Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/447

 and two miles to the southward. About a mile S.E. of Laval there is a reef which, when I was on Corisco, was a perpetual line of foam.

Laval Bank lies S.W. ¾ S. three-and-a-half miles from Laval Island. It is rock and sand. There is good fishing near it, but the sea breaks over the head of it furiously. It stretches two miles north and south and is one and a half broad, the Pilot says. I passed through it on my return voyage to Gaboon and think it is in many places two miles wide, but this being the rough season in these seas it showed itself off in full.

Baña Island is a quarter of a mile long, and is lower than Laval. It is five miles S. of the S.E. end of Corisco Island, that is, Alondo. Its surrounding plinth of rock shows in places at low water and one large rock, which is never covered, shows about a mile out to sea, W. by S.

But Baña Island is nothing to Baña Bank, which supports Obanjo's—I beg his pardon, Captain Johnson's—statement that "half dem dar 'fernal Corisco Bay Islands lib under water."

This bank is nine miles long, in an east by north and west by south direction, averaging three and a half miles in breadth. On it the depths are very shallow and variable. The eastern part of the bank is called the Crown Sand and a patch dries, for I was shell-hunting on it. About two miles S.E. by E. ¾ E. of Baña, that is to say shorewards to the mainland, there is another patch of the Crown Sand which dries, which is called the East Sand; on this I got some sponges and Gorgonia. After trying to give a conscientious account of Baña Bank, I notice my friend the "West Coast Pilot" collapses and pathetically beseeches you, if you will, or must, go into Corisco Bay, to be very careful. I think these patches of the Crown Sand that dry must be near to the end of the bank; for Captain Porter, who knows this bit of coast well, tells me there is a passage for vessels out of Corisco Bay by Oranda Point, towards Cape Esterias, provided they do not draw more than two fathoms and know the way; but this passage is not used now.

Eleven miles east from the north-east end of Corisco Island, further into the bay, lie the two Eloby Islands. They are on the