474 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XXXV. 
of the river : for of course the inundation does not 
always reach the same height, but varies according 
to the greater or less abundance of the rains. The 
information of my companions, as well as the evident 
marks on the ground, left not the least doubt about 
the immense rise of these rivers. * 
For a mile and a half from the present margin of 
the river, near a large and beautiful tamarind-tree, 
we ascended its outer bank, rising to the height of 
about thirty feet, the brink of which is not only 
generally reached by the immense inundation, but 
even sometimes overflowed, so that the people who 
cross it during the height of the inundation, leaving 
the canoes here, have still to make their way through 
deep water, covering this highest level. 
My companions from A'damawa were almost una- 
nimous in spontaneously representing the waters as 
preserving their highest level for forty days, which, 
according to their accounts, would extend from about 
the 20th of August till the end of September. 
This statement of mine, made not from my own ex- 
perience, but from the information of the natives, 
has been slightly, but indeed very slightly, modified 
by the experience of those eminent men who, upon 
the reports which I forwarded of my discovery, were 
* This immense rise of the river agrees perfectly with the ex- 
perience of Messrs. Laird and Oldfield, who, from absolute measure- 
ment, found the difference in the level of the water at Idda in the 
course of the year nearly 60 feet. See their Journal, vol. ii. p. 276., 
and p. 420. note, " 57 to 60 feet." 
