to Loango Bay . 
3 
lands, covers the sides of the rises, and caps their 
summits.” During the rains after October the 
grass, now showing yellow stubble upon the ruddy, 
rusty plain, becomes a cane fence, ten to twelve feet 
tall; but instead of matted, felted jungle, knitted 
together by creepers of cable size, we have scattered 
clumps of dark, lofty, and broad-topped trees. A 
nearer view shows great cliffs, weather-worked 
into ravines and basins, ribs and ridges, towers and 
pinnacles. Above them is a joyful open land, ap¬ 
parently disposed in two successive dorsa or steps, 
with bright green tiers and terraces between, and 
these are pitted with the crater-like sinks locally 
called “ holes,” so frequent in the Gaboon country. 
Southwards the beauty of eternal verdure will end, 
and the land will become drier, and therefore 
better fitted for Europeans, the nearer it approaches 
Mossamedes Bay. South of “ Little Fish,” again, 
a barren tract of white sand will show the “ Last 
Tree,” an inhospitable region, waterless, and bul¬ 
warked by a raging sea. 
Loango is a “ pool harbour,” like the ancient 
Portus Lemanus (Hythe), a spit of shingle, whose 
bay, north-east and south-west, forms an inner 
lagoon, bounded landwards by conspicuous and 
weather-tarnished red cliffs. This “lingula” rests 
upon a base of terra firma whose westernmost pro¬ 
jection is Indian Point. From the latter runs 
northwards the “infamous” Indian Bar, compared 
