Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/134

 lethargy of the rest of the West Coast tribes; but of Fans I will speak by and by; and merely preface my diary by stating that Congo Français has a coast line of about 900 miles, extending from the Campo River to a point a few miles north of Landana, with the exception of the small Corisco region claimed by Spain. The Hinterland is not yet delimitated, except as regards the Middle Congo. The French possession runs from Brazzaville on Stanley Pool up to the confluence of the M'Ubanji with the Congo, then following the western bank of the M'Ubanji. Away to the N.N.E. it is not yet delimitated, and although the French have displayed great courage and enterprise, there are still great stretches of country in Congo Français that have never been visited by a white man; but the same may be said to as great an extent of the West Coast possessions of England and Germany.

The whole of the territory that is at present roughly delimitated, may have an area of 220,000 square miles, with a population variously estimated at from two to five millions.

The two main outlets of its trade are Gaboon and Fernan Vaz. Gaboon is the finest harbour on the western side of the continent, and was thought for many years to be what it looks like, namely, the mouth of a great river. Of late years, however, it has been found to be merely one of those great tidal estuaries like Bonny—that go thirty or forty miles inland and then end in a series of small rivers. While under the impression that Gaboon was one of the great water ways of Africa, France made it a head station for her West African Squadron, and the point of development from which to start on exploring the surrounding country. Her attention, it is said, was first attracted to the importance of Gaboon by the reports brought home by the expedition under Prince de Joinville in the Belle Poule—who, in 1840, brought the body of Napoleon from St. Helena for interment in Paris—and after de Joinville the northern termination of the Gaboon estuary is officially known, although it is locally called Cape Santa Clara, which is possibly the name given it by the Portuguese navigator, Lopez Gonsalves, who, in 1469, made his great voyage of discovery on this coast, and whose name Cape Lopez—at the mouth of one of the Ogowé streams—still bears.