Its noble river is the distinguishing feature of the Calabar country. About twelve miles wide at its mouth, from Tom Shott's point on the west to East Head, it preserves nearly the same breadth unobstructed up to Parrot Island, about thirty miles. For ten miles farther it is wider by the union of several streams, but the number of islands thereabouts forming quite a labyrinth, divide it into channels, and prevent its full breadth being seen. Some of these islands are many miles long. On the eastern, or smaller river, Duke Town stands. On a small stream, connecting that and the western, or greater river, Creek Town stands. The western, sometimes called Cross river, is divided into three channels by long narrow islands for forty miles above Parrot Island. Two of these had been traced by Captain Beecroft before we went to the country; the third or most westerly was explored by myself, as shall be related in its place. That channel, commencing at Isong Iyang eighty miles from the sea, receives various tributaries from the Egbo Shary country, and is thenceforward almost quite separated from the others, by a continuous line of islands and sand-banks, which terminate in the “Spit,” a dangerous shoal with breakers off the river mouth.

Captain Beecroft first explored the river, in the steamer Ethiope, in 1843, to a distance of one hundred and fifty miles above Creek Town, and found it great and strong as far as he went.