Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/667

 establish a sanatorium where the fever-stricken missionaries from Calabar could come and recruit their health without having to make the voyage home to England. The station he established upon the mountain at the elevation of 3,000 feet is now occupied by a Roman Catholic mission, and their health has been little, if at all, better than that of other Roman Catholics at a lower level. I say other Roman Catholics advisedly, because these missionaries live, as a rule, in a more healthy way than members of other missions in West Africa. The reasons why the upper slopes of Mungo do not afford the healthiness expected of them are many. Chief among them is the exceedingly heavy rainfall. At Babundi, I am told, there was a panic a short time ago among the natives because there was no rain for an entire week, and this extraordinary phenomenon gave rise to the idea that something serious had gone wrong with Nature and that something was going to happen, but a calm business man told me this story must be without foundation, because it has never been dry for a week at Babundi.

The reason of the heavy rainfall and drenching mists which fall on the mountain is that it is surrounded by enormous steaming swamps: to the north by those of the Rio del Rey and Calabar, to the south by those of the Cameroon, Mungo, and Bimbia Rivers, while its superior height catches the heavy, water-laden clouds floating in from the Atlantic. In addition to this, the cold air rushes down its sides in draughts that condense the water in the hot overladen lower layers of the atmosphere.

One hears a great deal in West Africa of the 3,000 feet line as being the limit of the region of malarial fever, but I do not think this is anything more than a theoretical idea, and indeed there are few situations in West Africa besides Mungo, where the theory could be put to the test. Buea, and De Buncha, Mr. Thomson’s sanatorium site, are at about this elevation. Buea has not yet had sufficient trial as a health resort to speak of it finally, but the great prevalence there of phagedænic ulcers does not lead one to regard the air