740 Mr. A. Eenry Savage Landor [May 31, 



find a great swamp of reeds and mud, so much so that the Germans, 

 who own a portion of the lake's coast, are quite unable to get to the 

 water. There are a great many islands in the most easterly part 

 of the lake. 



Possibly the name Tchad has come from the word Tchuku, the 

 name given to the lake by the Buduma. The name Shari is a cor- 

 ruption, I think, of the Bornu word, Djari, meaning " great river." 

 The Buduma call it Ndjeri, which is merely the Bornu word badly 

 pronounced. 



In the year 1906, the Shari brought so much water that the entire 

 lake has been filled up again. This happens every few years ; accord- 

 ing to the natives, every few years a fairly ample flood occurs, and 

 after longer periods a great flood. It is nevertheless undoubted 

 that the lake must have been centuries ago of a greater size than 

 now. Lieutenant Freydenberg dug up a well at Kulua, now some 

 distance north-east of lake Tchad, and found an excellent proof that 

 what I have said above is correct. In digging he came to a deep 

 layer of sand, under which he found a comparatively small layer of 

 decayed vegetation ; under that he again found another layer of sand, 

 then another layer of decayed vegetation ; then again another layer 

 of sand, above another layer of decayed vegetation — which proves 

 how the bed of the lake is being gradually raised. 



In this paper I cannot go into the problem of supplementary 

 lakes formed by infiltration from lake Tchad, nor can I go into the 

 controversy of whether the Bahr-el-Ghazal is a river flowing into lake 

 Tchad, or whether lake Tchad flows into the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Perso- 

 nally, I have no doubt whatever on what actually happens, and in 

 the full account of my journey, "Across Widest Africa," I have 

 endeavoured to explain what takes place. 



I have not sufficient space to describe my journey east and north 

 of lake Tchad ; nor the long journey across the desert from the 

 Tchad to the Niger and Timbuctu at a time after the rebellion, when 

 there was unrest among the local tribes. I had by then only a 

 modest caravan. Although anxiety was entertained by French 

 officers for my safety, I got through the desert quickly and well. 



I w^ent up the Niger in a steel canoe, taking some twenty-eight 

 days to reach Timbuctu. My canoe was indeed but seldom on the 

 Niger itself. In fact, to be strictly accurate, we navigated over the 

 submerged banks of the river instead of the actual river channel itself. 

 Inundations covered a great part of the country at the time of my 

 visit, and in order to avoid the strong current and find sufficiently 

 shallow water to allow my men to punt, we travelled over the 

 iiumdated country most of the time among thick grass, reeds, horgu, 

 and across innumerable paddy fields. Heavenly places for mosquitoes 

 at night. Every now and then we came to rocky hill masses, where 

 the water was forced through a narrow passage from one huge reservoir 

 to the lower one, and then we were compelled to come back to he 



