54 Geography of the Gaboon. 
where rocks and rapids interfered with the boat- 
voyage, the current was considerable, but the 
breadth diminished to 600 feet. The southern 
branch (also written Ngunie) was found in Apono 
Land (S. lat. 2 0 ), about the breadth of the 
Thames at London Bridge, 700 feet. In June the 
depth was ten to fifteen feet, to which the rainy 
season added ten. 
M. du Chaillu also established the facts that the 
Nazareth river was the northern arm of the Delta, 
and that the Fernao Vaz anastomosed with the 
Delta’s southern arm. 
The only pelagic islands off the Gaboon coast 
are the Brancas, Great and Little; Corisco Island, 
which we shall presently visit; Great and Little 
Elobi, called by old travellers Mosquito Islands, 
probably for “ Moucheron,” a Dutchman who lost 
his ship there in 1600. The land about the mouths 
of the Ogobe is a mass of mangrove swamps, like 
the Nigerian Delta, which high tides convert into 
insular ground ; these, however, must be considered 
terra firma in its infancy. The riverine islands of 
the Gaboon proper will be noticed as we ascend 
the bed. 
Pongo-land ignores all such artificial partitions 
as districts or parishes; the only divisions are the 
countries occupied by the several tribes. 
The Gaboon lies in “ Africa-on-the-Line,” and a 
description of the year at Zanzibar Island applies 
