The gape is garnished on either side by little black stumps of rocks, and
the general effect is very unpleasant. A fine school of sharks fattens on
the fish inside the bar. At this season the entrance narrows to a few
feet, the effect of a huge sandspit on the right lip, and carries only six
feet of water. During the rains it will rise eleven feet at Sanma, and at
Tumento twenty-four feet in a day, falling with the same dangerous
rapidity. We shall see more of the Ancobra, which here separates two
districts. Between it and Cape Threepoints the land is called Avalawe; and
the westward region, extending to Cape Apollonia, is named Amrehia, the
Amregia of Jeekel and Dahse, meaning, 'where people meet.'
We halted for breakfast at Sanma, where Messieurs Swanzy have another
storehouse, and where the French Company is building one for itself with
characteristic slowness. The settlement is ill-famed for the Chigo or
jigger (_Pulex penetrans_), unknown in my day upon the West African coast.
It has killed men by causing gangrenous sores. From 'Tabon,' [Footnote:
'Tabon' is evidently corrupted from the popular greeting ''Sta bom?' (Are
you well? How d'e do?)] the Brazil, it crept over to Sao Paulo de Loanda,
and thence it spread far and wide up and down coast, and deep into the
interior.
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