Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/58

 direction from south to north close to the mainland. Towards the middle, however, it is pierced by a channel, the so-called bar of Corimba, through which light craft gain access to the bay. The northern extremity of this sandy rampart thus forms a long, low-lying island, whose shores are often flooded by the stormy

waves of the Atlantic. Such is the islet of Loanda, on which the Portuguese founded their first settlement in the year 1576, at a time when they did not yet venture to establish factories on the mainland. The island, on which stood seven libatus, or native villages, was otherwise a place of exceptional importance for its inhabitants, constituting a sort of treasury where they collected the cowries