Lake Chad At its largest extent the river Mayo Kébbi represented the outlet of the paleolake Mega-Chad, connecting it to the Niger River and the Atlantic. The presence of African manatees in the inflows of Lake Chad is an evidence of that history. Romans reached the lake in the first century of their empire. Indeed, during the time of Augustus lake Chad was still a huge lake and two Roman expeditions were done in order to reach it: Septimius Flaccus and Julius Maternus reached the "lake of hippopotamus" (as the lake was called by Claudius Ptolemaeus). They moved from coastal Tripolitania and
Niger far east as western Niger. The Kanem-Bornu Empire was an empire that existed in modern-day Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Libya. The empire first existed and prospered as the Kanem Empire as early as the 9th century and later as the Kingdom of Bornu until 1900. In the 19th century, contact with Europe began with the first European explorers—notably Monteil (French) and Barth (German)—to travel to Niger. Following the 1885 Berlin conference during which colonial powers outlined the division of Africa into colonial spheres, French military efforts to conquer existing African states were intensified in all French colonies including Niger.