Province of Northern Nigeria 



441 



prove greatly as our resources enable us 

 to build proper houses and to transport 

 the necessaries for European life and 

 comfort. Even what we have already 

 been able to do has reduced the mortality 

 from 32 per ce?it in i8g8 to 6 in igoi ; 

 deaths and invaliding s, 87 per cent to 34 

 i>er cent. 



DISAPPEARANCE OF LAKES AND 

 RIVERS 



But other causes still, besides the sand- 

 bearing: Hamattan and the deforestation 



doned wells. Year by year they had 

 to be deepened to catch the failing sup- 

 ply of water, till it ceased. Three times 

 in a few years had the chief of the 

 Tawana to shift his capital because the 

 apparently inexhaustible supply had 

 wholly failed at each turn. In Nyassa- 

 land, as I have pointed out in former 

 writings, the old surface level of the 

 lake may be seen far inland today, and 

 it is possible to trace various different 

 levels on the surface of the water- worn 

 rocks ; and so it is in West Africa. 



View of the Niger from Jebba 



of the country, are at work to effect the 

 diminution of the rivers and the lakes 

 of Africa. Lake Ngami, whose waves 

 were so great that they are said to have 

 dashed hippopotami to pieces when 

 Livingstone discovered it in 1850, was 

 when I lived near it in 1S96 only a dry 

 bed of the smouldering ashes of lacus- 

 trine vegetation, while the Home River 

 and the upper Botletle were both dry 

 and their channels hardly distinguish- 

 able. In every direction were aban- 



Yearly the Niger becomes less naviga- 

 ble. Where steamers drawing 8 feet 

 could ascend within the memory of Mr 

 Wallace (now deputy high commis- 

 sioner), 3-feet vessels can now with dif- 

 ficult}- make their way for a much more 

 limited period. As the lips of the rapids 

 and waterfalls are worn away in the 

 course of time and the obstructing rocks 

 are eroded, the rivers will, of course, run 

 off their volume of water more rapidly 

 to the sea ; but this is a process of ages, 



