Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/219

DISTRICT OF KANTOR. 177 situated for trade, where vessels can lie at anchor close in shore in 70 or 80 feet of water. But the place is extremely unhealthy, the island being surrounded and intersected by pestilential channels and stagnant waters. At less than 3 feet from the surface brackish water is found everywhere, and the current is constantly threatening the very foundations of the town. Nevertheless, over three thousand Yolas or Felubs — that is. Coast Negroes — Mandingans, Serers, and Wolofs, are crowded together in this "water-logged" town. The British Government still pays a small yearly pension to the chief of the Combo Mandingans, who occupy the coast as far south as the Casamanza. The health resort lies in the Combo territory, 7 miles west of Bathurst, at Cape St. Mary, near the village of Bacoiv, on a cliff rising 50 feet above the sea. Here the invigorating marine breeze, jocularly called the " Doctor," prevails for several hours during the day, carrying off the exhala- tions from the swamps of the Gambia. It has often been proposed to remove the capital to Cape St. Mary, but the anchorage is bad, and the coast is here obstructed by sandbanks. North-east of Bathurst the batteries of Fort Biillen, erected at Barra Point, command the north entrance of the Gambia. All this part of the coast, for a width of over a mile, belongs to Great Britain, which, however, levies no dues, so that all produce is exported free of charge to the French ports in Senegal. The strip of British territory begins at the Jimak Creek, 9 miles north of Fort BuUen, and follows the right bank of the Gambia, thence to and beyond the Mandingan village of Jillifri {Gilfrai), near which place the English had their chief factory before the foundation of Bathurst. The trading station of Albreda still enjoys some importance, and was formerly a strategic point of great value, thanks to the gunS of Fort James, erected in mid-stream 20 miles above Bathurst. In 1698 Andr^ Briie founded a French factory at Albreda, w^hich, about the middle of this century, was ceded to England in exchange for Portendik, on the Berber coast. In the botanical world Albreda is famous for its magnificent fig-tree, forming a group of several stems with a joint circumference of 130 feet. Farther up, Elephant Island, at the chief bend of the lower Gambia below the large village of Yamiim, is the market for the Diara country. Georgetown, in MacCarthy's Island, some miles higher up, collects most of the produce from the Niani and Ulli districts in the north, from Diamaru and Tumane in the south. MacCarthy's Island corresponds on the Gambia to Fort Bakel on the Senegal, being occupied not by soldiers, but by a small body of police, the last established by the English in this basin. Some 25 miles farther inland are the ruins of Fisania, the village chosen by Mungo Park as his starting-point during his first voyage in 1796. Still higher up are the ruins of Medina, former capital of the Ulli Mandingans, and near it the trading station of Fatta Tenda, whence come the best ground-nuts. Boats ascend the river at all seasons to Yarhu Tenda, a little beyond this point. District of Kaxtor. One of the southern districts about the sources of the Casamanza bears the