From the 1st of August to the 1st of October it is open as far as Médine to vessels not drawing more than 8 feet. Between Médine and Bakel (85 miles) there are twenty-seven “narrows,” of which several, such as that at Kayes, are difficult; it is on this account that a railway has been projected between Kayes and the Niger. At Bakel below the confluence of the Falemé the river is navigable till the 1st of December, from Bakel to Saldé between the 15th of July and the 15th of December, and lastly from Mafu to the sea for a distance of 215 miles it is navigable all the year round. Outside the limits indicated navigation between Mafu and Médine is often precarious even for barges drawing little over a foot, and above Médine, though some reaches are deep enough, troublesome transhipments are necessary between reach and reach. Between Mafu and Saldé the Senegal changes its direction from north-west to west, and shortly before reaching the sea to south-west. The bar at the mouth can usually be crossed by vessels not drawing more than 10 feet, or at high tides a little more. Below Bakel the river becomes tortuous and encloses the great island of Morfil, 110 miles long, and a series of other islands, of which one is occupied by St Louis. At this point the right branch of the river is only 500 feet from the sea, but the dunes along the coast turn it south for other 9 miles. The scantiness of its sources, the steepness of its upper course, and the rapid evaporation which takes place after the short rainy season would soon dry up the river-system of the Senegal, especially in the upper regions; but natural dams cross the channel at intervals and the water accumulates behind them in deep reaches, which thus act as reservoirs. In the rainy season the barriers are submerged in succession, beginning with the farthest up, the reaches are filled, and the plains of the lower Senegal are changed into immense marshes. Like Lake Moeris in antiquity on the Nile and the lake of Cambodia at the present time on the Me-kong, Lake Cayor on the right side of the lower Senegal and Lake Panieful on the left constitute reserve basins, receiving the surplus waters of the river during flood and restoring them in the dry season. For months together the latter forms the only drinking pond for the wild beasts of the surrounding country,—lions, elephants, leopards, panthers, ounces, cheetahs, hyaenas, lynxes, giraffes, antelopes, gazelles, monkeys, jackals visiting it in crowds. In the upper part of the river the reservoirs are successively emptied to the level of the dams and receive no more water except from the permanent springs; but they are partially protected by curtains of verdure from the effects of the evaporation which makes itself so severely felt on the treeless seaboard. Owing to these natural “locks,” similar to those of an artificial canal, the Senegal river never discharges less than 1700 or 1800 cubic feet per second. The lower Senegal forms the boundary between the dry and barren Sahara and the rich and productive region of the western Sudan; the line of its inundations is an ethnographic march between the nomadic Moor and the settled Negro.

SENEGAL, a French colony of western Africa, composed of lines of fortified posts and a loose agglomeration of states and territories in various degrees of subjugation. The forts extend (a ) from St Louis at the mouth of the Senegal to Bammako on the Niger, (b ) along the coast of the Atlantic between St Louis and the mouth of the Salum to the south of Cape Verd, and (c ) along the so-called rivers of the south which fall into the ocean between the Gambia and Sierra Leone (q.v.). French influence is fully dominant along those lines either in the form of actual territorial possession or of a recognized protectorate.

The colony is ruled by a governor, sends a deputy to the French legislature, and elects a general council of sixteen members, ten for the electoral district of St Louis, four for that of Gorée-Dakar, and two for that of Rufisque. The three communes just named have each its municipal council. The population of those French possessions was in 1884 197,644,—46,364 urban, 143,200 rural, 8080 “floating.” In the whole number there were only 1474 Europeans, of whom 1461 were French. The population of the protected countries cannot be ascertained. The most important places in the colony are St Louis (18,924 inhabitants in 1883), Dagana (5375), Rufisque (4244), Médine (3000), Joal (2372), Corée and Dakar (each 2000). The colony has only a single true port, that of Dakar to the east of the peninsula of Cape Verd, since 1885 connected with St Louis by a railroad, 163 miles long, and visited by Atlantic steamers on their way from France to South America. Rufisque and Gorée have open roadsteads, where vessels anchor at some distance from the shore. The port of St Louis in the Senegal is difficult of access owing to the bar, but it is the only place where vessels can repair serious damages. The principal commercial centres are St Louis (imports and exports), Gorée (exports), and Rufisque (exports). The upper Senegal sends ground-nuts (known as Galam nuts), gum, millet, leather, and receives in exchange blue calico (guinée) from India, England, and Belgium, various other cotton stuffs, cotton yarn, guns and ammunition, tobacco, crushed rice, sugar (raw and refined), molasses, biscuits, tinsmiths’ wares, &c. The colony also imports Swedish iron, which is manufactured by the native blacksmiths into agricultural implements, knives, daggers, and spearheads. Cayor sells its ground-nuts for money. The rivers of the south district export ground-nuts, palm kernels, india-rubber, leather, coffee, in return for English and Belgian blue calico, Hamburg brandy, English gunpowder, English and Belgian guns, and American tobacco. An English firm has twenty-three factories on the Rio Nunez, and others on the Rio Pongo and the Mellacorée. The total value of the exports and imports of the colony was £1,325,711 in 1879, £1,774,089 in 1880, and £1,888,657 in 1883, the imports slightly preponderating over· the exports. The value of the ground-nuts exported in 1883 was £700,000, that of the gums only £120,000; and the ground-nut trade is still rapidly developing. The imports comprise French goods £360,000, goods passing as French £200,000, foreign goods £440,000, of which £240,000 represent English, £200,000 Belgian, £120,000 German, £80,000 American articles. In 1882 946 vessels entered and 960 cleared. The budget for the colony in 1884 was £100,320, for the communal expenses £14,560, and for the expenses of the capital £250,000.

History.— The navigators of Dieppe are said to have discovered the Senegal about 1360. The Portuguese had some establishments on its banks in the 15th century; and the first French settlements were probably formed in the latter part of the 16th or beginning of the 17th century. Between 1664, when these French settlements were assigned to Colbert’s West India Company, and 1758, when the colony was seized by the English, Senegal had passed under the administration of no fewer than seven different companies, none of which attained any great success, though from 1694 to 1724 affairs were conducted by a really able governor, André Brue. In 1677 the French captured from the Dutch Rufisque, Portudal, Joal, and Corée, and they were confirmed in possession of these places by the treaty of Nimeguen (1678). In 1717 they acquired Portendic and in 1724 Arguin on the coast of the Sahara, which still belong to the colony. Gorée and the district of Cape Verd were surrendered by the English to the French in 1763, and by the treaty of peace in 1783 the whole of the Senegal was also restored; but the English again captured the colony in the wars of the first empire (Gorée 1800, St Louis 1809), and, though the treaty of Paris authorized a complete restitution, the French authorities did not enter into possession till 1817. Between that date and 1854 little was effected by the thirty-seven governors who succeeded each other at St Louis; but in this year the appointment of General Faidherbe proved the turning-point in the history of Senegal. He at once set about subduing the Moorish (Berber) tribes of the Trarzas, Braknas, and Duaish, whose “kings,” especially the king of the Trarzas, had subjected the French settlers and traders to the most grievous and arbitrary exactions; and he bound them by treaty to confine their authority to the north bank of the Senegal. In 1855 he annexed the country of Walo and erected the fort of Médine in the country of Khasso. This last was a bold stroke for the purpose of stemming the advancing tide of Moslem invasion, which under Omar al-Hadji (Alegui) threatened the safety of the colony. In 1857 Médine was brilliantly defended by the mulatto Paul Holle against Omar, who with his army of 20,000 men had to retire before the advance of General Faidherbe and turn his attention to the conquest of the native states of the Sudan. By treaty of 1860 Omar recognized the French claim to half of Bambuk, half of Khasso, Bondu, Kamera, Guoy, Guidimakha, Damga, Futa-Toro, Dimar, &c. Since then annexations and protectorates have followed in rapid succession under the governorships of Jauréguiberry, Faidherbe, and Brière de l'Isle. It is sufficient to mention the treaties of 1881 and 1885 by which the confederation of Futa-Jallon and Buré respectively recognized a French protectorate.

See Jannequin de Rochefort, Voyage de Libye au royaume de Sénéga, 1643; Adanson, Histoire naturel du Sénégal, 1757; Mollien, Voyage dans l’intérieur de l'Afrique fait aux sources du Sénégal et de la Gambie en 1818-1830; Tardieu, Sénégambie et Guinée, 1847; Faidherbe on “Populations noires des bassins du Sénégal et du Niger,” in Bull. Soc. de Géogr., Paris, 1854; Sénégal et Niger, la France dans l'Afrique Occidentale, 1879-83, published by the Ministry of Marine, 1884; Faidherbe, Le Soudan français, Lille, 1881-85; Notices Coloniales pub. à l’occasion de l’Exposition d’Anvers, 1885; Annales Sénégalaises de 1854 à 1885, suivies des traités passés avec les indigènes, 1886; and Rainbaud, “Sénégal et Soudan Français," in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1885.

The geological constitution of the country is as yet very imperfectly known, especially in the interior. The low region of the seaboard has a very uniform character. It consists of sandstones or clay rocks and loose beds of reddish soil containing marine shells. At certain points, such as Cape Verd and Cane Roxo, the sandstones crop out; it is the red colour of the sandstone in fact which has given Cape Roxo or Cap Rouge its name. Clay slates also occur, and at intervals these sedimentary strata are interrupted by basaltic amygdaloid and volcanic rocks. For instance, the island of Gorée is basaltic; the Bissagos (Bissão) Islands are composed of scoriae and other volcanic products; and a great part of the coast to the north of Rio Nuñez consists of basaltic and amygdaloid rocks. The base of the mountains is formed in certain places of clay slate, but more generally of granite, porphyry, syenite, or trachyte. In those districts mica schists and iron ores occur. Iron and gold are found in the mountains and the alluvial deposits. The streams also carry down gold dust. Many of the valleys are covered with fertile soils and there is generally a fertile belt along the river sides; but the rest of the country is rather arid and sterile.

The climate is far from being so unhealthy as is frequently asserted. Except when yellow fever is raging, Europeans may live there as satisfactorily as at home. There are two seasons, the dry season and the rainy season or winter, the latter contemporaneous with our summer. Along the seaboard the dry season is cool and agreeable; in the interior it is mild only for the three months which correspond to our winter, and then it becomes a time of intolerable heat. The annual temperature increases as we advance south and more rapidly as we advance east into the interior, except, of course, where an ascent is made to higher altitudes. To the south of Cape Verd the changes of temperature become less and less marked; Bissão has a more equable climate than Gorée. Eastwards the monthly range of the thermometer becomes more extensive. The maximum readings, which are exceptional at St Louis, become almost the rule at Bakel on the upper Senegal and at MacCarthy on the Gambia. In the north, on the banks of the Senegal, the north-east trade-winds blow for eight months of the year, the daily land and sea breezes which cool the atmosphere along the seaboard not being felt far inland. During the other four months there prevails a gentle south-west monsoon accompanied with frequent calms, storms, tornadoes, and rains. Southwards along the coast the trade-winds gradually decrease in both strength and duration, while the south-west monsoon becomes more powerful and persistent. The rainy season begins at Gorée between 27th June and 13th July, on the Gambia about 20th June, on the Casamance about the end of May, at the Bissagos Archipelago about the middle of May, and on the Rio Nuñez at the end of April. During this season Senegambia, drenched by heavy rains brought from the ocean, has everywhere one uniform appearance. The mean temperature is throughout very close on 81° Fahr. and the range of the thermometer is extremely limited. The rivers overflow and flood the lowlands. Storms are frequent. Vegetation displays its fullest energy. The fever exhalations are unfortunately also at their worst. At St Louis, Gorée, Dagana, and all along the Senegal there are 35 days of rain, a slight increase being apparent in the upper course of the river. At St Mary’s, Bathurst, there are 48 days, at Sedhiu 84, at Bissão 111, at Boké 137,—a steady increase as we approach the equator. The number of storms follows almost the same ratio of increase, and showers which last two or three hours at St Louis give place to whole days of rain on the Casamance and the Rio Nuflez.

The king of the Senegambian trees is the baobab (Adansonia digitata), which sometimes at the height of 24 feet has a diameter of 34 feet and a circumference of 104. Acacias are very numerous, one species, A. Adansonia, being indeed the commonest of all Senegambian trees and valuable for its ship-timber. Among the palm-trees the ronier deserves to be mentioned, as the wood resists moisture and the attacks of insects; in some places, as in Cayor, it forms magnificent forests. The wood of the cailcedra (Khaya senegalensis), a tall tree, is used in joiner’s work and inlaying, and its bark furnishes a bitter tonic. The mampatas grows sometimes 100 feet high, its branches beginning only at a height of about 25 feet The tree producing the famous kola-nut grows on the banks observances. Every canton, every village in independent Senegambia is governed either by a chief (“king ”) or by an “almamy” elected by a group of villagers.

Senegambia is divided into French Senegambia (with the territories placed under French protection), English Senegambia, Portuguese Senegambia, and independent Senegambia, comprising the native states not under the protection of a European power. French Senegambia is called the colony of Senegal (q.v. ). English Senegambia comprises the establishments of the Gambia (q.v. ) and the islands of Los. Portuguese Senegambia consisted till quite recently of Bissagos Archipelago and the “factories” of Zighinchor on the Casamance, Cacheo and Farim on the Rio Cacheo, and Geba on the Geba. By an arrangement effected in 1886 Portugal ceded Zighinchor to France in exchange for Massabé on the Loango coast. Germany, which seemed at one time disposed to place various territories of Dubreka, Koba, and Kabitai under its protection, has formally abandoned the plan. The independent states are not very numerous, but for the most part they are more extensive than the protected countries. They were quite recently—Jolof, lying between the Senegal and the Gambia in one direction and between the Falemé and the ocean in the other; Buré in the Mandingo region, a territory abounding in gold; Guidimakha in Gangara, on the right bank of the Senegal. There still remain among the more important Kaarta, the country of Segu, and Futa-Jallon.

Several lines of English, French, and German packets call at the Senegambian ports, and small steamers ascend the navigable portions of the rivers. A railway unites St Louis and Dakar, and another line is being constructed from Kayes to Bafulabé (on the upper Senegal), with a projected extension to Bammako. There is telegraphic communication between Dakar and St Louis, and a second line puts all the ports of the upper Niger and the left bank of the Senegal into connexion with St Louis, which has touch of Europe by means of a submarine cable passing by way of the Canary Islands to Cadiz. The foreign trade of Senegambia consists in the exportation of gums, ground-nuts, sesame, oil, india-rubber, birds’ feathers, hides, wax, and ivory, coffee from the Rio Nunez, and rice from the Casamance, and the importation of iron, alcoholic liquors, firearms, ammunition, coral, beads, tobacco, preserved foods, and blue calico (guinée). (D. K*.)