So great is the production of cotton that great quantities can be shipped to England at any time when the supply from other countries is so small as to raise the market price. No matter how extortionate the price may have been before the arrival of the Senegambia supply, it must soon become reasonable when the African cargo reaches English ports.
The west coast of Africa, from Senegambia to the Nourse River, is called the Guinea Coast. This name was derived from the Portuguese language.
The coast line is, generally speaking, very low. Navigators approaching it are obliged to make the tree tops along the shore their sailing guides until quite close to land; for only then is the outline of the coast visible.
GUINEA COAST NATIVE.
Just north of the equator, in the Bight of Benin, the coast loses this marked characteristic and becomes high and bold, with the Cameroon Mountains for a background. Again, near Sierra Leone it presents a bold front to the sea.
These rugged features in the coast line are, however, noticeable exceptions to its general character. Frequently it presents a dead level, which extends from thirty to fifty miles inland.
"The heights which skirt the northern coast line of the Gulf of Guinea, and which stretch as far as the head waters of the Senegal and Gambia, and in the inner slopes of which the Niger also has its sources, may be considered as an extension of the Great South African Plateau. But they are of less general elevation; and that best known part of the ridge, which has the name of the Kong Mountains, is, apparently, not higher than from two thousand to three thousand feet."
This, perhaps, will help us to understand more clearly why one authentic author has stated that "the supposed Kong Mountains do not exist." Doubtless, he does not consider the ridge of a lofty enough elevation to be designated as a mountain range.
There are numerous rivers. Some of these extend far back into the deepest recesses of Central Africa.