellent harbour where the largest vessels can ride at anchor in smooth water for some miles above the bar. Off the coast and parallel with it stretches a barrier reef, which indicates the future shore-line in process of formation. Here all such physical features as sandhills, watercourses,