Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/665

 high opinion of its value as a harbour, and the high lands above it as a site for a sanatorium. Mr. MacGregor Laird communicated to Earl Grey in 1856 a lengthy statement founded on Mr. Saker's information. Read by the light of after years this memorandum is highly interesting, although almost all the asseverations in it have now been proved fallacious; for example, Ambas Bay is described as "being capable of being made a most complete naval station." Further on as "a good open harbour, accessible at all times to ships of the largest class and easily descended."

Mr. Saker made a communication to Consul Hutchinson in June, 1858, in which the advantages of Ambas Bay as a harbour were set down in detail, but a survey of the bay, made in 1859 by Commodore Wise, R.N., in H.M.S. Vesuvius, did not prove it to correspond to the description given of it by the enthusiastic missionaries. One important point in the bay described in the Reverend Mr. Saker’s chart as having four to six fathoms of water, was found by Mr. Brown, Master R.N., who had charge of the soundings, to have only from six to nine feet. And from that day to this people have gone on discovering pinnacle and shoal rocks in the bay.

I have been now five times into Ambas Bay, and with those very sporting vessels, the British and African, and the Royal African steamers, and I have never seen one of them nestle right up in Morton Cove, as the inner part is called; and as for men-o'-war, although their official organ the West Coast Pilot, says, "the anchorage is excellent in all parts of Ambas Bay with good holding ground, and a depth of six to seven fathoms," I have never seen a man-o’-war such a fool as to act on this statement and come well inside. The West Coast Pilot certainly does go on to say, "It forms a lee shore, and there is an incessant swell," and then "that the prevalent wind is S.W. to which the bay is quite open." These later observations may be the things that deter men-o'-war from coming well inside, and as for the merchant- men, although they have a sort of genial affection for the Pilot, they do not trust it, unless its statements agree with their own personal knowledge.

The Pilot, goes on to say, referring to the climate, "From