Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/291

 CLIMATE OF THE GOLD COAST. 239 In tlie low-lying plains below the gorges the Volta expands in the rainy season to a breadth of some miles, and, although obstructed by a shifting bar, it is then accessible to vessels drawing 18 or 20 feet.- On approaching the sea it develops a delta with several branches ramifying round the Kennedy Archipelago and other islands. Communication is also afforded through side channels with the coast lagoons, separated from the sea only by narrow strips of sand against which the surf breaks furiously. The Quetta, one of these lagoons, is a veritable inland sea no less than 160 square miles in extent, and studded with numerous thickly peopled islands. Such is the geometrical symmetry of the semicircular beach facing seawards that the mariner has a difficulty in discovering the Cape St. Paul figuring prominently on the maps, but really indicated only in a conventional way by a buoy, which itself often disappears beneath the muddy foam of the raging surf. Nowhere else does the calemma, or endless line of parallel breakers bursting on the sandy beach, present a more formidable aspect than at this point of the Guinea coast. Seafarers call it the "bar," comparing it to the sills which obstruct the river mouths, and it really acts like a " bar," or barrier, between the high seas and the shore, dreaded even by the most skilful sailors. At all times, even when the sea is calm, these crested billows roll in from the deep, lashed into fury by the tides, the winds, and opposing currents. Occasionally the daring Kroomen them- selves refuse to venture in their surfboats across the furious waves, beyond which the large vessels are seen riding calmly at anchor in smooth waters. Climate. On the Gold Coast the seasons follow in the same order and present the same phenomena as in the regions lying farther west. As on the Ivory Coast, the wet season, beginning in March or April, is ushered in with fierce tornadoes, after which the gales gradually fall off according as the rains set in. The monsoons reappear with the dry season, when the south-west winds strike against the coast, stirring up the waves and veiling the horizon in fog and mist. In October follows the period of short rains, the most dreaded by Europeans, dry weather again setting in with the new year. Then the harmattan is most prevalent, forcing back the breakers and facilitating the approach to the rivers, but also withering up the vegetation and filling the air with clouds of dust. At the missionary station of Abetifi in the Okwahu uplands, 2,000 feet above sea-level, the temperature ranges from 51^ F. to 95^^ F., and even at 62° F. the natives already complain of the cold. On an average these uplands are four or five degrees colder than the coastlands. The rainfall is also much higher, rising from 31 inches at Elmina on the coast to 44 at Abetifi. On the whole the climate is somewhat less dangerous than that of Senegambia, more especially as the two hundred or three hundred Europeans stationed in the country have been able to establish health resorts in the hilly districts of the interior.