Tsad,

Tsad, or CHAD, LAKE, a lake in the Soudan, northern Africa, with an estimated area of 10,000 sq. m. in the dry season, and four or five times that extent during the rainy months. The western half contains the real lake; the eastern is generally a complex of low islands, separated by shallow canals, and inhabited by a race of semi-amphibious Negroes. The few streams that reach the lake are all small, except the Shari, which comes from the south-east. Lake Tsad, whose waters are perfectly fresh, has no regular outlet. The first Europeans to see it were Denham and Clapperton; Nachtigal was there in 1870; of late the French have explored hereabouts. See Alis, A la Conquête du Chad (1892); Burnache, Autour du Chad (1894).