Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/35

 current flowing in the opposite direction, is perhaps to be attributed the tremendous surf, forming the so-called "bar," which renders the approach to the Guinea coast so difficult and at times so dangerous between Cape Palmas and the Cameroons. A little "Sargasso Sea" like that near the Antilles occurs also off the mouth of the Congo in the secondary vortex produced by the collision between the Guinea Stream and the other current flowing from the south along the coast of Benguela and Angola.

The anemometric charts of Brault and other observers show that in the South African Atlantic the mean annual direction of the winds is marked by great

regularity. Storms properly so called are extremely rare, and the "general" winds — that is to say, the south-east trade winds — blow with such uniformity that, especially at the time of the solstices, seafarers in these waters are able to calculate with great probability the length of their passage. But this regularity prevails only on the high sea, as near the coast the aërial currents are deflected inland. Above the English, German, and Portuguese possessions in South Africa, as well as about the coastlands on the Lower Congo and Ogoway, the winds blow from the south-west or else directly from the west, whereas on the coasts to the west of the Cameroons they come from the south. These are the vapour-charged atmospheric currents which bring the rains to the coastlands, and which deluge tke Cameroons