United States or French Southern Territories ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The site of Shuwak is a long island in the broad sandy Wady of the same name, which, as has been remarked, feeds the Damah. Its thalweg has shifted again and again: the main line now hugs the southern or left bank, under the slopes and folds of the Jebel el-Sani'; whilst a smaller branch, on the northern side, is subtended by the stony divide last crossed.

His elements are taken from Tuckey, who found off the "Diamond Rock" a velocity of 3.50 knots an hour, and from Vidal's Chart, showing 9,000 English feet or 1.50 nautical miles in a Thalweg fifty fathoms deep. Thus he assumes only two nautical miles for the current, or sixty inches per second, which must be considerably increased, and an average depth of ten fathoms, which again is too little.

The flow of the tide, or rather the damming up of the lower waters between Porto da Lenha and the mouth, causes a daily rise, which we found to measure about a foot; thus it assists in forming a treble current, the rapid down-flow in the Thalweg being subtended by a strong backwater on either side carrying a considerable portion in a retrograde direction, and showing a sensible reflux; this will continue as far as the rapids.

The palm-clump, where men camp, with its two date-trees towering over the rest, receded as it were. The dates form a kind of square with a sharp triangle to the south, upon the left bank of the thalweg, which overflows them during floods. The wells, inside and outside the enclosure, are nine; three stone-revetted, and the rest mere pits in the inchoate modern sandstone.

The fog was so dense that nothing could be seen of the general lie of the country; but the thalweg was a sufficient guide, and after due perseverance we came upon the glacière, not many yards from that line, on the north slope of the open valley, about 4,500 feet above the sea. To prevent cattle from falling into the pit, a wall has been built round the trees in which it lies.

To the left, above the easternmost "Mombang" and the network of islands behind it, opens the gape of the Malela River, a short cut to French Point, found useful when a dangerous tide- rip is caused by the strong sea-breeze meeting the violent current of the Thalweg. Above it lies a curious formation like concentric rings of trees inclosing grass: it is visible only from the north-east.

Then we struck the valley of 'Ebumesu, winding water, whose approach, rank with mire and corded with roots, is the Great Dismal Swamp of Dahome in miniature. Here, seven and a quarter miles from the mouth, the stream measures about twenty yards broad, the thalweg is deep and navigable, and the water, bitumen-coloured with vegetable matter, tastes brackish.