Crocodiles abound in these waters, as well as the hippopotami, or river horses. Fish and water fowl are also plenty.
Dr. Barth, the explorer, states that the lake has no apparent outlet, yet its waters are perfectly fresh. From the north the Waube, a river some four hundred miles in length, enters it. From the south the Shari, a stream about eighteen hundred feet broad in its lower course, discharges its waters into the lake.
Lake Tchad seems to be divided into two distinct sections, the open water and the strip of swampy land which surrounds it. The open water, or true Tchad, is dotted with numerous islands. These consist mainly of elevated, sandy dunes. Only the most elevated of these islands afford shelter, but such as are inhabited have a dense population.
The people on these lake islands build numerous boats. Some are twenty feet in length. One writer describes a boat which was fifty feet long, and but six and one-half feet wide.
The explorers, Barth and Overweg, describe Lake Tchad as a remarkably fine sheet of water. They visited the lake during the dry season, and found the lowlands in the vicinity grassy meadows. During the wet season these lands are usually under water.
Doubtless the ground surrounding the lake was a portion of the former bed of a much larger sheet of water. Along its shores the papyrus is found. This is like the plant from which the ancients about the Nile manufactured their paper. Various other reeds, some of them from ten to fourteen feet high, grow in abundance, there being two distinct varieties of these gigantic reeds.
Interwoven in this thicket of reeds grows a variety of climbing plant with bright yellow blossoms. Another peculiar plant, which floats or rests upon the water, the natives call by a name which signifies "homeless fauna."
As these two explorers, Barth and Overweg, approached open water, after leaving the swampy ground in the nearer vicinity of the lake, they came upon an expanse of quite deep water. Shortly after, they disturbed a herd of kelara, a variety of antelope that is very fond of the water. Proceeding on their way, they came to water so deep that, by stooping in the saddle,—for they were on horseback,—they could easily have drunk from it. This draught, however, would not have been very refreshing, for the water was warm and full of vegetable life.
Lake Tanganyika is situated in East Central Africa, at an elevation of over twenty-seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. It has a length of upwards of four hundred miles, while its breadth is from ten to fifty miles. In shape it is like a leech, with the small end tapering to the north. This small or northern end lies about two hundred miles southwest of Victoria Nyanza Lake.
Burton and Speke, two African explorers, have given a vivid description of the approach to the lake, as well as of the lake itself.