48 Geography of the Gaboo 7 t. 
the Oil River country in the Biafran Bight: the 
land is a mass of mangrove swamps, and the 
climate is unfit for white men. 
The Eastern Ghats were early known to the 
“ Iberians,” as shown by the Sierra del Crystal, del 
Sal, del Sal Nitro and other names, probably so 
called from the abundance of quartz in blocks and 
veins that seam the granite, as we shall see in the 
Congo country, and possibly because they contain 
rock crystal. Although in many places they may be 
descried subtending the shore in lumpy lines like 
detached vertebrae, and are supposed to represent 
the Aranga Mons of Ptolemy, they are not noticed 
by Barbot. Between the Camarones River and Cape 
St. John (Corisco Bay), blue, rounded, and discon¬ 
tinuous masses, apparently wooded,-rise before the 
mariner, and form, as will be seen, the western sub¬ 
ranges of the great basin-rim. To the north they 
probably anastomose with the Camarones, the 
Rumbi, the Kwa, the P'umbina north-east, and the 
Niger-Kong mountains. 1 
They are not wanting who declare them to be 
rich in precious metals. Some thirty years ago 
an American super-cargo ascended the Rembwe 
River, the south-eastern line of the Gaboon fork, 
and is said to have collected “ dirt” which, tested 
“ Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains,” vol. ii. chap. i. 
London: Tinsleys, 1863. 
