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Updated: June 6, 2025
Soon after midnight, I accompanied Lieutenant Badgeley from his Majesty's ship Eden, on board the schooner African, Captain Smith, when we got under weigh to proceed round the coast of the Bight of Biafra, between the Camaroon River and Cape Formosa, for the purpose of cruising off, and entering any of the rivers, in quest of vessels trading for slaves, where we might have reason to believe that the inhuman traffic was pursued.
The island of Fernando Po, situated off the western coast of Africa, in the Gulf or Bight of Biafra, between 3°. and 4°. N. latitude, and 8°. and 9°. E. longitude, is about one hundred and twenty miles in circumference.
The rivers of the great mangrove-swamp from the Sombreiro to the Rio del Rey are now known pretty surely not to be branches of the Niger, but the upper regions of this part of the Bight are much neglected by English explorers. I believe the great swamp region of the Bight of Biafra is the greatest in the world, and that in its immensity and gloom it has a grandeur equal to that of the Himalayas.
The cruising ground embraced the coasts of Upper and Lower Guinea, and the coast of Biafra, with occasional visits of recruit and recreation to Cape Town and St. Helena. The work was arduous, monotonous, and exhausting, especially during the rainy season, when the decks were continually deluged with water, and dry clothing was the exception, not the rule.
Inde Nigritarum ampla est regio, ad utramque Nigri amnis ripam: longitudo ejus porrigitur a Nilo et Meroe insula, usque ad Nigri ostia et Oceanum. Regna in ea sunt haec, ab urbibus denominata: Gualata, Hoden, Genocha, Senega, Tombuti, Melli, Bitonin, Gurnea, Temian, Dauma, Cano, Cassena, Benin, Zanfara, Guangara, Borno, Nubia, Biafra, Medra. Athiopia Interior qua est Abissinorum.
Throughout the Bights of Benin and Biafra, where the chief stalks about with his fetishman and his executioner, there is still some manliness amongst men, some modesty amongst women. There the offending wife fears beheading and 'saucy water; here she leaves with impunity her husband, who rarely abandons the better half.
This Gulf of Guinea was the heart of the slave trade: more vessels loaded up here with their black cargo than at any other port of the continent, and the Bight of Biafra, on which Calabar is situated, was ever the busiest spot. Mangrove forests, unequalled anywhere for immensity and gloom, fringe the entire sweep of the Gulf.
There is, however, but little doubt that the interior of the country is intersected by very extensive water communications lying between the bight of Benin and Biafra, and I heard Captain Owen say, that, in his opinion, the Niger would be found to discharge itself in one of these bights, a fact, which I have the satisfaction to learn, is now proved by the recent discovery of the Landers.
Reflecting that time evidently had made little change in Jeekie, Alan studied this route map with care, and found that it started from Old Calabar, in the Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa, whence it ran up to the Great Qua River, which it followed for a long way.
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