52 
Geography of the Gaboon . 
reth River, which debouches north of Urungu, or 
Cape Lopez (Cabo de Lopo Gonsalvez), and which 
forms by anastomosing with a southern river the 
Ogobe (Ogowai of M. du Chaillu), a complicated 
delta whose sea-front extends from north to south, 
at least eighty miles. Beyond Cape Lopez is an out¬ 
fall, known to Europeans as the Rio Mexias : it is 
apparently a mesh in the net-work of the Naza- 
reth-Ogobe. The same may be said of the Rio 
Fernao Vaz, about no miles south of the Gaboon, 
and of yet another stream which, running lagoon¬ 
like some forty miles along the shore, has received 
in our maps the somewhat vague name of R. Rem- 
bo or River River. Orembo (Simpongwe) being 
the generic term for a stream or river, is applied 
emphatically to the Nkomo branch of the Gaboon, 
and to the Fernao Vaz. 
The Ogobe is the only river between the Niger 
and the Congo which escapes, through favouring 
depressions, from the highlands flanking the great 
watery plateau of Inner Africa. By its plainly 
marked double seasons of flood at the equinoxes, 
and by the time of its low water, we prove that 
it drains the belt of calms, and the region immedi¬ 
ately upon the equator. The explorations of Lieu¬ 
tenant Serval and others, in “ Le Pionnier ” river- 
steamer, give it an average breadth of 8,200 feet, 
though broken by sand-banks and islands; the 
depth in the main channel, which at times is narrow 
