John Duncan, who visited Dahome in 1845. King
Gezo allowed him a guard of a hundred men, in order to explore with safety
the 'Mahi, or Kong Mountains.' His son and successor was not so generous;
he systematically and churlishly refused all travellers, myself included,
permission to pass northwards of his capital. The Lifeguardsman found the
chain, which is distant more than a hundred miles from Agbome, differing
from his expectations in character, appearance, and even position. The
grand, imposing line looked from afar like colossal piles of ruins; a
nearer view showed immense blocks, some of them 200 feet long, egg-shaped
and lying upon their sides. Nearly all the settlements had chosen the
summits, doubtless for defence. Mr. Duncan crossed the whole breadth of
these 'Kong Mountains,' and pushed 180 miles beyond them over a level land
which must shed to the Niger.
These descriptions denote a range of granite, the rock which forms the
ground-floor of the Sierra Leone peninsula and the Gold Coast, possibly
varied by syenites and porphyries. It would probably contain, like the
sea-subtending mountains of Midian, large veins of eminently metalliferous
quartz, outcropping from the surface and forming extensions of the reefs
below.
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