256 
Corisco. 
on the hard sand of the open western beach : here 
at times a tremendous surf must roll in. We 
struck into the bush, and bent towards the south¬ 
west of the islet, where stands the monarch of 
cliffs, 80 feet high. The maximum length is 
three miles by about the same breadth, and the 
circumference, including the indentations, may be 
fifteen. The surface is rolling composed of 
humus and clay, corallines and shelly conglo¬ 
merates based on tertiary limestone and perhaps 
sandstone ; dwarf clearings alternate with tracts of 
bush grass, and with a bushy second growth, lack¬ 
ing large trees. The only important wild pro¬ 
ductions pointed out to us were cardamoms, the 
oil palm (Elais Guineensis ), and an unknown spe¬ 
cies of butter-nut. The centre of the island was 
a mass of perennial pools, fed, they say, by springs 
as well as rains, one puddle, adorned with water 
lilies and full of dwarf leeches which relish man’s 
life, extended about a hundred yards long. In 
fact, the general semblance of Corisco was that 
of a filled up “ atoll,” a circular reef still growing 
to a habitable land. Here only could I find on 
the west coast of Africa a trace of the features 
which distinguished the Gorilla island of 2,300 
years ago. 
At South Bay we came upon a grassy clearing 
larger than usual, near a bright stream; its pottery 
and charred wood showed the site of the Spanish 
