With this advice I determined on going on, and after halting the whole of Sunday, on the. 27th I proceeded. Barca Gana had, on his return, bivouacked in the wadey where once the Bahr-al-Ghazal ran-from the Tchad; the valley is now filled with trees and grass. This was the fourth time Barca Gana had raised his tents in the same place*, as the sheikh had before informed me. This valley runs between Kangara and N ’Gussum, less than twenty miles from Tangalia. We were overtaken by so dreadful a storm, that we halted, and pitched the tent on a high sand-hill within five miles of N’Gygami. Near this hill we had a beautiful view of the open lake, with several floating islands, when the storm cleared away. The Biddomahs are constantly landing hereabouts; and we met some poor people who had been robbed of their whole flock of goats, with their daughter, only the day before—indeed no single travellers can pass this road. Towards evening, we saw their canoes in the offing; and below us, in the low grounds, three Biddomahs making for the lake:—they saw.us, and quickened their pace. For safety we all slept outside the huts of N’Gygami: this ground is the highest part of the borders of the lake, and here deep water commences immediately off the shore, while, in some parts, miles of marsh are to be waded through previous to arriving at the lake. Tuesday, we made Lari, where we were to find a Malem fighi, whom the sheikh had ordered to proceed with us. Aug. 29.—Moved from Lari. Here we found four men, with a chief whom Barca Gana had left at Kuskoua, returning, as the people would give them no provisions. I t was near sunset when we reached Zogany, thirty miles; the country was quite a flat, covered with a plant resembling a heath which I had seen nowhere else; and * Each time Barca Gana had encompassed the lake, he had with him a force of from four hundred to eight hundred cavalry; the passage o f a river, therefore, or running stream, could never have escaped his observation.
27f 24
To see the actual publication please follow the link above