CHAPTER III. 
GEOGRAPHY OF THE GABOON. 
EFORE going further afield I may be 
allowed a few observations, topo¬ 
graphical and ethnological, about this 
highly interesting section of the West 
African coast. 
The Gaboon country, to retain the now familiar 
term, although no one knows much about its deri¬ 
vation, is placed by old travellers in “ South 
Guinea,” the tract lying along the Ethiopic, or 
South Atlantic Ocean, limited by the Camarones 
Mountain-block in north latitude 4 0 , and by Cabo 
Negro in south latitude 15 0 40' 7", a sea-line of 
nearly 1,200 miles. The Gaboon proper is included 
between the Camarones Mountains to the north, 
and the “ Mayumba,” properly the “ Yumba” 
country southwards, in south latitude 3 0 22',—a 
shore upwards of 400 miles long. The inland 
depth is undetermined ; geographically we should 
limit it to the Western Ghats, which rarely re- 
