Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/232

 The climate of Guiné differs in no respect from that of the Gambia and Casamanza, except that the mean temperature is higher and subject to greater extremes, which is doubtless due to the proximity of the hilly uplands in the interior. Near the coast the glass falls at night sometimes to 53° F., oscillating in the cold season, from November to January, between 53° and 59° F. after sunset, and in the day rising to 77°, 86°, and even 110°. But at other times the temperature is much more uniform, showing for the whole year a mean of 78° at Bissao. The rainfall, not yet accurately measured, is very considerable, the wet season, accompanied by frequent thunderstorms and heavy downpours, lasting for nearlv five months, from the middle of May to the end of September.

Notwithstanding this copious rainfall the forests are less dense and continuous than in the tropical regions of the New World. Extensive tracts, even in the Bissagos Islands, are crowned by campinas, or savannahs of tall grasses or reeds, above which rises here and there in isolated' majesty a solitary giant, in one place a palm, in another a baobab or a butter-tree. Behind the mangrove-fringed banks of the estuaries begins the forest proper, including a great variety of species, such as acacias, date and oil palms, and the so-called "rain-tree," whose foliage, especially at sudden falls of temperature, collects the night dew and precipitates it as rain in the morning.

The fauna, richer than that of Senegal, belongs to the zone of equatorial Sudan, including numerous species of the ape family, amongst which the chimpanzee is said to be found. Several large animals, such as the giraffe, zebra, and apparently the elephant, have disappeared, although the hippopotamus, wild ox {hos brachyceros), leopard, and crocodile still abound. Birds are very numerous, and nowhere else in Africa do the termites build such large compact ant-hills, mostly pyramidal in shape and hard as stone. All the creeks and estuaries are well stocked with fish, yielding abundant supplies of food to the natives.

These natives form a perfect chaos of small groups, each with its distinctive name, but otherwise without any ethnical value, and liable to constant fluctuations with the changes brought about by migrations, alliances, and conquest. Hence the discrepancies in the statements of travellers who have visited the country at different periods. Of the nine distinct nations mentioned by De Barros, three only, the Biafars, Papels, and Bujagos, are comprised entirely within the Portuguese possessions. The Fulahs and Mandingans are intruders from the east, while the Felups, Balantas, Bagnuns, and kindred Buramos (Brames) are met also on the Casamanza, and the Nalus in the Rio Nunez and Cassim basins.

Besides the Fulahs proper, this region has been invaded by the half-caste Fulas pretos, or "Black Fulahs," resembling the Toucoulours of French Senegambia. Of the indigenous peoples, the Balantas, occupying most of the space between the