292 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



alert for enemies, and go fully armed with 

 spears and shields, or with bows and poisoned 

 arrows. They live even more upon the water 

 than the Bassamas. Farther on they entered 

 the kingdom of Yola, a magnificent country in- 

 habited by Fnlahs. The banks were beauti- 

 fully wooded, resembling an English park. 

 The population was numerous, but their dwell- 

 ings were surrounded by gardens or stood in 

 the midst of green corn-fields, and were not 

 crowded together like those of the tribes be- 

 low. The people showed more of the negro 

 type than the Fulahs of Sierra Leone, but they 

 possessed the surest mark of a developed race 

 a wide remove between the sexes in form and 

 height. In dress and behavior also there was 

 a marked difference between the sexes. Other 

 evidences of a stage of culture beyond the com- 

 mon condition of Africans were the ample drap- 

 ery of their light-colored garments and the skill- 

 ful arrangements of their commodious houses. 

 As might be expected, they are a peaceful people 

 of pastoral habits. The travelers did not visit 

 the town of Yola, as the king failed to make them 

 return-gifts. These Adamawa Fulahs show 

 much taste in making clay mugs and pipes. 

 Passing through a mountain-region between 

 the Bagele and Alantica Mountains, where the 

 current was exceedingly swift, they reached 

 the confluence of the Faro. They could only 

 observe that the Faro is a shallow stream. The 

 Benue above the confluence is not more than 

 one fourth as broad as below, but is much deep- 

 er, winding tranquilly through a thickly wooded 

 country, its level banks rising only a couple of 

 feet above the water. The natives say that the 

 water never overflows these banks, even when 

 the plains below the mountains are entirely 

 flooded, but that in the dry season the bed at 

 Gurua is quite bare, except in the pools. Af- 

 ter passing the rapids they came upon Batta 

 villages. These people are tolerably well clad 

 in blue calico, and go unarmed. Their ;moes 

 are shaped from a single piece of wood, not 

 sewed together or fastened with iron staples, as 

 in the lower river. Some of the places were 

 independent, and others subject to Yola. On 

 September 4th they anchored at Gurua, and 

 explored above as far as Ribago, the first Bornu 

 settlement. At Gurua they were informed that 

 the Mayo Kebbi enters the Benue from the 

 north at a distance of four days' march, and 

 that the Benue, which is but a small stream 

 above the confluence, rises in the mountains 

 ten days' march toward the southwest. This 

 tributary seems to carry the principal sup- 

 ply of water into the Benue. The Mayo Keb- 

 bi comes from the direction of the Tubori 

 marshes, and it seems probable that an annual 

 overflow from the Shary into the Benue takes 

 place, since the second rise in the Benue which 

 occurs in September corresponds in time with 

 the period of highest level in Lake Tchad. The 

 Mayo Kebbi flows through an alluvial plain 

 from a marshy district containing a sheet of 

 water which according to Barth feeds the west- 



ern branch of the Shary. Barth prophesied 

 that within half a century there would be a 

 navigable communication established between 

 the Niger and Lake Tchad. An annual naviga- 

 ble passage seems easy to establish, if one does 

 not already exist ; and if the Welle is identical 

 with the Shary, the Benue-Niger must be one 

 of the principal portals of inner Africa. That 

 the Welle is the upper course of the Shary, and 

 not an affluent of the Congo as Stanley con- 

 jectured, can hardly be doubted when the ex- 

 tent of Lake Tchad is taken into consideration, 

 and the evaporation in the lake and the river, 

 not to speak of the absorption of water by the 

 sands of the desert, which must be very great. 



There is another physical reason on which 

 the identity of the Welle and the Shary is based, 

 besides the vast probable drainage needed to 

 feed Lake Tchad. The rise of the Shary in 

 March proves that its head-waters are situated 

 near the equator, as it is only within a narrow 

 equatorial belt that there occurs any consider- 

 able rainfall as soon as the latter part of Febru- 

 ary. The accounts of the people encountered 

 on the Welle of men dressed in white and bow- 

 ing toward the sun on the river far away to 

 the westward are, therefore, not the strongest 

 evidence that the Shary is the continuation of 

 this river. An adventurous Greek traveler, 

 Dr. Potagos, brings a report of an enormous 

 river which he saw in this region called the 

 Bere, which is unquestionably the same as 

 Schweinfurth's Welle and the Babura of the 

 brothers Poncet. He followed it west as far 

 as 23 east longitude, proving that it can not 

 be identical with Stanley's Aruwimi, which en- 

 ters the Lualaba in 23 40' east longitude, and 

 55' north latitude. Schweinfurth at the 

 capital of Munsa, the Monbuttu king, was in- 

 formed that the course of the Welle was due 

 west from that place, which lies in 3 35' north 

 latitude. Potagos reports that for about one 

 hundred and fifty miles west of Munsa's capital 

 it keeps on that parallel, but that on this side of 

 Bakangoi, which village was visited by Miani in 

 1872, it turns southward, and then westward 

 again in about 3 north latitude and 25 40' east 

 longitude, near the village of Ingami, from 

 which point its direction is westerly as far as 

 he followed it. Potagos passed several north- 

 ern affluents of the Welle, or Bere, the most 

 important of which were the Bomo, the Beti, 

 the Ura, and the Tzigo. 



Soleillet, who departed from St. Louis, the 

 capital of French Senegal, in 1878, with the 

 intention of reaching Algeria by way of Tim- 

 buctoo, was not allowed by the Sultan to visit 

 that pagan metropolis, and, for want of means, 

 was unable to pursue his journey beyond Se- 

 gou, the capital of the Bambara kingdom. He 

 ascended the Senegal River to the factory of 

 Podor. and journeyed overland thence to Ba- 

 krel, Medine, and Konniakary, which latter 

 place is situated on an affluent which enters the 

 Senegal on its right. From here he struck 

 across the mountains and passed through the 





