the "impervious luxuriance of vegetation which crowns the
lowlands, 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,
apparently 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 bulwarked 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 projection is Indian Point. From
the latter runs northwards the "infamous" Indian Bar, compared by
old sailors with a lengthened Bill of Portland; a reef some three
miles long, which the waves assault with prodigious fury; a
terror to slavers, especially in our autumn, when the squalls and
storms begin. The light sandy soil of the mainland rests upon
compact clay, and malaria rises only where the little drains,