The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

374 WEST AFEIOA.
beautj' of its cascade, which is visible even from the sea. At this distance it looks
like a bright silver thread drawn across the current, but a nearer view reveals a
broad sheet of water falHng from a height of 50 feet over a rocky ledge above
which rise two huge granite boulders, one crowned with a wide-branching tree
and encircled by a green girdle of brushwood. Half a mile lower down the river
enters the sea between two sandy banks strewn with granite rocks.
Climate—Floka—Fauna.
Apart from the great moimtain, which forms a little world of its own, the
Cameroons climate and natural history differ but slightly from those of the Slave
.9° 5.3 50
Fig. 181. The Lobe Falls.
Scale 1 :
11,000.
'. • Neg:i'o Hute.
'V.
560 Yards.
. • « •
.i-Z-
!' L
Coast and Lower Niger. As in the neighbouring tropical regions the simimer
rains, already abundant in May, continue to increase till the end of August, usually
ceasing by the beginning of October. In November sudden squalls and tornadoes
are frequent, and the vapours are so dense that even from the foot of the volcano
the summit is visible only at dawn and sunset, except when the dry north-east
harmattan prevails.
As on the Guinea coast, the spontaneous vegetation is represented by the man-
grove on the half-submerged marine banks, by the pandandus and raffia palm on
the lowlands, and higher up by forests of great trees matted together by a tangled