Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/409

 OLD CALABAE. 341 because here live the potent riverain magicians. The European traders do not reside on the coast, but in hulks grouped together to |orni a floating town. Here may be procured all the comforts of an English hotel, and the decks generally swarm with a world of domestic animals — monkeys, birds, sheep, goats, cats and dogs, and other pets. Elegant barges of European build ply between the hulks and the shore, and the estuaries are also animated by solidly constructed native craft embellished with original decorative designs. Some 70 miles east of New Calabar lies the Old Calabar, or simply Calabar, estuary, 10 or 11 miles wide and everywhere studded with wooded islands. The various groups of houses known by the collective name of Calabar all stand to the north of this estuary, on the banks of the Cross River (Oyono) and its affluents. Duke-toivn (Afakpa), where the hulks are moored, lies towards the head of the inlet, near the junction of all the tributary streams. Creelc-toum, the residence of the local " king," stands stiU farther north, on the slope of the amphitheatre of hills above the course of the stream ; and the village of Old-town, the remains of a former prosperous station, lies midway on the channel leading from Duke-town to Creek- town. It was formerly the centre of the local traffic,. but the English traders, wishing to divert the movement to their factories at New-iown, as Duke- town was then called, invited the leading members of the rival town to a " palaver " on board their hulks ; then it is stated by Clarkson that the natives had scarcely moored their boats to the hulks when they were shot down from the decks {History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade). The Qua tribe is regarded as the suzerain of Old Calabar, and as such receives a yearly tribute. Ikorofiong, higher up the Cross River, where the first sandstone hills are seen, still belongs to the Calabar district ; but Uman, on a low island farther north, is governed by fetish priests, who are powerful enough to enforce the old sanguinary the territory of the Akunakuna tribe, whose capital, Okurike, stands on a range of hills skirting the left bank. English influence extends no farther inland than Okurike, although the Oyono was alreadj^ explored in 1842 as far as the rapids near the north foot of the Cameroon highlands. Beyond this point begin the unexplored regions, which Germany already claims by treaty as the seat of its future colonies.
 * ' customs." Beyond this point, some 60 miles from the estuary, the river enters