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Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo. (Complete)
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo - Complete Author:Richard Burton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. GEOGRAPHY OF THE GABOON. EFORE going further afield I may be allowed a few observations, topographical and ethnological, about this highl... more »y interesting section of the West African coast. The Gaboon country, to retain the now familiar term, although no one knows much about its derivation, is placed by old travellers in " South Guinea," the tract lying along the Ethiopic, or South Atlantic Ocean, limited by the Camarones Mountain-block in north latitude 4, and by Cabo Negro in south latitude 15 40' 7", a sea-line of nearly 1,200 miles. The Gaboon proper is included between the Camarones Mountains to the north, and the " Mayumba," properly the " Yumba" country southwards, in south latitude 3 22',—a shore upwards of 400 miles long. The inland depth is undetermined ; geographically we should limit it to the Western Ghats, which rarely recede more than 60 miles from .the sea, and ethno- logically no line can yet be drawn. The country is almost bisected by the equator, and by the Rio de Gabao, which discharges . in north latitude o 21 25" and east longitude 9 21' 23"; and it corresponds in parallel with the Somali-Galla country and the Juba River on the east coast.: The general aspect of the region is prepossessing. It is a rolling surface sinking. towards the Atlantic, in parts broken by hills and dwarf chains, either detached or pushed out by the Ghats; a land of short and abnormally broad rivers, which cannot, like the Congo, break through the ridges flanking the Central African basin, and which therefore are mere surface drains of the main ranges. The soil is mostly sandy, but a thin coat of rich vegetable humus, quickened by heavy rains and fiery suns, produces a luxuriant vegetation ; whilst the proportion of area actually cultivated is nothing compared...« less