Up the Gaboon River . 
189 
lying some five miles south by west, are masses of 
cocoas, fringed with mangroves ; a great contrast 
with the prairillon of the neighbouring Point 
Ovindo. At last, worn out by a four-knot current 
and a squall in our teeth, we anchored in four 
fathoms, about five miles south-east of Konig. 
From this point we could easily see the wide 
gape of the Rembwe, the south-eastern influent, or 
rather fork, of the Gaboon, which rises in the 
south-western versant of some meridional chain, 
and which I was assured can be ascended in three 
tides. The people told me when too late of a 
great cavity or sink, which they called Wonga- 
Wonga; Bowdich represents it to be an “unin¬ 
habited savannah of three days’ extent, between 
Empoongwa and Adjoomba (Mayumba). I saw 
nothing of the glittering diamond mountains, lying 
eastward of Wonga-Wonga, concerning which the 
old traveller was compelled to admit that, “ when 
there was no moon, a pale but distinct light was 
invariably reflected from a mountain in that quarter, 
and from no other.” It has now died out—this 
superstition, which corresponds with the carbuncle 
of Hoy and others of our Scoto-Scandinavian 
islands. 
Resuming our cruize on the next day, we passed 
on the right a village of “ bad Bakele,” which had 
been blown down by the French during the last 
year; in this little business the “ king ” and two 
