346 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



which amounts to the same thing, its communication with 

 Wangara, should be disputed, Captain Tuckey's hypothe- 

 sis of its issuing from some other great lake, to the north- 

 ward of the line, will still retain its probability. The idea 

 of a lake seems to have arisen from the " extraordinary 

 quiet rise" of the river, which was from three to six inches 

 in twenty four hours. If the rise of the Zaire had pro- 

 ceeded from rains to the southward of the line, swelling 

 the tributary streams, and pouring, in mountain torrents, the 

 waters into the main channel, the rise would have been 

 sudden and impetuous ; but coming on as it did in a quiet 

 and regular manner, it could proceed only from the gradual 

 overflowing of a lake. 



There is, however, another circumstance in favour of a 

 river issuing from Wangara, or the lakes and swamps de- 

 signated under that name, and of that river being the Zaire. 

 There is not a lake, perhaps, of any magnitude in the 

 known world, mitliout an outlet, whose waters are not 

 saline — the Caspian, the Aral and the neghbouring lakes, 

 the Asphaltites or Dead Sea, and all those of Asia, which 

 have no outlet, are salt.* If therefore the lakes of Wangara 

 had no outlet, but all the waters received into them spread 

 themselves over an extended surface during the rains, and 

 were evaporated in the dry season, there would necessarily 

 be deposited on the earth, so left dr}', an incrustation of salt, 

 and the remaining water would be strongly impregnated with 



* TJie freshness of the Z\ix€ or Zurrali, the Aria Palus, in Seistan, rests on no 

 authority — but if so, its waters are not evaporated, but pass off by filtration 

 through the sand. 



