After returning down river, I just waited until the Batanga, my old friend, came into the river again, and then started for my beloved South West Coast. The various divisions of the West Coast of Africa are very perplexing to a new comer. Starting from Sierra Leone coming south you first pass the Grain Coast, which is also called the Pepper or Kru Coast, or the Liberian Coast. Next comes the Ivory Coast, also known as the Half Jack Coast, or the Bristol Coast. Then comes the Gold Coast; then the old Slave Coast, now called the Popos; then Lagos, and then the Rivers, and below the Rivers the South West Coast. In addition to these names you will hear the Timber Ports, and the Win'ard and Leeward Ports referred to, and it perplexes one when one finds a port, say Axim, referred to by one competent authority, i.e. a sea-captain, as a Win'ard port, by the next as a Timber, by the next as a Gold Coast port. It is just as well to get the matter up if you intend frequenting the Bights of Biafra and Benin. I will just give you, as a hint to facilitate your researches, the information that the Bight of Benin commences at Cape St. Paul and ends at Cape Formosa; and the Bight of Biafra commences at Cape Formosa and ends at Cape Lopez. The Windward Coast is that portion between Cape Apollonia and the Secum River, just west of Accra. At this river the Leeward Coast begins, and terminates at the Volta.
When I was on the coast in 1893, Cameroons River was regarded in nautical circles as a River. Now, alas for me! it is not, and getting from Calabar to Cameroons is a thing you ought to get a medal for, for the line of vessels that run from Liverpool to Calabar goes no further than the latter place. In former days they used to call in at Calabar, then go across to Fernando Po and into Cameroons, calling steadily at ports right down to Sant. Paul de Loanda, which was a highly convenient and beautiful arrangement, but I presume did not pay; so the South West Coast boats, that is to say boats calling below Calabar, now call at Lagos, and thus ignore the Rivers, going straight on into Cameroons River. So you see, if you have providentially kept your head clear during this disquisition, I had to go on a homeward bound boat up as far as Lagos Bar and then catch a South Wester
