Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/550

Rh 506 NILE and the lemon grove from which the fruit has been distri buted throughout the equatorial provinces. At this point the river, about 656 feet wide, is divided by a large island. Eight miles farther down lies Lado (often spelled Lardo) on the left bank, a well-built Egyptian town with houses of burnt brick and a considerable area of cultivated land watered by shadufs. With the hill to the west of Lado, variously called Nyerkani and Luyola, the mountainous region ends, and the river enters on a vast plain. The affluents which it has hitherto received are for the most part short and individually insignificant khors (temporary streams), but two at least deserve a few words of descrip tion. The Unyama, joining the river opposite J. Kuku or Neri, 10 miles below Dufile, is a perennial stream rising in the prairies between Fatiko and Unyoro, and winding through a lovely country for about 80 miles. The Asua (Atza of the Madi), whose mouth is 20 miles farther down on the same side, is about 120 paces broad, and flows through a rocky bed 1 5 feet deep. As it receives nearly the whole drainage of the Madi and Shua countries and various districts farther east, it becomes in the rainy season a deep and furious torrent. The Atabbi or Atappi (the main drain of the western face of the Shuli mountains) reaches the Asua a short distance above the mouth. The great plain which the Nile enters below Lado, about 5 N. lat., slopes so gradually towards the north that the river falls only 300 feet in a stretch of more than 650 miles between Gondokoro and Khartoum. As the river has gradually raised the level of both bed and banks, an overflow takes place, and lagoons or side channels (may as) are formed wherever the bank breaks down ; and as these, from their position, naturally act as settling-ponds they get rapidly silted up. Up to about 7 25 N. lat., in spite of this condition of things, the Nile maintains a fairly definite course, with a considerable depth of vater in its main current, but at this point it splits up into two branches as if to form a delta. The left branch, which retains the name Bahr al-Jebel, but which may be conveniently distinguished by the Denka name of Kir, continues in the line of the river, and the right branch, or Bahr al-Zeraf (Giraffe River), tends rather more towards the east. After flowing respectively about 160 and 140 miles, they reach the Bahr al-Ghazal, slowly gliding east with a slight deflexion to the south. The whole region is a vast expanse of low swampy lands crossed by secondary channels, and flooded for many miles in the rainy season. At the junction of the Bahr al-Ghazal and the Kir the perma nently submerged area is usually named Lake No on our maps, but the Arabs simply call it the confluence Mokren al-Bohur. The scenes presented by this portion of the Nile are of the most peculiar description. The dark and ill-smelling water shows no sign of motion. On all sides stretch monotonous reaches of omm suf (i.e., woolly) grass (Vossia procerci) and papyrus, rising 20 or 30 feet above the water so as often to close the view like a stone wall ; the level of the plain is broken only at intervals by little mounds of earth, tenanted for the most part by white ants, and covered with a clump of brushwood or trees; 1 the moisture in the air is so excessive that gunpowder left in the guns overnight is reduced to a paste ; mosquitoes and other swamp flies swarm in myriads. And yet touches of beauty are not wanting. Water-lilies (Nymph&a stellata and Nymphxa Lotus) white, blue, and crimson often adorn the surface of the stream ; multitudes of water-fowl, from the familiar Egyptian duck and the pelican to the rare and odd-looking Balxniceps rex (abu markub), breed 1 The ordinary theory is that these mounds are hills constructed by the white ants ; but Marno considers them as more probably portions which have resisted the general process of degradation. among the reeds, and at night the scene is lit up by a very firmament of fire-flies. Previous to 1863 both the Kir and the Bahr al-Zeraf had White been navigable within the memory of man. But when the Nile&amp;lt; Tinne&quot; expedition passed down the river in March of that year, the White Nile, the united current of the Bahr al- Jebel and the Bahr al-Ghazal, was found to be blocked by an accumulation of vegetable flotsam, and it cost the crew two days hard labour to take their vessel through a channel partially cleared by their predecessors. The obstruction rapidly increased, and thirty vessels had to be employed for five weeks to open a permanent passage. In 1865 Baker found a dam about f of a mile wide already overgrown with reeds and grass so as to form a continuation of the surrounding country. Matters went from bad to worse, and the White Nile, the Kir, and the Bahr al-Zerdf were all rendered impassable till, in 1874, Ismael Ayub Pasha cleared the main route by the White Nile and the Kir. But in 1878 again the whole Nile rose to an unusual height (the banks at Lado, 15 to 20 feet above the mean level, were overflowed), and enormous quan tities of vegetable debris were carried off by the current. A formation of bars on an unprecedented scale was the result, and communication between the upper and lower Nile was not restored till 1880. If the Kir and the White Nile, with their comparatively strong current, were thus obstructed, it was natural that the more sluggish Bahr al-Ghazal should contain more extensive though less compact accumulations. In 1881 Gessi Pasha spent three and a half months on a part of the voyage usually performed in five hours, and lost half of his men by starvation. Between the mouths of the Kir and Bahr al- Arab there were twenty distinct dams. 2 Sir Samuel Baker asserted in 1874 that from the equator to the Mediterranean not a drop of water reached the Nile from the west, the Bahr al-Ghazal being only a channel of stagnant pools and marshes (Proc. Eoy. Geog. Soc., 1873-74, p. 148). But if their total contri bution be of little moment in comparison with that of their eastern rivals, the western affluents are exceedingly numerous, and drain a wide extent of country. Their relative importance has been shown by Schweinfurth, Junker, Emin Bey, &c. One or two the Rodi (Lau) and the Rohl join the Bahr al-Jebel in its passage through the plain, but by far the greater number converge to the Bahr al-GhazAl. At its lowest state, just before the com mencement of the rains, this river had in 1881 a depth varying from 20 to 25 feet, though in many places no per ceptible current. It is generally navigable to Meshrat-el- Rek, about 200 or 220 miles above the mouth of the Kir, and in the rainy season even small steamers may ascend its tributary, the Dyur or Jur, as far as Wau. In exceptionally dry seasons the channel at Meshrat-el-Rek is so utterly desiccated that drinking-water can be obtained only by digging. One of the main feeders of the Bahr al-Ghazal is the Bahr al- Arab, which is formed by the drainage of southern Darfur, has a breadth about 10 20 N. lat. and 25 20 E. long, (before it receives any of its right hand affluents) of 360 feet and a depth (in Decem ber) of 4 feet, and never quite dries up even in the heat of summer (Felkin, Uganda, ii. 239). This is the only con siderable accession from the north : the rest of the affluents, an almost countless host if all the small headstreams be included, have their rise in the range of mountainous country which stretches, from the Blue Mountains of the Albert Nyanza and their southern continuation, in. a general north-east direction as far as 25 or 26 E. long., and forms the watershed between the Nile basin and those 2 See E. Marno, &quot;Die Sumpfregion des aquat. Nilsystems,&quot; in Pet. Mitth., 1881, and another paper in 1882.