Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/281

 Bassam mouth, as it is called, gives the best access to the interior on the whole coast from Cape Palmas to the Bight of Benin. But about 24 miles from its mouth the Akba is interrupted by rapids near the village of Little Alepé.

The approach to the Assini (Issini) lagoon, some 22 miles farther east, resembles that of Lake Ebrié, but is shallower, more tortuous, and inaccessible to craft drawing more than 5 feet. But in the interior the lagoons ramify into numerous deep creeks and inlets, the two chief influents being the Bia or Kinjabo in the north-west, and the Tanwé, forming in the east the frontier of the French possessions.

The latter has been ascended to a distance of 60 miles from its delta in the Assini lagoon, but on the Kinjabo all navigation is soon arrested by the Aboiso Falls. Both rivers, as well as their tributaries, are washed for gold, the tenacious clayey soil of their beds yielding an average of about two shillings the cubic metre. On the slopes north of the lagoon, Chaper has discovered boulders and clays of glacial origin. Thus for a space of 900 miles, from the south Senegambian rivers to the Gold Coast, traces are presented of former glacial action.

The climate of the Ivory differs little from that of the Grain Coast. Here also