Meshra-er-Rek, the chief station and trading centre of the first European visitors to the country, is on a backwater south of this lake.
Here it broadens into Lake Ibrahim (Kioga) (in reality a vast backwater of the Nile discovered by Colonel Chaille Long in 1874), and continues navigable (save for sudd obstacles at times) right through Lake Ibrahim and thence northwards for loo m.
The backwater sometimes reaches up the tributary for more than 10 miles.