where the current was gentle. The land on both sides the cut is low, swampy and thickly covered with mangrove, (Rhizophora Mangle.) Notwithstanding this, there are two villages in the midst of the swamps, the inhabitants of which enjoy good health, affording an example of a fact often noticed in the West-Indies and tropical America, that people might live with impunity in the midst of regions from which is constantly distilled the most dangerous miasma.[1]
The Ogun is navigable for steam-vessels of not over five feet draft during seven or eight months of the year, namely, from about a fortnight after the first rainy season in May, to December, about a month after the cessation of the last rains. After this time the quantity of water diminishes rapidly, so that in February and March an infant could easily ford it at places where it was not long before as deep and wide as the Schuylkill at Philadelphia.
Vessels of the same draft can during the other four or five months always ascend as far as Gaun, about one third the distance. There being plenty of water at the time I ascended, the journey to Abbeokuta took five days. When the river is very high, or, as in the last of the dry season, has but little water,
- ↑ See similar example in Backie's Narrative, p. 195.
