Russegger mistook for the Nile itself, is the first affluent that receives any contributions from the Ethiopian highlands. It frequently sends down a greater volume than the main stream, whose waters during the floods are stemmed and driven back by its current. To judge from its whitish fluid contents, in which the blackish Nile water disappears, the Sobat has the best claim to the title of Bahrel-Abiad, or "White River." Some of its affluents rise on the low-lying plains stretching east of the Nile; but the most important has its source much farther east, in the upland valleys of the Ghesha range, which forms the water-parting between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean basins. The Baro, which is one of the dozen different names of this affluent, on entering the plain traverses the
Scale 1:2,200,000
marshy Lake Behair of the Arabs, or "Sea of Haarlem," as it has been renamed by the Dutch explorer Schuver. During the rainy season the Sobat sends down a vast quantity of water, on June 15, 1862, estimated by Pruyssenaere, 70 miles above the confluence, at 42,000 cubic feet per second. Hence during the floods the whole of its lower course is easily navigated; but if large craft linger too long on its treacherous flood they run the risk of being landed high and dry on some shifting sandbank, as happened to the trader Andrea Debono, who was recently detained in the river for eleven months.
It is below the Sobat that the Nile takes currently the Arab name of Bahr-el-Abiad, or "White River," by which it is generally known to Europeans above
