4 
From Fernando Po 
by old sailors with a lengthened Bill of Portland; 
a reef some three miles long, which the waves as¬ 
sault with prodigious fury ; a terror to slavers, es¬ 
pecially in our autumn, when the squalls and 
storms begin. The light sandy soil of the main¬ 
land rests upon compact clay, and malaria rises 
only where the little drains, which should feed the 
lagoon, evaporate in swamps. Here and there are 
clumps of tall cocoas, a capot, pullom or wild cot- 
tom tree, and a neat village upon prairie land, where 
stone is rare as on the Pampas. Southwards the 
dry tract falls into low and wooded ground. 
The natural basin, entered by the north-east, is 
upwards of a mile in length, and the narrow, ever- 
shifting mouth is garnished with rocks, the sea 
breaking right across. Gunboats have floated 
over during the rains, but at dead low water in 
the dry season we would not risk the gig. Guided 
by a hut upon the beach fronting French Fac¬ 
tory and under lee of the breakers off Indian Bar, 
I landed near a tree-motte, in a covelet smoothed 
by a succession of sandpits. The land sharks 
flocked down to drag the boat over the breakwater 
of shingle. They appeared small and effeminate 
after the burly negroes of the Bights, and their 
black but not comely persons were clad in red 
and white raiment. It is a tribe of bumboat men, 
speaking a few words of English, French, and 
Portuguese, and dealing in mats and pumpkins, 
