Almost every account we received of the Tsād was so materially different, that it long remained a puzzle to us, how to account for such palpable errors as some of our informers must have fallen into. Some declared it to be so large a Lake, that the opposite side of it could not be seen from Birnie; others termed it an inconsiderable river: at last, the nephew of the Kadi, who had just arrived, furnished us with the following clear statement. “The Tsād is not a river, but an immense Lake, into which many streams discharge themselves after the summer rains. It is then, for some months, of such extent, that the opposite shores cannot be seen, and the people catch many fish, and go about on it in boats. In the early part of the spring, when the great heats come on, it soon changes its appearance, and dries up, with the exception of a small rill. This streamlet, which runs through the centre of its bed, is called by the same name, and comes from the westward, taking an easterly direction; but to what place he knows not.” All the inhabitants of the villages on the borders of the Lake go out and sow corn and esculent vegetables, which come to maturity, and are gathered in before the rainy season, as in Egypt, after the flowing of the Nile, which he has seen. He had himself observed the people getting in their harvest on the same ground which he had, only a few months before, known to be covered with water. The rivers which, he says, flow into the lake after the rains, appear to be torrents from the mountains, as he never observed more than the small stream I have mentioned in the dry season. The Tsād is also called the Gambarro after it quits Birnie, and even there it is as frequently called the Nil. Until a few years ago, when the country became much improved under the mild government of a very religious Moslem, it was the custom to throw into the stream at the time of its rise a virgin richly dressed, and of superior beauty. The greatest people of the country considered themselves honoured if the preference was given to one of their daughters, and the learned men augured a good or bad year from the ease or difficulty with which their victim was drowned. There are several tribes of wandering Tibboo to the northward of Bornou, the principal of which are the Wandela, Gunda, and Traïta. These people are principally Kaffirs: they do not trade, but live by their flocks, and not unfrequently by pillage. To the eastward of Bornou, near Baghermi, is a country called Mandra, which is tributary to Bornou, but does not escape the incursions for slaves, which are frequently made by its nominal protectors. The language of this country is a corrupt dialect of the Bornou. The people are finely formed, and the females have lively intelligent countenances: they are all Kaffirs, and live in huts of grass, woven like mats, and sewed together, called Booshīa.