OUR FIRST VOYAGE ON LAKE CHAD 319 



the Lake with a belt of forest green that extends an open 

 sanctuary to birds and beasts and men, fleeing from the 

 pursuing hunger and thirst of the great, tawny desert beyond. 

 But, instead, to view the real Lake Chad, Fancy must go 

 clad in sober grey and with earth upon her head, and she 

 must not fear to take her way alone, for there is desert of 

 water as well as of sand. Imagine a large pool in a grass- 

 grown plain, lying shallow like water in the palm of an out- 

 stretched hand, formed by the rivulets of the rain coming 

 to rest in the gentle depression of an otherwise flat surface, 

 and you have a miniature Lake Chad ! That is to say, 

 you will have some idea of its formation, but the image 

 rather tends to destroy a certain grandeur which it 

 possesses, a solemnity which must ever belong to the great 

 open places of the world where earth and sky can meet 

 and the elements have space enough to show the splendour 

 of their gigantic forms. And if Chad is never a glad pageant 

 of blue and green and gold, it is often a tender vision of grey 

 and silver, the harmony in which the spirit of loneliness 

 abides. For, loneliness is the spirit which haunts the Lake, 

 and the traveller will soon or late come under her spell, if 

 for long he follow her ways — ways that lead him from 

 rosy dawns over grey waters to sunsets of fire and emerald, 

 past the straits of numberless, silent islands for days 

 and days, yet ever barring his entrance into complete 

 knowledge of herself with impassable mud-shallows and 

 bands of reed and thorn. 



There is a very mystery brooding over the place, that 

 seems to have thrown an enchantment on its waters and 

 peopled its islands with spirits from the shadow world. 



