Above the rock-line is a selvage of low vegetation--ipom[oe]a, white and
mauve-flowered; rushes and tangle-grass, a variety of salsolaceae, and the
cyperus, whose stalk is used like the _kalam_, or reed-pen, further east.
These growths are filmed with spiders' webs, whose central shafts lead to
their nests. The highest levels, only a few feet above water, are grown
with a dense bush that wants the matchet. Here are remains of plantations,
a little knot of bananas, a single tall cocoanut, many young palms, and a
few felled trunks overgrown with oysters. Europeans have proposed to build
bungalows on Bobowusua, where they find fresh sea-air, and a little
shooting among the red-breasted ring-doves, rails, and green pigeons
affecting the vegetation. It appears to us a good place for mooring hulks.
The steamers could then run alongside of them and discharge cargo for the
coming tramway, while surf-boats carrying two or three tons could load for
the Ancobra River.
The eastern or inner continuation of Bobowusua is Poke islet, a similar
but smaller block. During spring-tides they are linked together and to the
shore by reefs that stand up high and dry. Poke is the rock where,
according to Barbot, 'the negroes put their wives and children when they
go to war.
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