They once managed to get her off, but she had not power to stem the seas,
and there she still lies high and dry.
Cape Palmas, or Bamnepo, with its outlying islet-reef of black rock, on
which breaks an eternal surf, is the theoretical turning-point from the
Windward coast, which begins with the Senegal, to the Leeward, and which
ends in the Benin Bight. We are entering the region
_Unde nigerrimus Auster_
Nascitur.
Practically and commercially the former is worked by the Bristol barques
and the latter commences at Cape Threepoints. The bold headland, a hundred
feet tall and half a mile broad by a quarter long, bounded north by its
river, has a base of black micaceous granite supporting red argillaceous
loam. Everywhere beyond the burning of the billows the land-surface is
tapestried with verdure and tufted with cocoas; they still show the
traditional clump which gave the name recorded by Camoens. The neck
attaching the head to the continent-body is a long, low sand-spit; and the
background sweeps northward in the clear grassy stretches which African
travellers agree to call 'parks.' These are fronted by screens of tall
trees, and backed by the blue tops of little hills, a combination which
strongly reminded me of the Gaboon.
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