water-line is backed by swelling ridges, here open and green-
grassed, there spotted with islets of close and shady trees.
Mangrove, that horror of the African voyager, shines by its
absence; and the soil is not mud, but humus based on gravels or
on ruddy clays, stiff and retentive. The formation, in fact, is
everywhere that of Eyo or Yoruba, the goodly region lying west of
the lower Niger, and its fertility must result from the abundant
water supply of the equatorial belt.

The charts are fearful to look upon. The embouchure, well known
to old traders, has been scientifically surveyed in our day by
Lieutenant Alph. Fleuriot de Langle, of La Malouine (1845), and
the chart was corrected from a survey ordered by Capitaine Bouet-
Willaumez (1849); in the latter year it was again revised by M.
Charles Floix, of the French navy, and, with additions by the
officers of Her Britannic Majesty's service, it becomes our No.
1877. The surface is a labyrinth of banks, rocks, and shoals,
"Ely," "Nisus," "Alligator," and "Caraibe." In such surroundings
as these, when the water shallows apace, the pilot must not be
despised.

Her Majesty's steam-ship "Griffon," Commander Perry, found
herself, at 2 P.M. on Monday, March, 17, 1862, in a snug berth
opposite Le Plateau, as the capital of the French colony is
called, and amongst the shipping of its chief port, Aumale Road.
The river at this neck is about five miles broad, and the scene
was characteristically French. Hardly a merchant vessel lay
there. We had no less than four naval consorts "La Caravane,"
guard-ship, store-ship, and hospital-hulk; a fine transport, "La
Riege," bound for Goree; "La Recherche," a wretched old sailing