THE DESICCATION OF AFRICA. I 53 



in which the Congo flows below Stanley Pool; here the Congo 

 flows ni a steeply inclined river-bed, interrupted by continual 

 rapids; whereas the Benue, breaching the same rampart, is 

 navigable throughout, with a fall of only one foot in the mile. 

 In other words, the cutting of the breach, in the case of the 

 Congo is of much more recent date than in the case of the 

 Benue- This leads one to the question of what happened to 

 the waters of the Congo before the breach was made? The 

 answer is that it flowed north to Lake Chad, but I shall 

 develop the evidence for this later. 



The Benue has had, however, long ages of thieving to 

 its credit, and its tributaries are everywhere stealing into the 

 basin of Lake Chad. Captain Lenfant, starting from Garua, 

 on the Benue, ascended the river in a small boat, the 

 Benoit -Gamier, drawing two feet of water; by following the 

 Moakebi River he actually reached the Tuburi Swamps, and 

 thence, descending the Logone River, he reached Lake Chad. 

 At Bmdere-Moundang he had to take the boat to pieces and 

 carry it for twenty miles before reaching the Tuburi Swamps. 

 The whole of this Tuburi region is one of hesitating flow, like 

 round the Etosha Pan, that is still connected with the Cunene 

 River in flood time; a deserted river-bed to the south of the 

 present one connects the Kebi River with the Tuburi Swamp. 

 To the north and south of the upper Benue tributaries can be 

 seen on the map interdigitatmg with the Chad affluents; it 

 is only a question of time before the whole system of rivers 

 flowing into Lake Chad will be captured by the Benue and 

 diverted to the Atlantic. The robbery is actually proceeding 

 under the eyes of living men; Lake Chad is yearly becoming 

 less extensive and the desert sands are filling it up. We can, 

 then, compare the Logone and Shari Rivers, which are in 

 the course of being diverted to the Benue, to (say) the Kasai 

 and the upper Congo, which have actually been diverted to 

 the Atlantic. The direction these rivers take is the same: 

 a direct northerly run, then west, and then south. The whole 

 of the Congo drainage, the whole of the Lake Chad drainage, 

 once poured north into the Sahara ; first the Congo portion 

 was filched, and next the Chad portion is going. 



THE CONGO. 



The plan of the Congo River as it exists at present is 

 surely the most puzzling of any river system in the world. 

 There are three sections. The first is the section from the 

 Kwango River to the Sankuru River, where some twenty 

 great rivers flow from the highlands of north Angola, in 

 almost straight courses, due north, and then are collected 

 by a river flowing due west. Two of the northwards-flowing 



