2 
The Gorilla Land. 
Sanclhoeck, by the natives called Pongara, and by 
the French Peninsule de Marie-Amelie, shows 
a mere fringe of dark bristle, which is tree, based 
upon a broad red-yellow streak, which is land. 
As we pass through the slightly overhung mouth, 
we can hardly complain with a late traveller of the 
Gaboon’s “ sluggish waters ; ” during the ebb they 
run like a mild mill-race, and when the current, 
setting to the north-west, meets a strong sea- 
breeze from the west, there is a criss-cross, a tide- 
rip, contemptible enough to a cruizer, but quite 
capable of filling cock-boats. And, nearing the 
end of our voyage, we rejoice to see that the dull 
down-pourings and the sharp storms of Fernando 
Po have apparently not yet migrated so far south. 
Dancing blue wavelets, under the soft azure sky, 
plash and cream upon the pure clean sand that 
projects here and there black lines of porous iron¬ 
stone waiting to become piers ; and the water-line 
is backed by swelling ridges, here open and green- 
grassed, there spotted with islets of close and shady 
trees. Mangrove, that horror of the African 
voyager, shines by its absence ; and the soil is not 
mud, but humus based on gravels or on ruddy 
clays, stiff and retentive. The formation, in fact, 
is everywhere that of Eyo or Yoruba, the goodly 
region lying west of the lower Niger, and its fer¬ 
tility must result from the abundant water-supply 
of the equatorial belt. 
