THE YORUBA-SPEAKING PEOPLES.

The land is open, flat, and devoid of stones. Jebu is an exception, being thickly forested; but it appears that less territory has been gained from the sea south of Jebu, and east of Lagos generally, than in the districts to the west, between Lagos and Dahomey modern spelling of Dahomi. To the east of Lagos, the old coastline seems to have been almost identical with the northern shores of the Kradu and Lekki lagoons, and the waterway that connects them by way of Epi. To the west, it appears to have trended back northwards beyond the lagoons of Oluge and Porto Novo. It is only after crossing the narrow lagoon or creek called Ajarra Creek—which runs in a convex curve from the Porto Novo lagoon to the Okpara River—that stones are found in the soil. About twenty miles to the west of this, there appears to have been at one time a great bay, the northern limit of which was the Ko, or Great Marsh, of Dahomey, thirty-five miles from the present coastline. The dotted line on the accompanying map shows the probable position of the ancient coastline between the Volta River and Lekki.

Northward of the old coastline, the Yoruba country rises very gradually in a succession of low-lying plateaus, traversed by a few lines of low hills or ground undulations. However, a chain of mountains, whose general direction is east and west, extends at about eight degrees north latitude from Dahomey to the northern border of Ijesa, where the country is rugged and difficult to traverse. Isolated and densely wooded hills, from 800 to 1,200 feet high, are also found in Ife and Ondo.

In some parts, such as at Sakiti, north of Ajarra, and at