Ogooué River

“ The Nile here enters a rocky valley between Gebel Kookoo and the western mountains, and foams and frets around and against rock and island, until, suddenly contracting, it breaks into a roaring torrent, and dashes furiously onward in the shadow of perpendicular cliffs. Waterfall succeeds to waterfall, and it is difficult to identify the swollen, thunderous, angry river with the calm clear stream that brightens the fertile pastures of Shooa. ”

“ She then went south to Congo Français and ascended the Ogowé river, passing, at the risk of her life, through the dangerous rapids above N'Ojele; and subsequently made a very adventurous and dangerous journey through a part of the Fan country which had never been explored before, from Lambarene on the Ogowé river to Agonjo on the upper waters of the Rembwe river, passing on her way the beautiful and almost unknown Lake Ncovi. ”

“ In front, stretching to the north, is a point of land or peninsula. On the west the fresh waters of the Great Ogeechee river lave the Hardwick bluff, and then treading northward, and at right angles to the general course of the stream, by a graceful bend to the east embrace the northern extremity of the peninsula. Again turning to the south, the river reaches the eastern bluff of the town, where, curving gently, it pursues its course, emptying through Ossabaw sound into the Atlantic Ocean. ”

“ At present the only timber on the Ogowe that has any commercial value is that which is near the river. The most magnificent tree a kilometre from the water is safe from the axe, for what is the good of felling it if it cannot be taken away?
Why not build light railways, then, to convey the logs to the water? That question will be asked only by those who do not know what a forest in Equatorial Africa is like. The ground on which it stands is nothing but a mass of gigantic roots and swamp. ”

“ Reeds and water-plants grew on its margin, and its smooth surface reflected the rugged outline of the hills beyond. The Waterless River is about two miles in breadth, and appears to have been at one time the bed of a large stream. [179] It crosses all the caravan routes in the desert, and is supposed to extend from the Nile to the Red Sea. It may have been the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage through the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan and Kalabshee. A geological exploration of this part of Africa could not fail to produce very interesting results. ”

“ The journey from Lagos to Abbeokuta is usually made by canoes, up the river Ogun, the waters of which empty into the bay of Lagos. Somewhat west of its embouchure is the Ogboi creek or cut, communicating with the Ogun about ten or twelve miles from the bay. Canoe-men always prefer reaching the river by means of this cut, as the distance direct up the river is greater. ”

“ Indeed, the ascendency the Gaboon trade attained to in the middle parts of this 19th century was an artificial one, the natural outlet for the trade being the districts round the mouth of the Ogowé river, which penetrates through a far greater extent of country than the rivers Rembwe and Ncomo, which form the Gaboon estuary or Rio Gabon of Barbot. ”

“ The damming of the lake, and the accumulation, by this means, of a vast reservoir of water, by rendering more certain and expeditious the navigation of the river, was an exceedingly happy thought And when at length orders were received for his embarkation on the 9th of August, his flotilla was not only borne triumphantly along upon the pile of the impatient waters accumulated for the occasion, but the swelling of the torrent beyond its banks caused wide and unexpected destruction to the growing crops of the Indians on their plantations at Oghkwaga and its vicinity. ”

“ Gallinée, a Sulpitian priest, who had been with La Salle on Lake Erie in May, 1670, visited the post, [18] and thus described the Ojibways: "The Saulteux, or in the Algonquin, Paouitikoungraentaouak, or the Outchipoué, where the Fathers are established, from the melting of the snow until the commencement of winter, dwell on the banks of a river about a half league in breadth, and three leagues in length, where the Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron. Here the river is abundant in fish, called white, in the Algonquin, Attikamegue." ”

“ They hurried away from the fateful place, and returned to the river valley. The tree over whose convenient boughs they had crossed the stream was swept away and, ferried by the flood, had been cast ashore some distance down, high on the terrace, from which the subsiding waters had again retreated. It lay there gaunt with every naked root extended. Neither one of them knew exactly their present position, but Ogga, watching the wind above them, concluded that eastward there was escape from the walled-in gorge. ”

“ After a few days' rest here, the explorers left the basin of the Ogowé in March, 1878, to penetrate still farther into the interior. They traversed successively the territories of the Ondumbo, the Umbeté, and the Bateké, suffering greatly on the way from both hunger and thirst, for the country was devastated by famine. A stream running east, the N'Gambo, led the explorers to an important river, the Alima, 500 feet wide and sixteen feet deep, apparently an affluent of the Congo. ”

“ These lagoons open onto the sea at the mouths of the more important rivers; smaller rivers in considerable numbers enter them so that in reality almost every river-mouth in Liberia may be considered not the point of entrance of a single river, but of a cluster of rivers which have opened into a common reservoir and made an outlet through one channel. As good examples of these curious lagoons, we may mention from west to east the Sugari River, Fisherman’s Lake, Stockton Creek, Mesurado Lagoon, Junk River, etc., etc. ”

“ On White River there is a bluff against which the full force of the stream has dashed for ages, until it has formed a precipice several hundred feet high. It is called by the Indians The Place of the Death Song. There is a legend which says that at one time the bands of the Ogallallas and Brulés lived upon this river, immediately opposite the precipice. While residing there one of the braves of the Ogallallas offered to the father of a beautiful squaw six horses for her, according to the savage custom of thus purchasing a wife. ”

“ Another large stream, the Hawash, rising in the Abyssinian mountains, is lost in a saline depression near the Gulf of Aden. Lastly, between the basins of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans there is an area of inland drainage along the centre of the East African plateau, directed chiefly into the lakes in the great rift-valley. The largest river is the Omo, which, fed by the rains of the Abyssinian highlands, carries down a large body of water into Lake Rudolf. The rivers of Africa are generally obstructed either by bars at their mouths or by cataracts at no great distance up-stream. ”

“ The ridge is clay covered to the flat summit, where knolls of gneiss project. Beyond the valley of the Odei, to the north, is a rolling forested country with hills clay-covered to the tops, rising by gradual slopes to about a hundred feet above the intervening valleys, that are themselves from twenty to fifty feet above the river level. For the next twenty-eight miles the river, flowing in a rock-bound basin, has the character of a long, narrow lake from half a mile to over a mile in width. ”

“ The Gaboon River is not long, but it receives many tributaries and for the last hundred 21miles from the sea it is magnificent. Forty miles before it reaches the sea it bends northward by northwest and widens out into a broad estuary from five to fifteen miles in width and forty miles long, which I have always called the bay. It is one of the few, and one of the best, harbours on the entire coast of Africa. Libreville, the old French capital of the Congo Français, and Baraka, our mission station, are situated on the east bank of the estuary and opposite its broad mouth. ”

“ The natural ecosystem of the Ogoni Forest will have been unique for a number of reasons: it received higher rainfall than the forests in the otherwise similar conditions to the North between the Bonny and Imo Rivers. It was isolated from the lowland tropical rainforests further west, and by the swamp forests of the Niger Delta; and although the Imo River is not a significant boundary, there is only a narrow band of country with conditions similar to the Ogoni Plain, between the Imo and Cross Rivers. ”

“ I shouldn't, as an impartial adviser, recommend you to stay here very long unless you are collecting bacilli as well as butterflies. The mouth of the Ogowai River will never develop into a health resort. ”

“ Oghrackee, Orachkee, Oghrackie, orthographies of the record name of what is now known as Aurie's Creek, appear in connection with land patented to John Scott, 1722. In the survey of the patent by Cadwallader Colden, in the same year, the description reads: "On the south side of Mohawk's river, about two miles above Fort Hunter, . . . beginning at a certain brook called by the Indians Oghrackie, otherwise known as Arie's creek, where it falls into Maquas river." (N. Y. Land Papers, 164.) In other words the name was that of a place at the mouth of the brook. ”

“ In the afternoon of the 12th we crossed the Falemé River, the same which I had formerly crossed at Bondou in my journey eastward. This river, at this season of the year, is easily forded at this place, the stream being only about two feet deep. The water is very pure, and flows rapidly over a bed of sand and gravel. ”

“ That made the surface of the flood water higher, and so men had to build higher and higher levees to keep the floods from burying their plantations. As they have nothing better to make their embankments out of than the soft sandy loam of the bottom lands, the levees are not very strong at best, and the higher they are raised, the greater is the water pressure against them when the river is up. So they often give way, and when they do that the river rushes through the gap, or crevasse, as it is called, rapidly widening and deepening it, and pouring a torrent over all the country within reach. ”

“ It lies on the southern side of the Benue, some 850 m. by river from the sea and at an altitude of 600 ft. Here the width of the stream increases at flood time to 1000 or 1500 yds., and though it narrows at the somewhat dangerous rapids of Rumde Gilla to 150 or 180 yds., it soon expands again. About 50 m. below Yola the Benue receives, on the right bank, the Gongola, which rises in the Bauchi highlands and after a great curve north-east turns southward. It is over 300 m. long, and at flood time is navigable for about half of its course. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the misery of the land; in the midst of the vast expanse of marsh is a little plot of dry ground about thirty-five yards square, and within thirty yards of the river, but to be reached only by wading through the swamp. The establishment consisted of about a dozen straw huts, occupied by a wretched fever-stricken set of people; the vakeel, and others employed, came to the boats to beg for corn. I stopped for ten minutes at the charming watering-place Aboukooka to obtain the news of the country. ”

“ The Nile, Niger and Congo rivers have their origin on the interior slopes of the highlands, and therefore discharge into the Atlantic Ocean, while the Zambezi drainage basin, lying largely on the outer slopes, falls off toward the Indian Ocean. The longest river system is that of the Nile, which rises in the lake region of Equatorial Africa and flows northward through the mountainous divide to the plateau region of eastern Sudan, where it receives an important affluent from the west in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. ”

“ On this river are canoes, which are hollowed out of a single tree: they have sharp bottoms, not rounded. They are numerous, and serve equally well for fishing, and for ferry-boats from shore to shore.
From Kashna to Kattagum (which again appears east-north-east on the road to Bornou) south-east is ten days. This river is [134] at all times large; but after the rains it overflows the country. During the inundation the natives use rafts floated on gourds, which grow to an extraordinary size. A quantity of these are scooped out, and lashed together ”

“ The river was first called by the early French explorers the Rivière des Algoumequins, or river of the Algonquins, but was afterwards known as the Rivière des Outaouais, from the tribe that lived on its banks. ”

“ Strangely enough, the country traversed by this great stony ravine is to-day the most arid and inhospitable in the world. The river, which, according to the legendary stories told in the market-places of the desert towns, must have been as mighty as the Nile, dried-up suddenly from some cause which has always puzzled geographers. A portion of its course, about two hundred miles, half filled with sand, has for ages been used as the caravan route between the city of Agades, the capital of the Aïr country, and Temasinin, at the foot of the Tinghert Plateau ”

“ The Owyhee River basin contains a number of reservoir sites, probably the best one on the main river being at Duncan Ferry, near the mouth of Crooked Creek. This site can be developed to almost any capacity required. The water stored can be diverted near the mouth of the river onto a large area of land. There is a reservoir site on Jordan Creek in Idaho, in which it is proposed to store water for use in Oregon. There is not enough land susceptible of irrigation from the Owyhee to use all the average runoff, but probably somewhat more than that for a low year can be used, say 600,000 acre-feet. ”