'FRENCH POSSESSIONS IN THE GULF OF ADEN. COMPILED BY CAPTAIN E.J.E SWAYNE, 16TH BENGAL INFANTRY.' [‎9v] (23/76)

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CHAPTER II.
General Description.
Water, Geology, Cultivation, Climate, Fauna, and Flora.
General Description.—T\\e Gulf of Tajoura, whose shores are now entirely
within the French sphere of interest, has the form
General Description. ^ an estuary. Its mouth, between Cape Ras Bir,
on the north, and Cape Ras Jibouti, on the south, is about 29 miles wide.
A straight line joining the two capes passes through the islands of Mushah,
at one-third of its length from Ras Jibouti.
The gulf, which penetrates about 58 miles into the land, gradually becomes
narrower and narrower, until it reaches the small entrance to Gubbet-Kharab, a
circular inland sea surrounded by mountains.
Good anchorage exists only in a few places, the best being found at Jibouti
and Obok.
The anchorage at Tajoura is too shallow and exposed, and the entrance to
Gubbet-Kharab is difficult in a heavy sea.
The whole of the coast from Ras Dumeirah to the neighbourhood of Jibouti
consists of a line of great sandy plateaux, descending from a high inland range,
whose summits from east to west are—Jebel Jain, Jebel Gudeh, and Jebel Sirayo.
Of these, Jebel Gudeh is perhaps the highest. It is tabular in form, and rises
abruptly to 5,250 feet above the sea.
The line of plateaux, running generally in a parallel direction with the coast,
now approaches and now recedes from the sea. Sometimes they jut out into the
sea as steep cliffs, at others they retire, and leave a strip of low-lying stony country
of varying width between themselves and the beach. At Jibouti the plateaux
break up into detached hills, and then the coast as far as Berbera is low and
sandy.
Water .—Numerous water-courses, full to overflowing after recent rain, but at
Water other times dry, descend from the interior mountains
and cut their way deep through the plateaux to
the sea.
Here and there, where a number of these water-courses join, a valley is form
ed, broad at its mouth on the sea shore but narrowing quickly as it cuts back
into the plateaux.
The valley beds are flat, and in their upper end covered with loose boulders
and choked with thorn bushes. Although dry for the greater part of the year,
there is always an underlying sub-stratum of water, and it can easily be obtained
by digging pits in the sand.
The water is generally brackish, but is good enough for domestic animals
and for agricultural purposes. As wells are dug higher up the valleys, the water
becomes sweeter and has no ill effect on Europeans or natives, although the
former generally sufier from diarrhoea for a time before they become used to it.
Tvvo of the most important valleys are those situated at Obok and at Atella
a few miles southward.
In the former brackish water is found at a depth of from six to nine feet
Many wells have been dug in the sandy bed. They supply the drinking water
for the natives and water the gardens in which the French grow European veget
ables. r
A chemical analysis of this water shews the presence of bicarbonate of
sulphur,^ lime, silica, chlorate of sodium, chlorate of potassium and chlorate of
magnesia.