a tract of country on the coast of Western Africa, on a bay or bight of the same name, situated at the easternmost extremity of the Gulf of Guinea. It has long been known that a number of broad estuaries open into this bight from the north; but, owing to a strange want of enterprise, or some other cause, European vessels trading on this coast have not hitherto ascended any of these beyond fifty or sixty miles from its embouchure. Lander the traveller, however, in descending the Niger, arrived by one of these channels in the Bight of Biafra; thus solving the great problem of African geography, and leaving no doubt that the system of inter-ranched river-channels, extending from Benin to Biafra, constitutes the delta of the Niger, through which, by a number of outlets, it discharges itself into the sea. For the details of this important and interesting discovery, see the article NIGER.

Bight of, the most eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea, on the western coast of Africa, between Capes Formosa and Lopez, and containing the islands of Fernando Po, Prince, and St Thomas.