Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/458

WEST AFEICA. Topography. Towards the nortli-west frontier the first station is the fishing village of JBibundf, which serves as the outport of Bomana, lying 10 miles inland. The German traders propose to make it the depot for the produce of the Upper Oyono, at pre- sent forwarded to the English factories at New Calabar. Victoria^ the chief station in the Caraeroons, was founded in 1858 by some Baptist missionaries who had been expelled from Fernando-Po by an intolerant Spanish governor. The whole district was acquired by them for a few casks of salt meat and biscuits, and one of the most picturesque sites in the world selected for the station, at the foot of the forest- clad mountain and on the shores of an island- studded inlet. The two verdant islands of Amhas {Ambozes, Amboise) and MondoU stand out against the hazy background of Fernando-Po with its cloud- capped cone, while the beach-, fringed with dense vegetation, stretches away to the south and west. Victoria offers some advantages as a naval station, the roadstead north of the islands being accessible to vessels of average draught, which may here procure a supply of pure water from a copious stream descending from the mountain. The deep inlet of Man-of-War Bay, penetrating far inland, might also be easily connected with Victoria by a short road, perhaps even by a canal cut across the intervening muddy neck of the peninsula. At present almost the only inhabitants of Victoria are some Ba-Kwiri and fugitives threatened with the vendetta or the vengeance of the fetishmen. Owing to the political changes, the English Baptist missionaries have been compelled to sell their establishment and their proprietary rights over the neighbouring lands. The German Government has introduced in their place missionaries from Basle, charged to instruct the natives in the German tongue and teach them to obey their new masters. East of the wooded headland at the southern extremity of the great mountain lies the haven of Bimbia, partly sheltered from the surf by Nichols Island. But the approach is tortuous and difficult, and during the rainy season the billows break furiously on the bar. The bay is lined by three villages forming an almost continuous row of houses inhabited chiefly by fishermen. Bimbia is the natural outport for the large Ba-Kwiri villages Sopo, Lissoka, Bicassa, Btcea or Bea, scattered over the surrounding slopes. In the Mungo basin the port and chief market near the large village of Mbinga communicates with Mbinga by a deep channel offering excellent anchor- age to large vessels. Farther on lies Bakundii-ba-Nambele, an American missionary station in the Ba-Kundu territory. Kumba, much farther inland, appears to be a great market for slaves and palm-oil, with a population, according to Schwarz, of nearly four thousand. The name Cameroons is applied collectively to about a dozen villages with a joint population of ten thousand on the east side of the Cameroons estuary, some of which are separately known as King Bill's Town, King Akica's Toiim, from the names of the local kings." They are reached by vessels of average tonnage,