Leaving Esoon You Go On Up The Hill Through
Another Plantation To The Summit.
Immediately after leaving the
town we struck westwards; and when we got to the top of the next
hill we had a view that showed us we were dealing with another type
of country.
The hills to the westward are lower, and the valleys
between them broader and less heavily forested, or rather I should
say forested with smaller sorts of timber. All our paths took us
during the early part of the day up and down hills, through swamps
and little rivers, all flowing Rembwe-wards. About the middle of
the afternoon, when we had got up to the top of a high hill, after
having had a terrible time on a timber fall of the first magnitude,
into which four of us had fallen, I of course for one, I saw a sight
that made my heart stand still. Stretching away to the west and
north, winding in and out among the feet of the now isolated mound-
like mountains, was that never to be mistaken black-green forest
swamp of mangrove; doubtless the fringe of the River Rembwe, which
evidently comes much further inland than the mangrove belt on the
Ogowe. This is reasonable and as it should be, though it surprised
me at the time; for the great arm of the sea which is called the
Gaboon is really a fjord, just like Bonny and Opobo rivers, with
several rivers falling into it at its head, and this fjord brings
the sea water further inland.
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