i ' - J- - > THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ' "' > - - ' "V TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD VOL. II. LONDON : PRINTED BY . SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD A PERSONAL NARRATIVE BY RICHARD F. BURTON AND VERNEY LOVETT CAMERON IN Two VOLUMES VOL. II. CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1883 [All rights -DT 5-H CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER PAGK XII. THE SA LEONITE AT HOME AND ABROAD . . 1 XIII. FROM SA LEONE TO CAPE PALMAS . . . . 44 XIV. FROM CAPE PALMAS TO AXIM 62 XV. AXIM, THE GOLD PORT OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE 81 XVI. GOLD ABOUT AXIM, ESPECIALLY AT TEE APATIM OR BUJIA CONCESSION Ill XVII. THE RETURN-VISIT TO KING BLAY ; ATABO AND BEIN 128 XVIII. THE IZRAH MINE THE INYOKO CONCESSION THE RETURN TO AXIM lf>4 XIX. To PRINCE'S RIVER AND BACK 177 XX. FROM AXIM TO INGOTRO AND AKANKON . .199 XXI. TO TUMENTO, THE ' GREAT CENTRAL DEPOT ' . . 229 XXII. TO INSIMANKAO AND THE BUTABUE RAPIDS . LM4 XXIII. To EFFUENTA, CROCKERVILLE, AND THE AJI BIPA HILL 255 561051 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAQK XXIV. To THE MINES OP ABOSU, OF THE 'GOLD COAST,' AND OP THE TAKWA ('AFRICAN GOLD COAST') COMPANIES 286 XXV. RETURN TO AXIM AND DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE 300 CONCLUSION 30 1> APPENDIX. I. 1. THE ASHANTI SCARE 31 1 2. THE LABOUR-QUESTION IN WESTERN AFRICA . . 326 3. GOLD-DIGGING IN NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA . . 338 II. PART I. LIST OF BIRDS COLLECTED BY CAPTAIN BURTON AND COMMANDER CAMERON 368 PART II. LIST OP PLANTS COLLECTED ON THE GOLD COAST BY CAPTAIN BURTON AND COMMANDER CAMERON, R.N. (FURNISHED BY PROFESSOR OLIVER) 36!) INDEX 373 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. CHAPTER XII. THE SA LEONITE AT HOME AND ABROAD. IN treating this part of the subject I shall do my best to avoid bitterness and harsh judging as far as the duty of a traveller that of telling the whole truth permits me. It is better for both writer and reader to praise than to dispraise. Most Englishmen know negroes of pure blood as well as * coloured persons ' who, at Oxford and elsewhere, have shown themselves fully equal in intellect and capacity to the white races of Europe and America. These men afford incontestable proofs that the negro can be civilised, and a high responsibility rests upon them as the representatives of possible progress. But hitherto the African, as will presently appear, has not had fair play. The petting and pam- pering process, the spirit of mawkish reparation, and the coddling and high-strung sentimentality so deleterious VOL. II. B 2 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. to the tone of the colony, were errors of English judg- ment pure and simple. We can easily explain them. The sad grey life of England, the reflection of her climate, has ever welcomed a novelty, a fresh excite- ment. Society has in turn lionised the marmiton, or assistant-cook, self-styled an 'Emir of the Lebanon ;' the Indian 4 rajah,' at home a munshi, or language- master ; and the ' African princess,' a slave-girl picked up in the bush. It is the same hunger for sensation which makes the mob stare at the Giant and the Savage, the Fat Lady, the Living Skeleton, and the Spotted Boy. Before entering into details it will be necessary to notice the history of the colony l an oft-told tale ; yet nevertheless some parts will bear repetition. According to Pere Labat, the French founded in 1365 Petit Paris at ' Serrelionne,' a town defended by the fort of the Dieppe and Eouen merchants. The official date of the discovery is 1480, when Pedro deCintra, one of the gentlemen of Prince Henry < the Navigator,' risited the place, after his employer's death A.D. 1463. 1 The following is its popular chronology : 1787. First settlers (numbering 460) sailed. 1789. Town burnt by natives (1790 ?). 1791. St. George's Bay Company founded. 1792. Colonists (1,831) from Nova Scotia. 1794. Colony plundered by the French. 1800 Maroons (550) from Jamaica added. 1808. Sa Leone ceded to the Crown ; ' 'Cruits' introduced. 1827. Direct government by the Crown. HISTORY OF SA LEONE. . 3 In 1607 William Finch, merchant, found the names of divers Englishmen inscribed on the rocks, espe- cially Thos. Candish, or Cavendish, Captain Lister, and Sir Francis Drake. In 1666 the Sieur Villault de Bellefons tells us that the river from Cabo Ledo, or Cape Sierra Leone, had several bays, of which the fourth, now St. George's, was called Baie de France. This seems to confirm Pere Labat. I have noticed the Tasso fort, built by the English in 1695. The next account is by Mr. Surveyor Smith, 1 who says ' it is not certain when the English became masters of Sierra Leone, which they possessed unmolested until Eoberts the pirate took it in 1720.' Between 1785 and 1787 Lieutenant John Matthews, R.N., resided here, and left full particulars concerning the export slave-trade, appa- rently the only business carried on by the British. Modern Sa Leone is the direct outcome of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's memorable decision delivered in the case of Jas. Somerset v. Mr. James Gr. Stewart, his master. ' The claim of slavery never can be supported; the power claimed never was in use here or acknowledged by law.' This took place on June 21, 1772 ; yet in 1882 the Gold Coast is not wholly free. 2 1 He is mentioned in the last chapter. 2 Slavery was abolished on the Gold Coast by royal command on December 7, 1874 ; yet the Gold Coast Times declares that domestic slavery is an institution recognised by the law-courts of the Pro- tectorate. B 2 4 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Many 'poor blacks,' thrust out of doors by their quondam owners, nocked to the 'African's friend,' Granville Sharp, and company. Presently a charitable society, with a large command of funds and Jonas Hanway for chairman, was formed in London ; and our people, sorely sorrowing for their newly-found sin, proposed a colony founded on philanthropy and free labour in Africa. Sa Leone was chosen, by the advice of Mr. Smeathman, an old resident. In 1787 Captain Thompson, agent of the St. George's Bay Company, paid 30Z. to the Timni chief, Naimbana, alias King Tom, for the rocky peninsula, extending twenty square miles from the Rokel to the Ketu River. In the same year he took out the first batch of emi- grants, 460 black freed-men and about 60 whites, in the ship Nautilus, whose history so far resembled that of the Mayflower. Eighty-four perished on the journey, and not a few fell victims to the African climate and its intemperance ; but some 400 survived and built for themselves Granville Town. These settlers formed the first colony. In 1790 the place was attacked by the Timni tribe, to avenge the insult offered to their ' King Jimmy ' by the crew of an English vessel, who burnt his town. The people dispersed, and were collected from the bush with some difficulty by Mr. Falconbridge. This official was sent out from England early in 1791, HOW POPULATED. 5 and his wife wrote the book. In the same year (1791) St. George's Bay Company was incorporated under Act 31 Geo. III. c. 55 as the * Sierra Leone Company.' Amongst the body of ninety-nine proprietors the foremost names are Granville Sharp, William Wilber- force, William Ludlam, and Sir Eichard Carr Glynn. They spent 111,500^. in establishing and developing the settlement during the first ten and a half years of its existence ; and the directors organised a system of government, closely resembling the British constitu- tion, under Lieutenant Clarkson, B.N. Next year the second batch of colonists came upon the stage. The negroes who had remained loyal to England, and had been settled by the Government in Nova Scotia, found the bleak land utterly unsuitable, and sent home a delegate to pray that they might be restored to Africa. The directors obtained free passage in sixteen ships for 100 white men and 1,831 negroes. Led by Lieutenant Clarkson, they landed upon the Lioness range in March (1792), after losing sixty of their number. Bred upon maize and rice, bread and milk, the new comers sickened on cassava and ground-nuts. They had no frame-houses, and the rains set in early, about mid-May, before they had found shelter. The whites were attacked with climate-fever, which did not respect even the doctors. Quarrels and insubordination 6 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. resulted, and 800 of the little band were soon carried to the grave. Then a famine broke out. A ship from England, freighted with stores, provisions, and frame-houses, was driven back by a storm. Forty-five acres had been promised to each settler-family ; it was found necessary to diminish the number to four, and the denseness of the bush rendered even those four unmanageable. Disgusted with Granville Town, the new comers transferred themselves to the present site of Freetown, the northern Libreville. The Company offered annual premiums to encourage the building of farm-houses, stock -rearing, and growing provisions and exportable produce. Under Dr. Afzelius, afterwards Professor at Upsal, who first studied the natural history of the peninsula, they established an experimental garden and model farm. An English gardener was also employed to naturalise the large collection of valuable plants from the East and West Indies and the South Sea Islands supplied by Kew. The Nova Scotians, however, like true slaves, con- sidered agriculture servile and degrading work a prejudice which, as will be seen, prevails to this day not only in the colony, but throughout the length and breadth of the Dark Continent. Meanwhile war had broken out between England and France, causing the frequent detention of vessels ; and a store-ship in the harbour caught fire, the pre- ZACHARY MACAU LAY. 7 cursor of a worse misfortune. On a Sunday morning, 1794, as the unfortunates were looking out for the Company's craft (the Harpy\ a French man-of-war sailed into the roadstead, pillaged the ' church and the apothecary's shop,' and burnt boats as well as town. The assailant then wasted Granville, sailed up to Bance Island, and finally captured two vessels, besides the long-expected Harpy. Having thus left his mark, he disappeared, after granting, at the Governor's urgent request, two or three weeks' provision for the whites. Famine followed, with sickness in its train, and the neighbouring slave-dealers added all they could to the sufferings of the settlement. In the same year Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, became Governor for the first time. The Company also made its earliest effort to open up trade with the interior by a mission, and two of their servants penetrated 300 miles inland to Timbo, capital of that part of Pulo-land. A deputation of chiefs presently visited the settlement to propose terms ; but the futility of the negro settler was a complete obstacle to the development of the internal commerce, the main object for which the Company was formed. Yet the colony prospered; in 1798 Freetown numbered, besides public buildings, about 300 houses. In 1800 the Sierra Leone Company obtained a Charter of Justice from the Crown, authorising the 8 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD, directors to appoint a Governor and Council, and to make laws not repugnant to those of England. During the same year the settlers, roused to wrath by a small ground-rent imposed upon their farms, rose in rebellion. This movement was put down by introducing a third element of 530 Maroons, who arrived in October. They were untamable Coromanti (Gold Coast) negroes who boasted that among blacks they were what the English are among whites, able to fight and thrash all other tribes. They had escaped from their Spanish masters when the British conquered Jamaica in 1655 ; they took to the mountains, and, joined by desperadoes, they built sundry scattered settlements. 1 Introducing these men fostered the ill-feeling which, in the earlier part of the present century, prevented the rival sections from intermarrying. Many of the disaffected Sa Leonites left the colony ; some fled to the wilds and the wild ones of the interior, and a few remained loyal. Rumours of native invasions began to prevail. The Governor was loth to believe that King Tom would thus injure his own interests, until one morning, when forty war-canoes, carrying armed Timnis, were descried paddling round the eastern point. Londoners and Nova Scotians fled to the fort, and next day the Timni 1 In 1738, after regular military operations, the Maroons of Jamaica agreed to act as police and to deliver up runaways. In 1795 the Trelawny men rebelled, and, having inflicted a severe loss upon the troops, were deported to Nova Scotia and Sa Leone. NATIVE ATTACKS. 9 drum sounded the attack. The Governor, who at- tempted to parley, was wounded ; but the colonists, seeing that life was at stake, armed themselves and beat off the assailants, when the Maroons of Grranville Town completed the rout. After this warning a wall with strong watch-towers was built round Freetown. Notwithstanding all precautions, another 'Timni rising ' took place in 1803. The assailants paddled down in larger numbers from Porto Loko, landed at Kissy, and assaulted Freetown, headed by a jumping and drumming ' witch-woman.' Divided into three storming parties, they bravely attacked the gates, but they were beaten back without having killed a man. The dead savages lay so thick that the Governor, fearing pestilence, ordered the corpses to be cast into the sea. The first law formally abolishing slavery was passed, after a twenty years' campaign, by the energy of Mes- sieurs Clarkson, Stephen, Wilberforce, and others, on May 23, 1806. In 1807 the importation of fresh negroes into the colonies became illegal. On March 1 6, 1 808, Sa Leone received a constitution, and was made a depot for released captives. This gave rise to the preventive squadron, and in due time to a large importation of the slaves it liberated. Locally called ' 'Cruits,' many of these savages were war-captives ; others were criminals condemned to death, whom the wise chief preferred to sell than to slay. With a marvellous obtuseness and want io TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. of common sense our Government made Englishmen by wholesale of these wretches, with eligibility to sit on juries, to hold office, and to exercise all the precious rights of Englishmen. Instead of being apprenticed or bound to labour for some seven years under superin- tendence, and being taught to clear the soil, plant and build, as in similar cases a white man assuredly would have been, they were allowed to loaf, lie, and cheat through a life equally harmful to themselves and others. ' Laws of labour,' says an African writer, 1 ' may be out of place (date ?) in England, but in Sierra Leone they would have saved an entire population from trusting to the allurements of a petty, demoralising trade ; they would have saved us the sight of decayed villages and a people becoming daily less capable of bearing the laborious toil of agricultural industry. To handle the hoe has now become a disgrace, and men have lost their manhood by becoming gentlemen.' I shall pre- sently return to this subject. Thus the four colonies which successively peopled Sa Leone were composed of destitute paupers from England, of fugitive Nova Scotian serviles, of outlawed Jamaican negroes, and of slave-prisoners or criminals from every region of Western and inner Africa. The first society of philanthropists, the ' Sierra Leone Company,' failed, but not without dignity. It 1 Sierra Leone Weekly Times, July 30, 1862. THE COMPANY DIES. n had organised a regular government, and even coined its own money. In the British Museum a silver piece like a florin bears on the obverse ' Sierra Leone Com- pany, Africa,' surrounding a lion guardant standing on a mountain ; the reverse shows between the two num- bers 50 and 50 two joined hands, representing the union of England and Africa, and the rim bears ' half-dollar piece, 1791,' the year of the creation of the colony. The Company's intentions were pure ; its hopes and expectations were lofty, and the enthusiasts flattered themselves that they had proved the practicability of civilising Africa. But debt and native wars ended their career, and transferred, on January 1, 1808, their rights to the Crown. The members, however, did not lose courage, but at once formed the African Institu- tion, the parent of the Royal Geographical Society. The government of the Crown colony has under- gone some slight modifications. In 1866 it was made, with very little forethought, a kind of government- general, the centre of rule for all the West African settlements. The unwisdom of this step was presently recognised, and Sa Leone is now under a charter dated December 17, 1874, the govern or-in-chief having command over the administration of Bathurst, Gambia. Similarly farther south, Lagos, now the Liverpool of West Africa, has been bracketed, foolishly enough, with the Gold Coast. 12 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. The liberateds, called by the people ' 'Cruits,' and officially ' recaptives,' soon became an important factor. In 1811 they numbered 2,500 out of 4,500; and be- tween June 1819 and January 1833 they totalled 27,167 hands. They are now represented by about seventeen chief, and two hundred minor, tribes. A hundred languages, according to Mr. Koelle, increased to a hundred and fifty by Bishop Vidal, and reduced to sixty by Mr. Griffith, are spoken in the streets of Free- town, a 'city' which in 1860 numbered 17,000 and now 22,000 souls. The inextricably mixed descendants of the liberateds may be a total of 35,430, more than half the sum of the original settlement, 53,862. Being mostly criminals, and ergo more energetic spirits, they have been the most petted and patronised by colonial rule. There were governors who attempted to enforce our wise old regulations touching apprenticeship, still so much wanted in the merchant navy ; but disgust, recall, or death always shortened their term of office. Naturally enough, the ' 'Cruits ' were fiercely hated by Colonists, Settlers, and Maroons. Mrs. Melville reports an elderly woman exclaiming, ' Well, 'tis only my wonder that we (settlers) do not rise up in one body and kill and slay, kill and slay ! Dem Spanish and Portuguese sailors were quite right in making slaves. I would do de same myself, suppose I were in dere place.' ' He is only a liberated ! ' is a favourite sneer at the new THE TWO RIVAL RACES. 13 arrivals ; so in the West Indies, by a curious irony of fate, ' Willyfoss nigger ' is a term of abuse addressed to a Congo or Guinea ' recaptive.' But here all the tribes are bitterly hostile to one another, and all combine against the white man. After the fashion of the Gold Coast they have formed themselves into independent caucuses called 'companies,' who set aside funds for their own advancement and for the ruin of their rivals. The most powerful and influential races are two the Aku and the Ibo. The Akus l or Egbas of Yoruba, the region behind Lagos, the Eyeos of the old writers, so called from their chief town, ' Oyo,' are known by their long necklaces of tattoo. They are termed the Jews of Western Africa ; they are perfect in their combination, and they poison with a remarkable readi- ness. The system of Egba ' clanship ' is a favourite, sometimes an engrossing, topic for invective with the local press, who characterise this worst species of ' trades- union,' founded upon intimidation and something worse, as the ' Aku tyranny ' and the ' Aku Inquisition.' The national proverb speaks the national sentiment clearly enough : * Okan kau le ase ibi, ikoko li asi Imolle bi atoju Imolle tau, ke atoju ibi pella, bi aba ku ara enni ni isni 'ni ' (' A man must openly practise the duties of kinship, even though he may privately belong to a 1 This is a nickname from the national salutation, ' Aku, ku, ku 1 ' (' How d'ye do 1 ' ) 14 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. (secret) club ; when he has attended the club he must also attend to the duties of kinship, because when he dies his kith and kin are those who bury him '). The Ibos, or ' Eboes ' of American tales, are even more divided ; still they feel and act upon the principle ' Union is strength.' This large and savage tribe, whose headquarters are at Abo, about the head of the Ni- gerian delta, musters strong at Sa Leone ; here they are the Swiss of the community ; the Kruboys, and further south the Kabenda-men being the 'Paddies.' It is popularly said that while the Aku will do anything for money, the Ibo will do anything for revenge. Both races are astute in the extreme and intelligent enough to work harm. Unhappily, their talents rarely take the other direction. In former days they had faction-fights : the second eastern district witnessed the last serious disturbance in 1834. Now they do battle under the shadow of the law. ' Aku constables will not, unless in extreme cases, take up their delinquent countrymen, nor will an Ebo constable apprehend an Ebo thief; and so on through all the different tribes,' says the lady ' Resident of Sierra Leone.' If the majority of the jury be Akus, they will unhesitatingly find the worst of Aku criminals innocent, and the most innocent of whites, Ibos, or Timnis guilty. The Grovernment has done its best to weld all those races into one, and has failed. Many, however, are becoming Moslems, as at TRIAL BY JURY. 15 Lagos, and this change may have a happier effect by introducing the civilisation of El-Islam. Trial by jury has proved the reverse of a blessing to most non-English lands ; in Africa it is simply a curse. The mode] institution becomes here, as in the United States, a better machine for tyranny than any tyrant, except a free people, ever invented. The British Con- stitution determines that a man shall be tried by his peers. Half a dozen of his peers at Sa Leone may be full-blooded blacks, liberated slaves, half-reformed fetish-worshippers, sometimes with a sneaking fondness for Shango, the Egba god of fire ; and, if not criminals and convicts in their own country, at best paupers clad in dishclouts and palm-oil. The excuse is that a white jury cannot be collected among the forty or fifty eligibles in Freetown. It is vain to ' challenge,' for other negroes will surely take the place of those objected to. No one raises the constitutional question, ' Are these half-re- claimed savages my peers?' And if he did, Justice would sternly reply, ' Yes.' The witnesses will for- swear themselves, not, like our 'posters,' for half a crown, but gratis, because the plaintiff or defendant is a fellow-tribesman. The judge may be ' touched with a tar-brush ; ' but, be he white as milk, he must pass judgment according to verdict. This state of things recalls to mind the Ireland of the early nineteenth century, when the judges were prefects armed with a 16 TO THE. GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. penal code, and the jurymen vulgar, capricious, and factious partisans. Surely such a caricature of justice, such an outrage upon reason, was never contemplated by British law or lawgiver. Our forefathers never dreamt that the free institutions for which they fought and bled during long centuries would thus be prostituted, would be lavished upon every black * recaptive,' be he thief, wizard, or assassin, after living some fourteen days in a black corner of the British empire. Even the Irishman and the German must pass some five years preparing them- selves in the United States before they become citizens. Sensible Africans themselves own that ' the negro race is not fitted, without a guiding hand, to exercise the privileges of English citizenship.' A writer of the last century justly says, ' Ideas of perfect liberty have too soon been given to this people, considering their utter ignorance. If one of them were asked why he does not repair his house, clear his farm, mend his fence, or put on better clothes, he replies that " King no give him work dis time," and that he can do no more than " burn bush and plant little cassader for yam.'" But a kind of hysterica passio seems to have mastered the cool common sense of the nation a fury of repentance for the war about the Asiento contract, for building Bristol and Liverpool with the Qesh and blood of the slave, and for the 2,130,000 IMPROVEMENT AT SA LEONE. 17 negroes supplied to Jamaica between ] 680 and 1786. Like a veteran devotee Great Britain began atoning for the coquetries of her hot youth. While Spain and Por- tugal have passed sensible laws for gradual emancipa- tion, England, with a sublime folly, set free by a stroke of the pen, at the expense of twenty millions sterling the born and bred slaves of Jamaica. The result waf an orgy for a week, a systematic refusal to work, and for many years the ruin of the glorious island. If the reader believes I have exaggerated the state of things long prevalent at Sa Leone, he is mistaken. And he will presently see a confirmation of these statements in the bad name which the Sa Leonite bears upon the whole of the western coast. Yet, I repeat, the colony is changed for the better, physically by a supply of pure water, morally by the courage which curbed the black abuse. Twenty years ago to call a negro ' nigger ' was actionable ; many a 51. has been paid for the indulgence of lese-majeste against the ' man and brother.; ' and not a few 501. when the case was brought into the civil courts. After a rough word the Sa Leonite would shake his fist at you and trot off exclaiming, < Lawyer Eainy (or Montague) lib for town ! ' A case of mild assault, which in Eng- land would be settled by a police-magistrate and a fine of five shillings, became at Freetown a serious i bob.' Niger, accompanied by his friends or his ' company,' VOL. II. C i8 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. betook himself to some limb of the law, possibly a pettifogger, certainly a pauper who braved a deadly climate for uncertain lucre. His interest was to pro- mote litigation and to fill his pockets by what is called sharp practice. After receiving the preliminary fee of 51., to be paid out of the plunder, he demanded exemplary damages, and the defendant was lightened of all he could afford to pay. When the offender was likely to leave the station, the modus operandi was as follows. The writ of summons was issued. The lawyer strongly recommended an apology and a promise to defray costs, with the warning that judgment would go by default against the absentee. If the defendant prudently ' stumped up,' the affair ended ; if not, a capias was taken out, and the law ran its course. A jury was chosen, and I have already told the results. At length these vindictive cases became so numerous and so scandalous that strong measures became neces- sary. Governor Blackall (1862-66) was brave enough to issue an order that cases should not be brought into the civil courts unless complainants could prove that they were men of some substance. Immense indigna- tion was the result ; yet the measure has proved most beneficial. The negro no longer squares up to you in the suburbs and dares the ' white niggah ' to strike the ' black gen'leman.' He mostly limits himself to a mild impudence. If you ask a well-dressed black the way RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 19 to a house, he may still reply, ' I wonder you dar 'peak me without making compliment ! ' The true remedy, however, is still wanting, a t court of summary jurisdic- tion presided over by men of honour and probity.' l It cannot be said that the Sa Leonite has suffered from any want of religious teaching or educational activity. On the contrary, he has had too much of both. After the collapse of Portuguese missionary enter- prise on the West Coast, the first attempts to establish Wesleyan Methodism at Sa Leone were made in 1796, when Dr. Thomas Coke tried and failed. The Nova Scotian colonists in 1792 had already brought amongst them Wesleyans, Baptists, and Lady Huntingdon's con- nexion. This school, which differs from other Method- ists only in Church government, still has a chapel at Sa Leone. Thus each sect claims 1792 as the era of its commencement in the colony. In 1811 Mr. Warren, the first ordained Wesleyan missionary, reached Free- town and died on July 23, 1812. He was followed by Mrs. Davies, the prima donna of the corps: she ( gathered up her feet,' as the native saying is, on De- cember 15, 1815. Since that time the place has never lacked an unbroken succession of European missionary deaths. The Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799, 1 Wanderings in West Africa, ii. pp. 221-23. c 2 20 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. sent out, five years afterwards, its first representatives, MM. Eenner and Hartwig, Germans supported by English funds. In 1816 they devoted themselves steadily to converting the l recaptives,' and many of them, together with their wives, fell bravely at their posts. In twenty years thirty-seven out of seventy died or were invalided. The names of Wylander and W. A. B. Johnson are deservedly remembered. Nearly half a million sterling was spent at Sa Leone, where the stone church of Kissy Eoad was built in 1839, and that of Pademba Eoad in 1849. The grants were wisely withdrawn in 1862. At the present moment only 300L is given, and the church is reported to be self-supporting. The first bishopric was established in 1852. In 1861 Bishop Beckles instituted the native Church pastorate : its constitution is identical with that of the Episcopalians, whose ecclesiastical functions it has taken over. According to the last .census-returns, Sa Leone contains 18,660 Episcopalians ; 17,093 Wesleyans and Methodists of the New Connection ; 2,717 Lady Huntingdonians ; 388 Baptists, and 369 Catholics. These native Christians keep the Sundays and Church festivals with peculiar zest, and delight in discordant hymns and preaching of the most ferocious kind. The Dissenting chapel combines the Christy minstrel with Messieurs Moody and Sankey ; and the well-peppered 'PSALMODY. 21 palaver-sauce of home cookery reappears in hotly spiced, bitterly pious sermons and ' experiences ;' in shouts of ' Amen ! ' ' Grlory ! ' and ' Hallelujah! ' and in promiscuous orders to * Hoi' de fort.' Eight well do I remember while the rival pilots, Messieurs Elliot and Johnson, were shamelessly perjuring themselves in the police- court, 1 the junior generation on the other side of the building, separated by the thinnest of party- walls, was refreshing itself with psalms and spiritual songs. We went to hear the psalmody. Ascending the staircase in the gable opposite the court-house, we passed down the hall, and saw through the open door the young idea at its mental drill in the hands of a pedagogue, apparently one of the avaifjuoa-ap/ca, who, ghastly white and thatched with Paganini hair, sat at the head of the room, the ruling body of the unruly rout. Down the long length, whose whitewashed walls were garnished with inscriptions, legal, moral, and religious, all sublime as far as size went, were ranged parallel rows of negrillons in the vast costumal variety of a ragged school. They stood bolt upright, square to the fore, in the position of * 'tention,' their naked toes disposed at an angle of 60, with fingers close to the seams of their breeches (when not breekless), heads up and eyes front. Face and body were motion- less, as if cast in ebony: nothing moved but the 1 Wanderings in West Africa, i. pp. 256-58. 22 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. saucer-like white eyes and the ivory-lined mouths, from whose ample lips and gape issued a prodigious volume of sound. Native assistants, in sable skins and yellowish white chokers, carrying music-scores and armed with canes, sloped through the avenues, occasionally halting to frown down some delinquent, whose body was not perfectly motionless, and whose soul was not wholly fixed upon the development of sacred time and tune. I have no doubt that they sang The sun, the moon, and all the stars, &c. precisely in the same spirit as if they had been in- toning Peter Hill ! poor soul ! Flog 'um wife, oh no ! oh no ! and that famous anthropological assertion Eve ate de appel, Gib one to daddy Adam ; And so came mi-se-ry Up-on dis worl'. Chorus (bis) Oh sor-row, oh sor-row ! Tri-bu-la-tion Until sal-va-tion day. It is a pity that time and toil should be thus wasted. The negro child, like the Hindu, is much sharper, because more precocious, than the European, 1 ; at six years he will become a good penman ; in fact, he promises more than he can perform. Reaching the age of puberty, his capacity for progress suddenly disappears, NEGRO SCHOOLBOYS. 23 the physical reason being well known, and the 'cute lad becomes a dummer Junge. Mrs. Melville thus de- scribes her small servant-girl from one of these schools : ' She looks almost nine years old ; and, as far as reading goes, she knows nothing more than her alphabet ; can repeat the Prayer-Book Catechism by rote, and one or two hymns, utterly ignorant all the while of the import of a single word.' Even in Europe education, till lately, exercised the judgment too little, the memory too much ; consequently there were more learned men than wise men. The system is now changing, and due attention is paid to the corpus sanum, the first requisite for the mens sana. The boys at Sa Leone are kept nine hours in school, learning verse by heart, practising a vocalisation which cannot be heard without pain, and toiling at the English language, which some mission- aries seem to hold a second revelation. Far better two or three hours of the ' three Es ' and six of the shop or workyard. Briefly, the system should be that of the Basle Missionary Society, 1 which combines abstract teaching with practical instruction in useful handicraft, and which thus suggests the belief that work is dignified as it is profitable. The Sa Leonites from their earliest days were greedy 1 I deeply regret that Wanderings in West Africa spoke far less fairly of this establishment than it deserves. My better j udgment had been warped by the prejudiced accounts of a fellow-traveller. 24 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR uOLD. to gain knowledge as the modern Greeks and Bulgarians ; but the motive was not exalted. Their proverb said, ' Read book, and learn to be rogue as well as white man.' Hence useless, fanciful subjects were in vogue ; algebra, as it were, before arithmetic ; and the poor made every sacrifice to give their sons a smattering of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The desire of entering the * professions ' naturally affected the standard of education. What is still wanted at Sa Leone is to raise the mass by giving to their teaching a more practical turn, which shall cultivate habits of industry, economy, and self-respect, and encourage handicrafts and agriculture as well as trade. I have already noticed the Fourah Bay College. The Church Missionary Grammar-School, opened in 1 845, prepares boarders and day-scholars for university education; and the curriculum is that of an ordinary English grammar-school. The establishment, which has already admitted over 1,000 boys, is now self- supporting, and has an invested surplus, with which tutors are sent to England for higher instruction in 1 paedagogia.' The Wesleyan High School for Boys, opened in 1874, receives youths from neighbouring colonies ; that for girls, originating with Mrs. Godman, the wife of a veteran missionary still on the Coast, was founded in 1879. It was cordially taken up by the natives, who subscribed all the funds. The founders NEGRO EDUCATION. 25 thought best to adopt the commercial principle ; but no one as yet has asked for profit, and the school shows signs of prosperity and progress. The Annie Walsh Memorial School for Grirls, dating from a be- quest by the lady whose name it bears, is under the management of the Church Missionary Society. The Catholics are, as usual, well to the fore. The priests keep a large school for boys, and the sisters educate young women and girls. I have before described the dark novice, Under a veil that wimpled was full low ; And over all a black stole shee did throw. The masters also make their children learn Arabic and English. There is a manliness and honesty in the look of the Mandenga and the Susu never seen in the impudent ' recaptive.' The dignity of El-Islam everywhere displays itself: it is the majesty of the monotheist, who ignores the degrading doctrine of original sin ; it is the sublime indifference to life which kazd wa kadar, by us meagrely translated 4 fatalism,' confers upon the votaries of ' the Faith.' These are not the remarks of a prejudiced sympathiser with El-Islam : many others have noted the palpable superiority of the Moslem over the missionary convert and the liberated populace of Sa Leone. As a rule journalism on the West Coast is still in 26 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the lowest stage of Eatanswillism, and the journal is essentially ephemeral. The newspapers of twenty years ago are all dead and forgotten. Such were the ' African Herald,' a * buff' organ, edited by the late Kev. Mr. Jones, a West Indian, and its successor, the ' African Weekly Times.' The ' Sierra Leone Gazette ' suc- cumbed when the Wesleyans established (1842) the 4 Sierra Leone Watchman.' Other defuncts are the ' Free Press,' a Kadical paper, representing Young Sa Leone, and a fourth, the * Intelligencer,' which strove to prove what has sometimes been asserted at negro indignation-meetings, namely, that ' a white man, if he behave himself, is as good as a black man.' Cain, like the rest of the family, was a negro; but when rebuked by the Creator he turned pale with fear, a tint inherited by his descendants. The theory is, par parenthese, as good as any other. The only papers now published are the ' West African Eeporter,' whose proprietor and editor was the late Hon. Mr. Grant, and the * Watchman,' a quasi-comic sheet. The worst feature of journalism in West Africa is that fair play is unknown to it. The negroes may thoroughly identify themselves with England, claim a share in her greatness, and display abundant lip-loyalty ; yet there is the racial aversion to Englishmen in the concrete, and to this is added the natural jealousy of seeing strangers monopolise the best appointments. THE SA LEONE PRESS. 27 The Sa Leonite openly declares that he and his can rule the land much better and more economically than the sickly foreigner, who spends half his service-time on board the steamers and at home. * Dere goes another white raskel to his grave ! ' they will exclaim at the sight of a funeral. ' Wish dey all go and leave colony to us.' And as the reading and paying public is mainly composed of Nigers, the papers must sooner or later cater for their needs, and lose no opportunity of casting obloquy and ridicule upon the authorities and Albus in general. We can hardly blame them. I have shown that the worst and most scandalous display of journalism comes from London. After the church, the school, and the newspaper, the most important civilising institution is the market. Sa Leone is favourably situated for collecting the in- terior trade, and yet seven-tenths of the revenue is derived from articles passing through the Loko and Kokel rivers ; the rest is levied from wines, spirits, and tobacco, and in the form of preposterous harbour- dues. The export duties are light, but the exports do not seem to have increased as rapidly as they should have done during the last twenty years ; this, too, despite missions into the interior and the hos- pitable reception of native chiefs and their messengers. There are no assessed or house taxes. The revenue and expenditure of the past five years have averaged, 28 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. respectively, 63,869L and 59,283., leaving a surplus of 4,586Z., which might profitably be expended upon roads. But the liabilities of the colony early in 1881 still amounted to 50,637?., being the balance of a debt resulting principally from the harbour-works. The present population of the original settlement including British Kwiah (Quiah), an early annexation is 53,862. The dependencies, Isles de Los, Tasso, Kikonkeh, and British Sherbro, according to the census of 1881, add 6,684, a figure which experts would in- crease by 4,000. The total, therefore, in round num- bers, would be nearly 65,000. At the last census only 163 were resident whites ; the crews and passengers of ships in port added 108. On the whole the Sa Leonite cannot be called a success. Servants in shoals present themselves on board the steamers, begging ' ma'sr ' to take them down coast. In vain. The fellow is handier than his southern brother : he can mend a wheel, make a coffin, or cut your hair. Yet none, save the veriest greenhorn, will engage him in any capacity. As regards civility and respectfulness he is far inferior to the emancipado of Cuba or the Brazil ; with a superior development of ' sass,' he is often an in- veterate thief. He has fits of drinking, when he becomes mad as a Malay. He gambles, he over- dresses himself, and he indulges in love-intrigues THE SA LEONITE AT HIS WORST. 29 till he has exhausted his means, and then he makes ' boss ' pay for all. With a terrible love of summonsing, and a thorough enjoyment of a law-court, he enters into the spirit of the thing like an attorney's clerk. He soon wearies of the less exciting life in the wilder settlements, where orgies and debauchery are not fully developed ; home-sickness seizes him, and he deserts his post, probably robbing house or till. Even a black who has once visited Sa Leone is considered spoilt for life, as if he had spent a year in England. Hence the eccentric Captain Phil. Beaver declared that he ' would rather carry a rattlesnake than a negro who has been in London.' I have met with some ugly developments of home-education. One was a yellow Dan Lambert, the son of a small shopkeeper, who was returning dubbed a 'Templar' from the Land of Liberty. He was not a pleasant companion. His face was that of a porker half-translated ; he yelped the regular Tom Coffee laugh ; and when asked why Sa Leone had not contributed to the Crimean Widow Fund, he uttered the benevolent wish that 'the damned and their brats might all starve like their husbands.' Another was a full-blooded negro, a petty huckster at the ' Eed Grave,' who, in his last ' homeward ' voyage, had met at Madeira the Dean and Deaness of Oxbridge. The lady resolved to keep up the creditable acquaintanceship : so strong is feminine 30 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. love for the 'black lion.' Shortly afterwards Niger paid his promised visit, which he described graphically and sans sense of shame how he had been met at the station by a tall gentleman in uniform and gold-laced hat, how he was invited to enter a carriage, and how great was his astonishment when the ' officer ' preferred standing in the open air behind to accompanying him inside. After this naive debut he showed tact. Mr. Dean wished to know if anything could be done towards advancing the interesting guest in his 'pro- fession ' not trade. We talk of an English school- master, but a mulatto or a negro becomes a ' professor.' Niger whispered ' No,' which, ladylike, meant a dis- tinct ' Yes.' He ended by graciously accepting an introduction to a Manchester firm, and soon relieved it of 16,OOOL No one who knows the West African coast will assert that the influence of Sa Leone has been in any way for good. All can certify that this colony, intended as a ' model of policy,' and founded with the object of promoting African improvement, has been the greatest obstacle to progress. She fought to keep every advantage to herself, and she succeeded in securing a monopoly of ' recaptives,' who were more wanted elsewhere. She became an incubus in 1820, when all British possessions from N. Lat. 20 to S. Lat. 20 were made her dependencies. The snake THE SA LEONITE. 31 was scotched in 1844 by the Gold Coast achieving her independence. Yet Sa Leone raised herself to a government-general in 1866, and possibly she will do so again. The Sa Leonite has ever distinguished himself by kicking down, as the phrase is, the ladder which raised him. No man maltreats his wild brother so much as the so-called ' civilised ' negro : he never addresses his congener except by ' You jackass ! ' and tells him ten times a day that he considers such trash like the dirt beneath his feet. Consequently he is hated and despised withal, being of the same colour as, while assuming such excessive superiority over, his former equals. No one also is more hopeless about the civilisation of Africa than the semi-civilised African returning to the ' home of his fathers.' He feels how hard has been his struggle to emerge from savagery ; he acknowledges, in his own case, a selection of species ; and he foresees no end to the centuries before there can be a nation equal even to himself. Yet in England and in books he will cry up the majesty of African kings, see, for a specimen, Bishop Crowther's ' Niger Diary.' He will give his fellow-countrymen, whom he thoroughly despises, a thousand grand gifts of morals and industry. I have heard a negro assert, with the unblushing effron- tery which animates the Exeter Hall speechifier, that at some African den of thieves men leave their money 32 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. with impunity in the storehouse or on the highway. I read the assertion of a mulatto, who well knew the contrary, ' A white man who supposes himself respected in Africa, because he is white, is grievously mistaken.' The ' aristocracy of colour ' is a notable and salient fact in Africa, where the chiefs are lighter hued and better grown than their subjects ; and the reason is patent they marry the handsomest women. Finally, the Sa Leonite is the horror of Europeans on the West Coast. He has been formally expelled by his neighbours, the Liberians. At Lagos and Abeokuta he lost no time in returning to his original fetishism, which the l recaptive ' apparently can never throw off. Moreover, he became an inveterate slave-dealer, im- pudently placing himself under native protection, and renegading the flag that saved the crime-serf from lifelong servitude. These ' insolent, vagabond loafers ' were the only men who gave me much trouble in the so-called ' Oil rivers,' where one of them accused a highly respected Scotch missionary of theft. Finally, the Gaboon merchants long preferred forfeiting the benefits of the mail-steamers to seeing themselves invaded by a locust tribe, whose loveliest view is, apparently, that which leads out of Sa Leone. Part of this demoralisation arose from the over- tenderness of the British Government, in deference to the philanthropist and the missionary. Throughout AKU AND IBO. 33 the Bights of Benin and Biafra, where the chief stalks about with his fetishman and his executioner, there is still some manliness amongst men, some modesty amongst women. There the offending wife fears be- heading and ' saucy water ; ' here she leaves with impunity her husband, who rarely abandons the better half. Consequently the sex has become vicious as in Egypt worse than the men, bad as these are. Petty larceny is carried on to such an extent that no im- provement is possible : as regards property, the peninsula contains the most communistic of com- munities. The robbers are expert to a degree ; they work naked and well greased, and they choose early dawn or the night-hour when the tornado is most violent. The men fight by biting, squeezing, and butting with the head, like the Brazilian capoeira. The women have a truly horrible way of putting out of the world an obnoxious lover. Ask an Aku if an Ibo is capable of poisoning you : he will- say em- phatically, ' Yes.' Put the same question to an Ibo touching an Aku, and he will not reply, * No.' With respect to the relative position of Japhet and Ham perhaps I should say Ham and Japhet ultra-philanthropy has granted all the aspirations of the Ethiopian melodist : VOL. II. 34 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. wish de legislatur would set dis darkle free ; Oh, what a happy place den de darkie world would be ! We'd have a darkie parliament, An' darkie code of law, An' darkie judges on de bench, Darkie barristers and aw. I own that darkey must be defended, and sturdily defended too, from the injustice and cruelty of the class he calls ' poor white trash ; ' but the protection should be in reason, or it becomes an injustice. Why, for instance, did the unwise negrophile propose to pro- tect the Jamaica negro against the Indian coolie ? Be- cause Niger wants it? Pure ignorance and prejudice of gentlemen who stay at home ! Though physically and mentally weaker than Europeans, the negro can hold his own, as Sa Leone proves, by that combination which enables cattle to resist lions. Japhet Albus is by nature aggressive ; if not, he would not now be dwelling in the tents of Shem and the huts of Ham. He feels towards Contrarius Albo as the game-cock regards the dunghill-fowl. Displays of this sentiment on the part of the white population must be repressed ; but this should be done fairly and without passion. I do not for a moment regret our philanthropical move, despite its awful waste of life and gold. England, however, can do her duty to Africa without cant, and humbug, and nonsense about the ' sin and crime of slavery.' Serfdom, like cannibalism and polygamy, are NOTES ON SLAVERY. 35 the steps by which human society rose to its present status : to abuse them is ignorantly to kick down the ladder. The spirit of Christianity may tend to abolish servitude ; but the letter distinctly admits it, and the translators have unfairly rendered ' slave ' and * bonds- man ' by ' servant,' which is absurd. England can fight, if necessary, against a traffic which injures the free man, but she might abstain from abusing those who do not share her opinions. The anti-slavery party has hitherto acted rather from sentiment than from reason ; and Mr. Buckle was right in determining that morality must be ruled by, and not rule, intellect. We have one point in our favour. The dies atra between 1810-20, when a man could not speak what he thought upon the subject of slavery, ended as the last slave left the West African coast ; and yet I doubt whether the day is yet come when we can draw upon the great labour-bank of Africa and establish that much-wanted institution, the black ouvrier libre. There are several classes interested in pitting black man against white man. An unscrupulous mis- sionary will, for his own ends, preach resistance to time-honoured customs and privileges which Niger has himself accepted. An unworthy lawyer will urge litigation ; a dishonest judge or police-magistrate will make popularity at the expense of equity and honour ; a weak-minded official will fear the murmurs, the com- D 2 36 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. plaints, and the memorials of those under him, and the- tomahawking which awaits him from the little army of negrophiles at home. But the most dangerous class of all is the mulatto ; he is everywhere, like wealth, irritamenta malorum. The 'bar sinister,' and the fancy that he is despised, fill him with ineffable gall and bitterness. Inferior in physique to his black, and in morale to his white, parent, he seeks strength by making the families of his progenitors fall out. Had the Southern States of America deported all the products of ' miscegenation,' instead of keeping them in servitude, the ' patriarchal institution ' might have lasted to this day instead of being prematurely abo- lished. My first visit to Sa Leone showed me the root of all her evils. There is hardly a peasant in the peninsula. Had the ' colony-born ' or older families, the 'King-yard men,' or recaptives, and the Creoles, or children of liberated Africans, been apprenticed and compelled to labour, the colony would have become a flourishing item of the empire. Now it is the mere ruin of an emporium ; and the people, born and bred to do nothing, cannot prevail upon themselves to work. But the ' improved African ' has an extra contempt for agriculture, and he is good only at destruction. Kice and cereals, indigo and cotton, coffee and arrowroot, tallow-nuts and shea-butter, squills and jalap, oil- A PEOPLE OF PEDDLERS. 37 palms and cocoas, ginger, cayenne, and ground-nuts are to be grown. Copal and bees'-wax would form articles of extensive export; but the people are satisfied with maize and roots, especially the cassava, which to Sa Leone is a curse as great as the potato has proved to Ireland. Petty peddling has ever been, and still is, the * civilised African's ' forte. He willingly condemns himself to spend life between his wretched little booth and his Ebenezer, to waste the week and keep the Sabbath holy by the ' holloaing of anthems.' His beau ideal of life is to make wife and children work for, feed and clothe him, whilst he lies in the shady piazza, removing his parasites and enjoying porcine existence. His pleasures are to saunter about visiting friends ; to grin and guffaw ; to snuff, chew, and smoke, and at times to drink kerring-kerry (cana or caxa$a\ poisonous rum at a shilling a bottle. Such is the life of ignoble idleness to which, by not enforcing industry, we have condemned these sable tickets-of-leave. Before quitting the African coast I diffidently suggested certain steps towards regenerating our unhappy colony. For the encouragement of agri- culture I proposed a tax upon small shopkeepers and hucksters, who, by virtue of sitting behind a few strings of beads or yards of calico, call themselves traders and merchants. This measure, by-the-by, was attempted in 1879 by Governor Rowe, but the strong opposition 38 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. compelled him to withdraw it. I would have imposed a heavy tax upon all grog-shop licenses, and would have allowed very few retail-shops in the colony. Police- magistrates appeared to me perfectly capable of settling disputes and of 1 punishing offenders. I would have discouraged the litigation which the presence of lawyers and a bench suggests, and which causes such heartburn between Europeans and Africans. I would have established a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and never have allowed a black jury to * sit upon ' a white man, or vice versa; and in the case of a really deserving negro or mulatto I would rather see him appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland than Grovernor or Secretary of Sa Leone. On my last journey I met the Hon. Mr. T. Eisely Griffith, a West Indian and Colonial Secretary at Sa Leone. He kindly read what I had written about the white man's Grave, and found it somewhat harsh and bitter. At the same time he gave me, with leave to use, his valuable lecture delivered before the Royal Colonial Institute. 1 Making allowance for the official couleur de rose, and reading between the lines, I found that he had stated, in parliamentary language, what had been told by me in the rude tongue of a traveller. The essay, he assured me, had been well 1 The Colonies and India, a weekly newspaper. London : De- cember 17, 1881. MR. GRIFFITH. 39 received at Sa Leone ; and yet, to my knowledge, the newspapers of the western coast had proposed to make it the subject of an ' indignation-meeting.' Hear what Mr. Griffith has to say upon the crucial question agriculture. ' The ordinary observer can- not fail to be impressed with the great number of traders and hawkers. In the peninsula of Sierra Leone there are returned 53,862 ; of these, traders and hawkers number 10,250, or about 19 per cent., or, including hucksters, 23 per cent. Little good can result to a country as long as one-fourth of its people are dependent for their livelihood for what they sell to the remaining three-quarters. . . . The same tendency to engage in the work of distribution rather than the production of wealth seems to be a general charac- teristic of the negro race. 'The real number of artisans or mechanics who have any right to the term is very limited ; and it is to be regretted that in Sierra Leone, where the people are apt to learn, and tolerably quick to apply, there i& not a greater number of thorough workmen to teach their handicrafts and make them examples for the rising generation. A youth who has been two years with a carpenter, boat-builder, blacksmith, or mason, arrogates the name to himself without compunction, and frequently, whilst he is learning from an indifferent teacher the rudiments of his trade, he sets up as a 40 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. master. There is hardly a single trade that can turn out half a dozen men who would be certificated by any European firm for possessing a thorough knowledge of it. Of all trades in Sierra Leone, and certainly in Freetown, that of tailoring is the most patronised, but this arises from the love of dress, which is inherent. 'The proper cultivation of the soil is, and must always be, the true foundation of prosperity in any country. The shop cannot flourish unless the farm supports it, and the friends of the colony regard with anxiety the centralisation of capital at Freetown. I have been gratified, however, to notice that the desire to acquire land and cultivate it has lately increased to a very great extent, and I regard it as a very hopeful sign for the future. The people still want two things, capital and scientific agricultural knowledge. The native implements are of the rudest kind their hoes little more than sufficient to scratch the ground, and their only other implement a cutlass to cut down the bush. Ploughs are unknown, and spades very little used. Wheelbarrows are detested, although they are not quite unknown ; the people would sooner " tote " the soil in a box on their heads, and instances are on record where the negro has " toted " the wheelbarrow itself, wheel, handle, and all.' Mr. Griffith further informs us that the Colonial Government is desirous of fostering and encouraging WILLIAM GRANT. 41 agriculture ; that it proposes to establish, or rather to re-establish, a model farm ; that lands have been granted at a trifling sum to Mr. William Grant on condition of his devoting capital and labour to the development of agriculture ; that Mr. Thomas Bright has laid out a coffee and cocoa farm at Murray Town ; and that Mr. Samuel Lewis, a barrister-at-law, uni- versally well spoken of, is engaged in cultivation, with a view of studying the best methods and of influencing his fellow-countrymen in favour of agricultural pur- suits. Major Bolton also is working the land seven- teen miles down coast, and planting cocoa-nuts, chocolate, and Kola-trees. The latter, when ten years old, are said each to fetch 151. per annum. Here, therefore, we have at least a beginning. During the discussion on Mr. Griffith's lecture, some home-truths were told by the Hon. Mr. Grant, 1 a full- blooded negro, of the Ibo tribe, and a member of the Sierra Leone Legislative Council. He objected to the term * white man's Grave.' He bravely and truly told his audience that if the French held possession of Sa Leone they would have made it a ' different thing.' 1 This ' eminent African,' who had gone to England with the view of buying agricultural implements and an ice-machine, died in London on January 28, 1881. His speech, therefore, was delivered only a week or so before his death. Much fulsome praise of him followed in the press, which seemed completely surprised that a black man could talk common sense. 42 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. After praising the present Governor's instruction-ordi- nance he spoke these remarkable words :- ' But education from the point I allude to is that practical education which develops the man and makes him what he is, not the education which makes him simply the blind imitator of what he is not. Of course the education, as originally introduced into the colony, was an experiment, and a grand experiment it was. They said, " There are these people, and we will educate them as ourselves." It was a good idea, but it was defective, because there is as great a difference between the negro and the white man as there can be. He is capable of doing anything that the white man can do ; but then, to get him to do that, you must educate him in himself. You must bring him out by himself: you must not educate him otherwise. He must be educated to carry out a proper and distinct course for himself. The complaint has been general of the want of success in the education of the negro ; but it is not his fault : the fault is from the defect of his education. He fancies, by the sort of education which you give him, that he must imitate you in everything act like you, dress in broadcloth like you, and have his tall black hat like you. Then you see the result is that he is not himself; he confuses himself, and when he comes to act within himself as a man he is confused, and you find fault that he has not improved as he COOLIE LABOUR. 43 ought to do. But if he is properly educated you will find him of far greater assistance to you than you have any idea of.' The remarks on agriculture and on capital were equally apposite ; and Captain Cameron remarked that these were the * truest words of wisdom about Africa that it ever was his lot to hear.' They will leave a sweet savour in the reader's mouth after a somewhat acid chapter. But the ingrained idleness of generations is not so easily cleared away. The real cure for S& Leone will be an immigration of Chinese or of Indian coolies, that will cheapen labour and enable men of capital to farm on a large scale. It may be years before agri- culture supplants trade with its light work and ready profits ; but the supplanting process itself will do good. At present Sa Leone finds it cheaper to import salt from England than to lay out a salina, and to make an article of commerce which finds its way into the furthest interior. Immigration, I repeat, is the sole panacea for the evils which afflict the Lioness Kange. 44 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. CHAPTER XIII. FROM SA LEONE TO CAPE PALMAS. FROWSY old Sa Leone bestowed on us a parting smile. After a roaring tornado at night and its terminal deluge, the morning of January 19 broke clear and fine. We could easily trace, amongst the curious series of volcanic cones, the three several sanitary steps on the Leicester or Lioness Hill. These are, first the hospice of the French Jesuits, now officers' quarters ; then a long white shed, the soldiers' hospital ; and highest (1,700 feet) the box which lodges their commandant. Even the seldom-seen 4 Sugarloaf ' was fairly outlined against the mild blue vault. Although the withering hand of summer was on the scene, the old charnel- house looked lovely ; even the low lines of the Bullom shore borrowed a kind of beauty from the air. The hues were those of Heligoland set in frames of lapis lazuli above and of sapphire below ; golden sand, green strand of silky Bermuda-grass, and red land showing chiefly in banks and thready paths. Again we admired FROM SA LEONE TO CAPE PALMAS. 45 the dainty and delicate beauties of the shore about Pirate Bay and other ill-named sites. Then bidding adieu to the white man's Eed Grave and steering south- west, we gave a wide berth to the redoubted * Car- penter,' upon which the waves played ; to the shoals of St. Anne, and to a multitude of others which line the coast as far as that treacherous False Cape and lumpy Cape Shelling or Shilling, whose prolongation is the Banana group. Sherbro, fifty miles distant, was passed at night. Then (sixty miles) came the Gallinas Kiver, a great centre of export, which has not forgotten Pedro Blanco. This prince of slavers, whose establishment appears on the charts of 1836-38, imported no goods; he bought cargoes offered to him and he paid them by bills on Eng- land, drawing, says the Coast scandal, upon two Quaker brothers at Liverpool. Not a little curious that our country supplied the money both to carry on the traite and to put it down. Three miles south of the Gallinas the Sulayma Eiver flows in. Here the scenery suggests a child's first attempt at colouring in horizontal lines ; a dangerous surf ever foams white upon the yellow shore, bearing an eternal growth of green. Two holec in the bush and a few thatched roofs, separated by a few miles, showed the Harris factories, which caused frequent teapot-storms between 1865 and 1878. The authorities of Liberia, model claimants with a touch of 46 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. savage mendicancy, demanded the land and back-dues from time immemorial. * Palaver ' was at last ' set ' by the late lamented David Hopkins, consul for the Bights, in the presence of a British cruiser and two American ships of war. The weather resumed its old mood, a mixture in equal parts of ' Smokes ' and of Harmatan or Scirocco. At noon next day we steamed by Cape Mount, the northernmost boundary of Liberia, 1 a noble landmark and a place with a future. Approaching it, we first see the dwarf bar of the Mafa, draining a huge lagoon (' Fisherman's Lake ' ). On the banks and streams are sundry little villages, Kru Town and Port Kobert, the American mission-ground. The harbour is held to be the first of five, the others being Monrovia; Grand Bassa (Bassaw), with Edina ; Sinou, and Cape Palmas. The Mount is an isolated rocky tongue rising suddenly like an island from the low levels, and trending north-west to south-east. The site is perfectly healthy ; the ground is gravel, not clay, and the stone is basalt. The upper heights are forested and full of game ; the lower are cleared and await the colonist. With the pure and keen Atlantic breeze ever blowing over it, the 1 The ' liberateds ' of Liberia, who lose nothing by not asking, claim the shore from the Sam Pedro River southwards to the Jong, an affluent of the Shebar or Sherbro stream, 90 miles north of Cape Mount. We admit their pretensions as far only as the Sugary River, four miles above the Mafa (Mafaw), or Cape Mount strsavu. CAPE MOUNT, 47 Mount is a ready-made sanatorium. Its youth has been disreputable. Here Captain Canot, 1 the Franco- Italian lieutenant of Pedro Blanco, sold the coast till compelled by H.M. cruisers to fall ' back upon honest trade. His name survives in ' Canot's Tree,' under whose shade he held his palavers. Let us hope that the respectable middle age of Cape Mount will be devoted to curing the sick coaster. Beyond this fine headland, a handsome likeness of Holyhead seen from the south, stretch the long, low, dull shores of Liberia, canopied by unclean skies and based on dirty-looking seas. The natives, who, as usual, are new upon the coast, and who preserve curious traditions about their predecessors, are the Vai (not Vei), a Mandengan race still pagan. They call, however, the world 'duniya,' and the wife 'namusi,' words which show whence their ideas are derived. Their colour is lighter than the Kruman's ; there are pretty faces, especially amongst the girlish boys, and the fine feet and delicate hands are those of 'les Gabons.' And they are interesting on two other counts. Their language combines the three several forms of human speech, the isolating (e.g. 'love '), the agglutinat- ing (' lovely '), and the polysynthetic ('loving,' 'loved'). Furthermore they developed an alphabet, or rather a syllabary, which made much noise amongst missionary 1 Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i. chap. v. 48 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ' circles,' and concerning which Lt. Forbes, R.N., Mr. Norris, and Herr Koelle wrote abundant nonsense. Its origin is still unknown. Some attribute it to direct inspiration (whatever that may mean), others to marks traced upon the sand originally by boys stealing palm- wine. My belief is that the suggestion came from the Moslems. Of late years it has been waxing obsolete, and few care to write their letters in it. The Vai, who extend as far as Little Cape Mount Eiver, are depicted in a contrast of extremes. Mr. H. C. Creswick, 1 who long dwelt amongst them, and dealt with them from Cape Mount, gives a high character to those who have not been perverted by civilisation. He found the commonalty civil, kind, and hospitable ; aetive and industrious, to a certain extent. Their palm- oil is the best on the coast, and can be drunk like that of the olive or the cod-liver. The chiefs he describes as gentlemen. The missionaries assert that they are wholly without morals, never punishing the infringe- ment of marital rights; petty thieves, and idle and feckless to the last degree. Certain Monrovia men have laid out farms of coffee and cacao (chocolate) upon the St. Paul River, which, heading in Mandenga- 1 Late manager of the ' Gold Coast Mining Company.' Mr. Creswick treated the subject in ' Life amongst the Veys ' (Tranx. Ethnol. Soc. of London, 1867). He tells at full length the curious legend of their immigration, and notes the same reverence for the crocodile which prevails at Dixcove and prevailed in Egypt. THE VAI TRIBE. 49 land, breaks the chord of the bay ; but nothing can in- duce these ex-pets or their congeners, the Golas and the Pesis, to work. Like most of the coast-races, the Vai seem to be arrant cowards. The headmen salute their visitors Arab-fashion, with flourishes of the sword ; but sword- ing ends there. Of late they were attacked by the savages of the interior, Gallinas, Pannis, and Kusus. The latter, meaning the ' wolves ' or the ( wild boars,' is the popular nickname of the Mendi or Mindi tribes, occupying the Sherbro-banks. They did excellent service in the last Ashanti war (1873-74) by flogging forward the fugitive Fantis. Winwood Keade, 1 an ex- cellent judge of Africans, declares that they are very courageous, ' keen as mustard ' for the fray. On the raid they creep up to and surround the doomed village ; they raise the war-cry shortly before sunrise, and, as the villagers fly, they tell them by the touch. If the body feels warm after sleep, unlike their own dew- cooled skins, it soon becomes a corpse. They advance with two long knives, generally matchets, one held 1 The Story of the Ashanti Campaign. Smith & Elder, London, 1874. It is a thousand pities that the volume was pruned, to use the mildest term. My friend's memory seems to brighten with the years, doubtless the effect of his heroic honesty in telling what he held to be the truth. His Martyrdom of Man, in which even his publisher did not believe, has reached a fourth edition; it was quoted by Mr. Gladstone, and Mrs. Grundy still buys it, in order to p'it it behind the fire. VOL. II. E 50 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. between the teeth. They prefer the white arm because 'guns miss fire, but swords are like the chicken's beak, that never fails to hit the grain.' Some 250 of these desperadoes lately drove off 5,000 of the semi-civilised recreants and took about 560 prisoners, including the < King ' of the Vai. After covering forty-three miles from Cape Mount we anchored (5 P.M.) in the long, monotonous roll under Mount Mesurado. The name was probably Monserrate, given by the early Portuguese. It is entitled the Cradle of Liberia. The idea of restoring to Africa recaptured natives and manumitted slaves was broached in 1770 by the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R.I. The scheme for 'civilising and christianising' the natives assumed organic form at Washington in 1816. In January 1820 the first emigrants embarked from New .York for ' Liberia.' The original grant of land was made (April 1822) to the ' American Society for Colonising the Free People of the United States,' by King Peter and sundry chiefs of the Grain Coast, who little knew what they were doing. The place was described in those days as an Inferno, the very head and front of the export trade, the waters swarming with slavers, the shore bearing forty slave-factories, and the whole showing scenes of horror which made the site ' Satan's seat of abominations.' It has now changed its nature with its name, and has become the head-quarters of MESURADO MOUNT. 51 Dullness, that goddess who, we are assured, never dies. Mesurado Mount, with the inverted cataract rush- ing white up its black rocks, is a picturesque feature. Halfway clearings for coffee-plantations, with a lime- washed bungalow, the President's country-quarters, lead to the feathered and forested crest which bears the * pharos.' This protection against wreck is worse than nothing ; it is lighted with palm-oil every night, and then left to its own sweet will. Consequently the red glimmer, supposed to show at thirteen miles, is rarely visible beyond three. A dotting of white frame-houses and curls of blue smoke betray the capital. It lurks behind the narrow sand-bar which banks the shallow and useless Mesurado Eiver, and few men land without an involuntary ablution in the salt water. Usually the stream mouths by an ugly little bar at some distance from the roadstead ; after heavy rains it bursts the sand- strip and discharges in straight line. We had visitors that evening from the Yankee- Doodle-niggery colony, peopled by citizens who are not ' subjects.' Bishop C. C. Pinnock, absent from his home at Cape Mount, dined with us and told me about the death of an old friend, good Bishop Payne. His successor objects to learning and talking native tongues, and he insists upon teaching English to all the mission- scholars. His reasons are shrewd, if not convincing ; a 52 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. for instance, ' most languages,' says the Eight Keverend, 'have some term which we translate "love." But " love " in English is not equivalent to its representa- tive in Kru or in Vai. Therefore by using their words I am expressing their ideas ; I bring them over to mine by the reverse process.' We shipped for Grand Bassa two citizens, a lawyer and an attorney. Of course one was an * Honourable ; ' l as Mr. H. M. Stanley says, 2 ' mostly every other man is here so styled.' They talked professionally of the ' Whig ticket ' and the ' Re-publican party,' but they neither * guess'd ' nor ' kalklated,' and if they wore they did not show revolvers and bowie-knives. They did not say, ' We air a go-ahead people,' they were not given to ' highfalutin',' nor did they chew their tobacco. They were, however, accompanied by an extremely objectionable ' infant,' aged seven, who lost no time in laying hands upon Miss M.'s trinkets, by way of return- ing civility. Her father restored them, treating the theft as a matter of course. The citizens gave me sundry details about the 4 rubber '-trade, which began in 1877. Monrovia now exports to England and the Continent some 100,000 Ibs., which sell at la. 4hill of brown huts. In 1868 Winwood Keade here found a poste and stockade, a park of artillery, a commandant, a surgeon, and a detachment of tirailleurs senegalais levied amongst the warlike Moslem tribes of Senegam- bia. Like Grand Bassam it was under the station admiral, who inspected the two once a year, and who periodically sent a gunboat to support French interests. By night we passed New Town, not on the charts, but famed for owning a fine gold placer north of the town-lagoon. After my departure from the coast it was inspected by Mr. Grant, who sent home specimens of bitumen taken from the wells. Then came the two Assinis, eastern and western, both places of small present importance. The ' Assini Hills ' of the chart lie to the north, not to the south of the Tando water ; and by day one can easily distinguish their broken line, blue and tree-clad. The Franco-English frontier has been determined after a fashion. According to Mr. Stanford's last map, 1 the westernmost point was in west long. 2 55' (G.) Thus our territory begins be- tween Great Assini and New Town, the latter being included in the Protectorate. This position would 1 Gold Coast, November 20, 1873. A foot-note tells us, The whole coast belongs to the English, the French having withdrawn since 1870 from Grand Bassam and Assini ' (Winwood Reade). This is obsolete in 1882. The limits of Ashanti-land are immensely exaggerated by this map. 78 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. reduce the old Grold Coast from 245 direct geographical miles of shore-line between the River Assini (W. long. 3 23') and the Volta mouth (E. long. 42') to some 217 or 220 in round numbers. Inland the limit should be the Tando valley, but it has been fancifully traced north from the Eyhi lagoon, the receptacle of the Tando, on a meridian of W. long. 2 50' (Gr.) to a parallel of N. lat. 6 30', or ninety-eight miles from the coast about Axim (N. lat. 4 52'). Thence it bends east and south-east to the Ofim, or western fork of the Bosom Prah, and ascends the Prah proper, separating Ashanti-land (north) from Fanti-land (south). It should be our object to acquire by purchase or treaty, or both, the whole territory subject to Grand Bassam and Assini. The reasons may be gathered from the preceding pages. By night we also passed Cape Apollonia and its four hummocks, which are faintly visible from Axim. The name has nothing to do, I need hardly say, with Apollo or his feasts, the Apolloniae, nor has it any relation- ship with the admirable * Apollinaris water.' It was given by the Portuguese from the saint l who presided 1 Butler's Lives gives ' S. Apollonia (not Appolonia, as the miners have it), v.m. February 9.' This admirable old maid leaped into the fire prepared for her by the heathen populace of Alexandria when she refused to worship their ' execrable divinity.' There are also an Apollonius (March 5), ' a zealous holy anchorite ' of Egyptian An- tinous ; and Apollinaris, who about A.D. 376 began to ' broach his heresy,' denying in Christ a human soul. APPROACHING AXIM. 79 over the day of discovery. In the early half of the pre- sent century the King of Apollonia ruled the coast from the Assini to the Ancobra Eivers ; the English built a fort by permission at his head-quarters, and carried on a large trade in gold-dust. Meredith (1800) tells us that, when his Majesty deceased, some twenty men were sacrificed on every Saturday till the 'great customs' took place six months afterwards. The underlying idea was, doubtless, that of Dahome : the potentate must not go, like a ' small boy,' alone and unattended to the shadowy realm. The ' African Cruiser ' l speaks of the royal palace being sumptuously furnished in European style; of gold cups, pitchers, and plates, and of vast treasures in bullion. When the King died sixty victims were slain and buried with their liege lord; besides a knife, plate, and cup; swords, guns, cloths, and goods of various kinds. The corpse, smeared with oil and powdered cap-a-pi6 with gold-dust, looked like a statue of the noble ore. As the Senegal advanced under easy steam, we had no rolling off this roller-coast, and we greatly and regretfully enjoyed the glorious Harmatan weather, so soon about to cease. The mornings and evenings were cool and dewy, and the pale, round-faced sun seemed to look down upon us through an honest northern fog. 1 Journal of an African Cruiser, by an officer of the U.S. navy. Edited by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Aberdeen : Clark and Son, 1848. 8o TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. There was no heat even during the afternoons, usually so close and oppressive in this section of the tropics. I only wished that those who marvelled at my preferring to the blustering, boisterous weather of the Northern Adriatic the genial and congenial climate of West Africa could have passed a day with me. Si CHAPTER XV. AXIM, THE GOLD PORT OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. ALL the traveller's anxiety about the Known and apprehensions of the Unknown fell from him like a garment as, after passing the hummocks of Apol- lonia, his destination, Axim, 1 peeped up over the port-bow at dawn of the 25th of January. The first aspect of Axim is charming; there is nothing more picturesque upon this coast. After the gape of the Ancobra River the foreshore gradually bends for a few miles from a west east to a north south rhumb, and forms a bay within a bay. The larger is bounded north by Akromasi Point, the southern wall of the great stream ; the bold foreland outlain with reefs and a rock like a headless sphinx, is known from afar, east and west, by its ' one tree,' a palm apparently double, the leader of a straggling row. On the south of the greater bay is Point Pepre, by the 1 The port lies in N. lat. 4 52' 20" (say 5 round numbers) and in W. long. (Gr.) 2 -'14' 45": it must not be confounded, as often occurs in England, with ' Akim," the region north of Accra. VOL. IT. G 82 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. natives called Inkubun, or Cocoanut-Tree, from a neigh- bouring village ; like the Akromasi foreland, it is black and menacing with its long projection of greenstone reefs, whose heads are hardly to be distinguished from the flotilla of fishing canoes. The lesser bay, that of Axim proper, has for limits Pepre and the Bosomato promontory, a bulky tongue on whose summit is a thatched cottage. The background of either bay is a noble forest, a wall of green, the items being often 150 feet high, with branchless white boles of eighty, perpendicularly striping the verdure. The regular sky-line broken by tall knolls and clumps, whose limits are rivulet-courses and bosky dells ; thrown up by refraction ; flecked with shreds of heavy mist That like a broken purpose waste in air ; and dappled with hanging mists, white as snow, and 4 sun-clouds,' as the natives term the cottony nimbus is easily mistaken, in the dim light of dawn, for a line of towering cliffs. The sea at this hour is smooth as oil, except where ruffled by fish-shoals, and shows comparatively free, to- day at least, from the long Atlantic roll which lashes the flat coast east of Apollonia. Its selvage is fretted by green points, golden sands, and a red cove not unlike the crater-port of Clarence, Fernando Po. The surface is broken by two islets, apparently the terminal knobs of PORT AXIM. 63 many reefs which project westward from the land. To the north rises Asiniba (' Son of Asini '), a pyramid of rock below and tree-growth above. Fronting the land- ing-place is Bobowusua, 1 or Fetish Island, a double feature which we shall presently inspect. The fore- shore is barred and dotted perpendicularly by black reefs and scattered diabolitos, or detached hard-heads, which break the surges. At spring-tides, when rise and fall reach at least ten feet, and fourteen in the equinoctial ebb and flow, it appears a gridiron of grim black stone. 2 The settlement, backed by its grand * bush 'and faced by the sea, consists of a castle and a subject town ; it wears, in fact, a baronial and old-world look. Fort Santo Antonio, a tall white house upon a bastioned terrace, crowns proudly enough a knob of black rock and low green growth. On both sides of it, north and south, stretches the town ; from this distance it appears a straggle of brown thatched huts and hovels, enlivened here and there by some whitewashed establishments, mining or ' in the mercanteel.' The soil is ruddy and rusty, and we have the usual African tricolor. The agents of the several Aximite houses came on board. We drained the normal stirrup-cup and 1 The Hyd. Chart calls them Suaba and Bobowassi ; it might be a trifle more curious in the matter of significant words. * Not as the Hyd. Chart says ' rise and fall at springs six or seven feet.' o 2 84 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. embarked in the usual heavy surf-boat, manned by a dozen leathery-lunged ' Elmina boys ' with paddles, and a helmsman with an oar. There are smaller surf- canoes, that have weather-boards at the bow to fend off the waves. Our anchorage-place lies at least two miles south-west-and-by-south of the landing-place. There is absolutely nothing to prevent steamers running in except a sunken reef, the Pinnacle or Hoeven Kock. It is well known to every canoeman. Cameron sounded for it, and a buoy had been laid by fishermen, but so unskilfully that the surge presently made a clean sweep. Hence a wilful waste of time and work. I wrote to Messieurs Elder and Dempster, advising them to replace it for their own interests and for the convenience of travellers ; but in Africa one is out of the world, and receiving answers is emphatically not the rule. There is no better landing-place than Axim upon this part of the African coast. The surf renders it im- practicable only on the few days of the worst weather. We hugged the north of the Bobowusua rock-islet. When the water here breaks there is a clear way further north ; the southern passage, paved with rocks and shoals, can be used only when the seas are at their smoothest. A regular and well-defined channel placed us on the shingly and sandy beach. We had a suc- culent breakfast with Messieurs Gillett and Selby AXIM FORT. 85 (Lintott and Spink), to whose unceasing kindness and hospitality we afterwards ran heavily in debt. There we bade adieu to our genial captain and our jovial fellow-travellers. The afternoon was spent in visiting the Axim fort. Santo Antonio, built by the Portuguese in the glorious days of Dom Manuel (1495-1521), became the Hol- lander Saint Anthony by conquest in 1682, and was formally yielded by treaty to the Dutch West Indian Company. It came to us by convention at the Hague ; and, marked ' ruined ' in the chart, it was repaired in 1873 before the Ashanti war. It can now act harbour of refuge, and is safe from the whole power of the little black despotism. Bosman l shows ' Fort St. Antonio ' protected by two landward bastions and an old doorway opening upon a loopholed courtyard. Barbot (1700) sketches a brick house in gable-shape, based upon a triangular rock. Passing the Swanzy establishment, a model board- house, with masonry posts, a verandah all round, and a flying roof of corrugated iron, we ascend the old paved ramp. Here we remark that the castle-gateway of the Dutch, leading to the outer or slave court, has been replaced by a mean hole in the wall. The external work was demolished, lest the enemy effect a lodge- 1 Eerste Brief, 1737 : the original Dutch edition was lent to me by M. Paulus Dahse. 86 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ment there. We can walk seawards round the green knob scattered with black boulders, and pick an. excel- lent salad, a kind of African dandelion, which the carnivorous English miners called ' grass,' with a big, big D. Entering the hole in the wall, and passing through a solid arched gateway and across a small court upon which the prison opens, we ascend the steps leading to the upper work. This is a large square house, pierced in front for one door and three windows, and connected by a bridge, formerly a drawbridge, with the two tall belvideres, once towers guarding the eastern entrance. The body is occupied by the palaver-hall of the opper koopman (chief factor), now converted into a court-house and a small armoury of sniders. It leads to the bedrooms, disposed on three sides. The materials are trap, quartz, probably gold-bearing, and fine bricks, evidently home-made. The substantial quarters fronting the sea are breezy, comfortable, and healthy ; and the large cistern contains the only good drinking-water in Axim. Life must be somewhat dull here, but, after all, not so bad as in many an out-station of British India. The chief grievance is that the inmates, the District-commissioner and his medico, are mere birds of passage ; they are ordered off and exchanged, at the will of head-quarters, often before they can settle down, and always before they learn to take interest in the place. AXIM DISPENSARY. 87 The works consist of two bastions on the land side ; a large one to the south-east, and a smaller to the north-east. Seawards projects a rounded cavalier, fronted by dead ground, or rather water. In the days of the Dutch the platforms carried * 22 iron guns, besides ' some patteraroes.' Now there are two old bronze guns, two ' chambers ' bearing the mark * La Hague,' and an ancient iron tube dismounted : a seven- pounder mountain-gun, of a type now obsolete, lurks in the shadows of the arched gateway. I afterwards had an opportunity of seeing the ammunition, and was much struck by a tub of black mud, which they told me was gunpowder. The Ashantis at least keep theirs dry. The dispensary appeared equally well found. For some weeks there was a native assistant; then Dr. Roulston came, and, after a few days, was ordered off at a moment's notice to the remotest possible station. He had no laudanum, no Dover's powders, no chlorodyne, no Warburg ; and, when treating M. Dahse for a burst vein, he was compelled to borrow styptics from our store. This style of economy is very expensive. To state the case simply, officials last one year instead of two. The late Captain P. D. O'Brien, District-commis- sioner of Axim, did the honours, showing us the only 'antiquity' in the place, the tomb of a Dutch 88 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. governor, with a rudely cut inscription set in the eastern wall : WILLEM SCHOORWAS COMAD. OP AXEM 1659. Amongst the slave-garrison of twenty-five Hausas I found a Wadai-man, Sergeant Abba Osman, who had not quite forgotten his Arabic. Several Moslems also appeared about the town, showing that the flood of El- Islam is fast setting this way. They might profitably be hired as an armed escort into the pagan interior. Axim, preferably written by the Portuguese ' Axem,' was by them pronounced Ashim or Ashem : no stress, therefore, must be laid upon its paper- resemblance with Abyssinian Axum. 1 Barbot calls it ' Axim, or Atzyn, or Achen.' The native name is Essim, which, in the language of the Mfantse or Mfantse-fo (Fanti-race), means 4 you told me,' and in the Apollonian dialect ' you know me.' These fanciful terms are common, and they allude to some tale or legend which is forgotten in course of time. The date of its building is utterly unknown. The Fanti tra- dition is that their race was driven coastwards, like 1 I allude to The Guinea or Gold Coast nf Africa, formerly a Colony of the Axumites (London, Pottle and Son, 1880), an interest- ing pamphlet kindly forwarded to me by the author, Captain George Peacock. I believe, as he does, that the West Coast of Africa pre- serves traces of an ancient connection with the Nile valley and the eastern regions ; but this is not one of them. AXIM HAS A FUTURE. 89 their kinsmen the Ashantis, 1 by tribes pressing down upon them from the north. They must have found the maritime lands occupied, but they have preserved no notices of their predecessors. The port-town became the capital of an upper factor, who ruled the whole coast as far as Elmina. It was almost depopu- lated, say the old authorities, by long wars with the more powerful Apollonia ; but its commanding position has always enabled it to recover from the heaviest blows. It is still the threshold of the western Gold-region, and the principal port of occidental Wasa (Wassaw). We may fairly predict a future for Axim. The town is well situated to catch the sea-breeze. The climate is equatorial, but exceptionally healthy, save after the rainy season, which here opens a month or six weeks earlier than on the leeward coast. The downfall must, however, have diminished since the times when * the blacks will tell you the wet weather lasts eleven months and twenty-nine days in the year.' The rains now begin with April and end in September. The position is south of the thermal equator (22 K. = 81 -5 F.), which runs north lat. 6 on the western coast, 15 in the inte- rior, and 10 on the eastern seaboard. 2 Add that the 1 In Wanderings in West Africa (ii. 98) I have given the popular derivation of Fanti (Fan-didi = herb-eater) and Asyanti (San-didi = corn-eater). Bowdich wrote ' Ashanti ' because he learnt the word from the Accra-men. 2 Berghaus, following Humboldt, places the probable equator of 90 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. average daily temperature is 75-80 (F.), rising to 96 in the afternoon and falling after midnight to 70, and that the wet season on the seaboard is perhaps the least sickly. We were there in January March, during an unusually hot and dry season, following the Harmatan and the Smokes and preceding the tornadoes and the rains; yet I never felt an oppressive day, nothing worse than Alexandria or Trieste in early August. The mornings and evenings were mostly misty; the moons were clear and the nights were tolerable. An excessive damp, which mildews and decays everything clothes, books, metals, man was the main discomfort. But we were living, as it were, in the open, and we neglected morning and evening fires. This will not be the case when solid and com- fortable houses shall be built. The improvement of lodging and diet accounts for the better health of Anglo-Africans, as of Anglo-Indians, in the present day. Our predecessors during the early nineteenth century died of bad shelter, bad food, and bad drink. The town, built upon a flat partly formed by cutting away the mounds and hillocks of red clay, was well laid out by Mr. Sam, the District-commissioner, after its bombardment during the Ashanti war. The main streets, or rather roads, running north south, temperature (80 16') in N. lat. 4, or south of Axim, rising to N. lat. 13 in Central and in Eastern Africa POISONOUS POOLS. 91 are avenued with shady Ganian or umbrella figs. I should prefer the bread-tree, which here flourishes. These thoroughfares are kept clean enough, and nuisances are punished, as in England. Cross lines, however, are wanted ; the crooked passages between the huts do not admit the sea-breeze. Native hovels, also, should be removed from the foreshore, which, as Admiralty property, ought to be kept for public pur- poses. The native dwellings are composed of split bamboo-fronds (Raphia vinifera), thatched with the foliage of the same tree. They are mere baskets airy, and perhaps too airy. Some are defended against wind and wet by facings of red swish ; a few, like that of the ' king ' and chief native traders, are built of adobes (sun-dried bricks), whitewashed outside. Of this kind, too, are the stores and the mining establishments ; the ' Akankon House,' near the landing-place ; the ' Grold Coast House,' in the interior ; the Methodist chapel, a barn-shaped affair ; the Effuenta House to the north, and the Takwa, or French House, to the south. ' Sanitation,' however, is loudly called for ; and if cholera come here it will do damage. The southern part of the narrow ledge bearing the town, and including the French establishment, is poisoned by a fetid, stagnant pool, full of sirens, shrimps, and anthro- pophagous crabs, which after heavy rains cuts a way through its sand-bar to the sea. This marigot is the 92 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. 1 little shallow river Axim,' the Achombene of Barbot, which the people call Awamimsu (' Ghost's or Dead- man's Water '). To the north also there are two foul nullahs, the Eswa and the Besaon, which make the neighbourhood pestilential. In days to come the latter will be restored to its old course east of the town and thrown into the Awaminisu, whose mouth will be kept open throughout the year. The eastern suburbs, so to call them, want clearing of offal and all manner of impurities. Beyond the original valley of the Besaon the ground rises and bears the wall of trees seen from the offing. There is, therefore, plenty of building- room, and long heads have bought up all the land in that direction. Mr. Macarthy, of the School of Mines, owns many concessions in this part of the country. All the evils here noted can easily be remedied. As in the Cairo of Mohammed Airs day, every house- holder should be made responsible for the cleanliness of his surroundings. The Castle-prison, too, rarely lodges fewer than a dozen convicts. These men should be taken away from < shot-drill ' and other absurdities of the tread-mill type, which diversify pleasant, friar- like lives of eating and drinking, smoking, sleeping, and chatting with one another. Unfortunately, humani- tarianism does not allow the lash without reference to head-quarters. Labour must therefore be light ; still it. would suffice to dig up the boulders from the main LIFE AT AXIM. 93 thoroughfares, to clean the suburbs, and to open the mouths of the fetid and poisonous lagoons. Mr. William M. Grant, the clever and active agent of our friend Mr. James Irvine, came on board to receive us, and housed us and our innumerable belongings in his little bungalow facing ' Water Street.' We found life at Axim pleasant enough. Even in these days of compara- tive barbarism, or at best of incipient civilisation, the station is not wholly desert. The agents of the several firms are hospitable in the extreme. Generally also a manager of the inner mines, or a new comer, enlarges the small circle. There is a flavour of England in * A. B. and Co., licensed dealers in wine and spirits, wholesale and retail,' inscribed upon boards over the merchants' doors ; also in the lawn-tennis, which I have seen played in a space called by courtesy a square : Cameron, by-the-bye, has hired it, despite some vexatious local opposition, and it will be a fine locale for the Axim Hotel now being opened. Sunday is known as a twenty-four hours of general idleness and revelry : your African Christian is meticulous upon the subject of * Sabbath;' he will do as little work as possible for six days, and scrupulously repose upon the seventh. Whether he ' keeps it holy ' is quite another matter, into which I do not care to enquire. Service- and school-hours are announced by a manner of peripa- tetic belfry a negroling walking about with a cracked 94 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. muffin-bell. From the chapel, which adjoins some wattled huts, the parsonage, surges at times a pro- digious volume of sound, the holloaing of hymns and the bellowing of anthems ; and, between whiles, the sable congregation, ranged on benches and gazing out of the windows, * catches it 'ot and strong ' from the dark-faced Wesleyan missionary-schoolmaster. We were never wearied of the ' humours ' of native Axim. The people are not Fantis, but Apollonians, somewhat differing in speech with the Oji ; both lan- guages, however, are mutually intelligible. 1 The men are the usual curious compound of credulity and distrust, hope and fatalism, energy and inaction, which make the negro so like the Irish character. But we must not expect too much from the denizens of African seaports, mostly fishermen who will act hammock- bearers, a race especially fond of Bacchus and worship- pers of the ' devil Venus.' Perhaps a little too much license is allowed to them in the matter of noisy and drunken ' native customs,' palavers, and pow-wows. They rarely go about armed ; if you see a gun you know that the bearer is a huntsman. They are easily commanded, and, despite their sympathies with 1 Oji is also written Otschi, Tschi, Chwee, Twi, Tswi, Otyi, Tyi, or whatever German ingenuity can suggest. I can hardly ex- plain why the late Keith Johnston (Africa) calls the linguistic family ' Ewe ' (Ewhe, or properly Whegbe), after a small section of the country, Dahome, Whydah, &c. He was probably led to it by" the publications of the Bale and other German missions. THE AXIMITES. 95 Ashanti-land, they are not likely to play tricks since their town was bombarded. In the villages they are civil enough, baring the shoulders, like taking off the hat, when they meet their rulers. Theirs, also, is the great virtue of cleanliness ; even when the morn- ings are coldest you see them bathing on the beach. They are never pinched for food, and they have high ideas of diet. * He lib all same Prince ; he chop cow and sheep ebery day, and fowl and duck he be all same vegeta'l.' They have poultry in quantities, especially capons, sheep with negro faces like the Persian, dwarf milch-goats of sturdy build, dark and dingy pigs, and cattle whose peculiarity it is to be either black or pie- bald. The latter are neat animals like the smallest Alderneys, with short horns, and backs flat as tables. There are almost as many bulls as there are cows, and they herd together without fighting. Being looked upon as capital, and an honour to the owner, they are never killed ; and, although the udders of cows and goats are bursting with milk, they are never milked. The women differ very little from their sisters of the Eastern Gold Coast. You never see beauty beyond the beaute du diable and the naive and piquant plain- ness which one admires in a pug-pup. The forms are unsupported, and the figure falls away at the hips. They retain the savage fashion of coiffure shown in Cameron's ' Across Africa,' training their wool to 96 TO THE GOLD COAST, FOR GOLD. bunches, tufts, and horns. The latter is the favourite ; the pigtails, which stand stiff upright, and are whipped round like pricks of tobacco, may number half a dozen : one, however, is the common style, and the size is said to be determined by a delicate consideration. Op- posed to this is the highly civilised atufu, ' kankey,' or bussle, whose origin is disputed. Some say that it prevents the long cloth clinging to the lower limbs, others that it comes from a modest wish to conceal the forms ; some make it a jockey-saddle for the baby, others a mere exaggeration of personal development, an attempt to make Aphrodite a Callipyge. I hold that it arose, in the mysterious hands of Fashion,' from the knot which secures the body-cloth, and which men wear in front or by the side. Usually this bussle is a mere bundle of cloth ; on dress occasions it is a pad or cushion. I had some trouble to buy the specimen, which Cameron exhibited in London. Men and women are vastly given to ' chaffing ' and to nicknaming. Every child, even in the royal houses, takes a first name after the week-day 1 of its birth, Men. Women. 1 Adwo (Monday-born) ... Kajo (Cuddjo) ... Adwoa. Bena (Tuesday-born) ... Kwabina ... Abiena. Wuk u( Wednesday- born) ... Kwako ... Akudea. Yau (Thursday-born) ... Kwao ... Ya(Yawa). Afio (Friday-born) ... Kofi (Coffee) ... Afua. Amu (Saturday-born) ... Kwamina ... Amma. Ayisi (Sunday-born) ... Kwasl ... Akosua(Ak- wasiba NICKNAMES. 97 and strangers after that on which they land. Cameron, who shaved his hair, was entitled * Kwabina Echipu '- Tuesday Baldhead. I became Sasa Kwesi (Fetish Sunday), from a fancied clerical appearance, Sasa being probably connected with Sasabonsam, ' a huge earth-demon of human shape and fiery hue.' He derives from asase (* earth '), and abonsam, some evil ghost who has obtained a permanent bad name. Missionaries translate the latter word ' devil,' and make it signify an evil spirit living in the upper regions, or our popular heaven, and reigning over Abonsamkru, the last home of souls, or rather shades of the wicked. Thus sasabonsam would be equivalent to Erdgeist, Waldteufel, or Kobold, no bad nickname for a miner. The people have a wealth of legend, and some queer tale attached to every wild beast and bird. In days to come this folk-lore will be collected. The gorbellied children are the pests of the settle- ment. At early dawn they roar because they awake hungry and thirsty ; they roar during the day when Monday is the first day of the Oji week. The Sunday-born is corrupted to ' Quashy,' well known in the United States ; hence also the ' bitter cup ' of quassia-wood. The names of the days are taken from the seven Powers which rule them. Kwa-Si would be Kwa ( = akoa, man, slave), and Ayisi (a man) belonging to Ayisi. Amongst the Accra people the first-born are called Tete (masc.) and Dede (fern.), the second T6t6 and Koko, and the rest take the names of the numerals. So we have Septimus, Decimus, &c. VOL. II. H X 98 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. washed with cold water, and in the evening they roar because they are tired and sleepy. They are utterly spoiled. They fight like little Britons; they punch their mothers at three years of age ; and, when strong enough, they ' square up ' to their fathers. The first mining business we had to transact was with Kwamina Blay, of Attabo, Ahin (Ahene) or King of Amrehia, Western Apollonia. He came to visit us in state on January 28. The vehicle, a long basket, big enough to lodge a Falstaff, open like a coffin, and lined with red cloth to receive the royal person and gold-hilted swords, was carried stretcher- fashion by four sturdy knaves. King Blay is an excellent man, true and ' loyal to the backbone ; ' but his Anglo- African garb was, to say the least, peculiar. A tall cocked hat, with huge red and white plume, contrasted with the dwarf pigtail bearing a Popo-bead, by way of fetish, at the occiput. His body-dress was a sky-blue silk, his waist-cloth marigold-yellow, and he held in hand the usual useless sword of honour, a Wilkinson presented to him for his courage and conduct in 1873- 1874. The Ashanti medal hung from his neck by a plaited gold chain of native Trichinopoly-work, with a neat sliding clasp of two cannons and an empty asumamma, or talisman-case. The bracelets were of Popo-beads and thick gold-wire curiously twisted into wreath-knots. Each finger bore a ring resembling KING BLAY. 99 a knuckle-duster, three mushroom-like projections springing from each oval shield. Ahin Blay dismounted with ceremony, and was as ceremoniously received. His features are those of the Fanti, somewhat darker than usual, and his ex- pression is kindly and intelligent : though barely fifty- five his head is frosty and his goatee is snowy. The visit was a state affair, a copy in small of Ashanti and Dahome. On the left, the place of honour, sat the ' King's father,' that is, eldest uncle on the female side, evidently younger than his nephew : the language makes scanty difference between the relationships, and here, as in other parts of Africa, the ruler adopts a paternity. Six elders, safahins and panins, 1 sat down in caps and billycocks ; the other fifteen stood up bare- headed, including the ' King's Stick,' called further south ' King's Mouf.' This spokesman, like the ' Meu-' minister of Dahome, repeated to his master our in- terpreter's words ; and his long wand of office was capped with a silver elephant King Blay's ' totem,' equivalent to our heraldic signs. So in Ashanti-land * 1 The ' Opanyini ' (plur. of ' Opanyin') are the town-elders forming the council of the Ahin (king) or Caboceer, each with his own especial charge. The Safahin (Safohine or Osafohene) is the captain of war ; the Ofotosanfo is the treasurer ; the Okyame is spy and speaker, alias ' King's Mouf ; ' and the Obofo is the messenger, envoy, or ambassador. The system much resembles that of the village- republics in Maratha-land. H 2 X ioo TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. some caboceers cap their huge umbrellas with the twi- dam, or leopard, the Etchwee, or panther, of Bowdich, 1 and others are members of the Intchwa, or dog-division. These emblems denote consanguineous descent, and the brotherhood (ntwa) of the * totems ' is uniformly recognised. Our guest's particular ambition is a large state-umbrella, capped with a silver elephant carrying in trunk a sword. He presently received one sent, at my request, by Mr. Irvine. Amongst the elders were scattered small boys, relations of the headmen. They were all eyes and ears, and in Fanti-land they are formally trained to make the best of spies. When you see a lad lounging about or quietly dozing within ear-shot you know at once his mission. The notable parts of the suite were the sword- bearers and the band. The former carried five afoa, peculiar weapons, emblems of royalty. The blades are licked when swearing ; they are despatched with messengers as a hint to enforce obedience ; and they are held, after a fashion, to be holy. I have never seen more conventional, distorted, and useless weapons. Three blades showed the usual chopping-bill shape, pierced, like fish-slicers, with round, semicircular, and 1 Mission, &c., p. 230 (orig. fol.)- The other two patriarchal families which preside over the eight younger branches, making a total of twelve tribes, are the Ekoana (Quonna), from eho (a buffalo), and the Essona, from esso (a bush-cat). SWORDS. 101 angular holes. One, measuring twenty-three inches and three-quarters, was leaf-formed, dotted with a lozenge-pattern and set with copper studs. Another was partially saw-toothed. All were of iron, rusty with the rust of years and hardly sharp enough to cut a pat of butter. The impossible handles were worthy of the blades, bulging grips between two huge balls utterly unfitted for handling ; four were covered with thin gold-plate in repousse work, and one with silver. The metal was sewn together with thin wire, and the joints had been hammered to hide them. Cameron sketched them for my coming ' Book of the Sword ; ' and Ahin Blay kept his promise by sending me a specimen of the weapon with two divergent blades used to cut off noses and ears. Bowdich l mentions finely-worked double blades springing parallel from a single handle ; here nothing was known about them. The band consisted of two horns and three drums. Of the latter one was sheathed in leopard-skin and rubbed, not struck, with two curved sticks. A second was hourglass-shaped; the sticks were bent to right angles, and the drummer carried, by way of cymbal, a small round iron plate adjusted to the fingers with little rings loosely set in the edge. The horns were scrivelloes, elephant-tusks of small size. At times a horrid braying denoted the royal titles, and after every 1 Mission, &c., p. 312. 102 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. blast the liege lord responded mechanically, * Kwamina Blay ! atinasu marrah ' (Monday Blay ! here am I). Interviews with African ' kings ' consist mainly of compliments, ' dashes ' (presents or heave- offerings), and what is popularly called ' liquoring up.' Gifts are a sign of affection ; hence the proverb, ' If anyone loves you he will beg of you.' Money, however, is con- sidered pay; curiosities are presents, and drink is ' dash.' The ' drinkitite ' these men develope is sur- prising ; they swallow almost without interval beer and claret, champagne and shandigaff, cognac, whisky, and liqueurs. Trade-gin, 1 being despised, is turned over to the followers. Before entering upon this time-wasting process I persuaded the Ahin and panins to sign the document enabling me formally to take possession of the ' Izrah Mine.' The paper was duly attested and witnessed ; and the visit ended with a royal ' progress ' to the fort, where the District-commissioner did the rest of the needful. Next day the King made a friendly call without basket or band. His cocked hat was exchanged for a 1 This article is made at Hamburg by many houses ; the best brand is held to be that of Van Heyten, and the natives are particu- lar about it. The prime cost of a dozen-case, each bottle containing about a quart, fitted with wooden divisions and packed with husks, chaff, or sawdust, is 3s. &d . ; in retail it is sold for 6s., or 6d. per bottle. Strange to say, it has the flavour of good hollands. The latter, however, in small bottles is always to be bought on the Gold Coast, and can be drunk with safety. BOBOWUSUA. 103 chimney-pot so ' shocking bad ' that no coster would dare to don it. Such is the custom of the chiefs, and if you give them a good tile it goes at once into store. He made us promise a return-visit and set out to collect bearers. Hereabouts a week is as a day. Whilst carriage was collecting we inspected the neighbourhood of Axim. Our first visit was to Bobowusua island, a 'fetish place for palavers,' where the natives object to guns being fired. Here it was that Admiral van Euyter built his battery of twelve cannons and forced Fort Santo Antonio to surrender on January 19, 1642. The rock is of trap, greenstone, or whinstone, which miners call iron-stone and Cornishmen * blue elvan : ' this diorite, composed of felspar and the hardest hornblende, contains granular iron and pyrites like silver. Some specimens are beautifully banded in onyx-fashion and revetted with * spar ' (quartz) of many colours, dead-white and crystalline, red and yellow. We find the same trap on the mainland. . Near the smaller Akinim or Salt-pond village there is a mass threaded with quartz-veins from north to south (1 30'), bossed by granite dykes 1 trending eas t west (96 50'), and traversed by a burnt vein striking 67. 1 It is generally believed that these granite injections have been cooled and conso lidated deep below earth's surface. 104 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. From the surf-boat we remarked that there were no sharks; apparently they shun coming within the reefs. Our landing was not pleasant for the Krumen ; the shallow bottom was strewed with rounded pebbles, and the latter are studded with sharp limpets and corallines. We climbed round the seaward bluff, fissured with deep narrow clefts, up which the tide- waves race and roar. Here the trap has a ruddy hue, the salt water bringing out the iron. Corallines, now several feet above water, clothed the boulders. This, corroborated by a host of other phenomena, argues a secular upheaval of the island, and we find the same on the mainland. There were fragments of grey granite, but not in situ ; all had been washed from the con- tinent, where it outlies all other formations. Water- rolled bits of brickstone also appeared ; and hence, probably, Dr. Oscar Lenz 1 makes Axim and the neigh- bourhood consist of rother Sandstein upon laterite. Bobowusua is a cabinet of natural history. The northern flank is ever wet with dew and spray ; the southern shows a little dry earth and sand. The latter in this and in other parts of the islet is a medley of comminuted shells. We collected cowries of four kinds, large and small, crabs and balani, lobsters and sea-urchins (erinacei) with short spines ; diminu- tive rock-oysters and a large variety with iridescent 1 Geolog. Karte von West-Africa. Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1882. BOBOWUSUA. 105 mother-o'-pearl, pink, red and yellow. The latter yields a white seed-pearl, and here, perhaps, we might attempt to develope it into That great round glory of pellucid stuff, A fish secreted round a grain of grit. A single snake-slough and an eight-ribbed turtle were found. The short, sandy neck of the eastern knob is a playground for ' parson-crows ' and scavengers (turkey-buzzards) ; hawks, kites, and fish-eagles, white and black, while the adjacent reefs are frequented by gulls, terns, and small cranes. Above the rock-line is a selvage of low vegetation ipomcea, white and mauve-flowered ; rushes and tangle-grass, a variety of salsolacese, and the cyperus, whose stalk is used like the kalam, or reed-pen, further east. These growths are filmed with spiders' webs, whose central shafts lead to their nests. The highest levels, only a few feet above water, are grown with a dense bush that wants the matchet. Here are remains of plantations, a little knot of bananas, a single taJl cocoanut, many young palms, and a few felled trunks- overgrown with oysters. Europeans have proposed to build bungalows on Bobowusua, where they find fresh sea-air, and a little shooting among the red-breasted ring-doves, rails, and green pigeons affecting the vege- tation. It appears to us a good place for mooring io6 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. hulks. The steamers could then run alongside of them and discharge cargo for the coming tramway, while surf-boats carrying two or three tons could load for the Ancobra Kiver. The eastern or inner continuation of Bobowusua is Poke islet, a similar but smaller block. During spring-tides they are linked together and to the shore by reefs that stand up high and dry. Poke is the rock where, according to Barbot, 'the negroes put their wives and children when they go to war.' The tradi- tion is that the Dutch mined it for silver. The metal is known to exist in several places on and behind the coast, at Bosumato, upon the Ancobra Kiver south of ' Akankon,' and even at Kumasi. Besides, gold has not yet been found here unalloyed with silver. I was fortunate in collecting from this part of Africa stone-implements before unknown to Europe. My lamented friend Winwood Keade, 1 one of those Peculiar people whom death has made dear, was the first to bring them home from the eastern regions, Akwapim (Aquapim), Prahsu, and the Volta River. Arrived at Axim, I nailed to the walls of our sitting-room a rough print showing the faces and pro- files of worked stones. The result was a fair supply from the coast both up and down till I had secured 1 T/ie Story of the Ashantee Campaign (pp. 2-4 and 314). London, Smith and Elder, 1874. STONE-IMPLEMENTS. 107 thirteen. 1 All were of the neolithic or ground type ; the palaeolithic or chipped was wholly absent, and so were weapons proper, arrowpiles and spear-points. Mr. Carr, the able a.nd intelligent agent of Messieurs Swanzy, brought me sundry pieces and furnished me with the following notes. The ' belemnites ' are picked up at the stream -mouths after freshets ; but the people, like all others, call them * lightning-stones ' (osrdman- bo) or abonua, simply axe. They suppose the cerau- nius to fall with the bolt, to sink deep in the earth, and to rise to the surface in process of time. The idea is easily explained. All are comparatively modern, and consequently thinly covered with earth's upper crust ; this is easily washed away by heavy rains ; and, as thunder and lightning accompany the downfalls, the stones are supposed to be the result. The osrdman-bo are used in medicine ; they * cool the heart ; ' and water in which they are steeped, when given to children, mitigates juvenile complaints. One of my collections owes its black colour to having been boiled in palm-oil by way of preserving its virtues ; it resembles the bdsanos of Lydian Tmolus ; but the Gold Coast touchstone is mostly a dark jasper im- 1 I read a paper upon these stone-implements (July 11, 1882) before the Anthropological Society at the house of my friend, the President, General A. Pitt- Rivers ; and made over to him my small stock. It will find a home at Oxford, with the rest of his noble anthropological collection, lately presented to the University. io8 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ported from Europe. The substance of the thunder-stone is the greenstone-trap everywhere abundant, and taking with age a creamy patina like the basalt of the Hauran. I heard, however, that at Abusi, beyond Anamabo (Bird- rock), and other places further east worked stones of a lightish slaty hue are common. About New Town and Assini these implements become very plentiful. Mr. S. Cheetham informs me that the thinner hatchets, somewhat finger-shaped, are copied in iron by the peoples of the Benin River. These expert smiths buy poor European metal and, like other West Africans, turn out a first-rate tool. Axim seems to have been a great centre of stone- manufacture. Mr. Carr showed us a dozen huge boulders of greenstone, chiefly at the eastern angle of the wart that bears, in dangerous proximity to his stores, his powder-magazine. The upper surfaces are scored and striped with leaf-shaped grooves, formed like old Greek swords. ; some of them are three feet long by three inches wide and three deep. I made a sketch of the place ; Cameron photographed it, and on return carried off a huge slice of the block, which is now in the British Museum. We afterwards found these striated stones on the sea-ward face of St. Anthony Fort, in northern Axim, and on other parts of the seaboard. Axim, the gate of this El Dorado, has not yet much reason to thank England for ruling her. A mean POOR AXIM. 109 economy annually hoards from 20,OOOL to S forwarded to the colonial caisse, to be wasted upon * little wars,' and similar miseries, instead of being spent upon local improvements. The unwholesome bush (the Dutch ' bosch ') or wood, backed by the primaeval forest, surges up to the very doors. The little plank-bridges are out of repair, and the merchants will not supply the Government with new boards, save for ready money ; otherwise payment may be delayed for a year. The highway to head-quarters, Cape Coast Castle, is a yellow thread streaking the green, a hunter's path trodden in the jungle. For 16s. Qd. a private messenger goes to and returns from the capital, a distance of eighty-two miles, in four or five days. The public post starts on Wednesdays, halts without reason between Fridays and Mondays at Sekondi (Seecondee), and consumes a week in the down-march. I have already noted the want of sanitation, the condition of the ammunition, and the absence of medical stores. It moves one's sense of the absurd to compare the desolate condition of the Gold- land, which is to supply the money, with the civilised machinery in England which is to work it, companies and syndicates, shares, debentures, and what not. I have treated the subject of Axim with a minute- 1 In 1878 the revenue was 105,0912. and the expenditure 68,4102., and in other years the contrast was even greater. The omniscient ' Whittaker ' tells us that in 1879 the figures stood at 54,9082. income versus an outlay of 46,2812. ; and there was no debt. i io TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ness that is almost ' porochial ; ' its future importance must be my excuse. The next chapter will show that we are truly in the Land of Gold, in an Old New Cali- fornia. And now to conclude this unpleasant account with the good words of old Barbot : ' Axim, in my opinion, is the most tempting of any on the coast of Guinea, taking one thing with another. You have there a per- petual greenness, which affords a comfortable shade against the scorching heat of the sun, under the lofty palm and other trees, planted about the village, with a sweet harmony of many birds of several sorts perch- ing on them. The walk on the low flat strand along the seaside is no less pleasant at certain hours of the day ; and from the platform of the fort is a most de- lightful prospect of the ocean and the many rocks and small islands about it.' Ill CHAPTER XVI. GOLD ABOUT AXIM, ESPECIALLY AT THE APATIM OR BUJIA CONCESSION. ANY ONE who has eyes to see can assure himself that Axim is the threshold of the Grold-region. It abounds in diorite, a rock usually associated with the best pay- ing lodes. After heavy showers the naked eye can note spangles of the precious metal in the street-roads. You can pan it out of the wall-swish. The little stream- beds, bone-dry throughout the hot season, roll down, during the rains, a quantity of dark arenaceous matter, like that of Taranaki, New Zealand, and the ' black sand ' of Australia, which collects near the sea in stripes and patches. The people believe that without it gold never occurs ; and, if they collect the common yellow sand, it is to extract from it the darker material. If the stuff does not answer the magnet, it ia probably schorl (tourmaline), hornblende, or dark quartz. Strangers have often mistaken this emery-like rock for tin, which occurs abundantly in the northern region. It is simply ii2 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. titaniferous iron, iserine, pleonaste, ilmenite l and de- graded itabirite, the iron and quartz formation so called in the Brazil ; and it is the same mineral which I found so general throughout the gold and silver fields of neg- lected Midian. It is found striating white sandstone about Takwa and other places in the interior. The surface-stone is decomposed by the oxide of iron, and thus the precious dust with its ingrained gold is dissolved and separated from it. At a greater depth the itabirite will be found solid ; and the occurrence of these oldest crystalline formations in large layers is a hopeful sign. When Colonel Bolton was interested in the Gold Coast diggings I advised him to send for a few tons of this metal, and to test it as * pay-dirt.' A barrelful was forwarded from the coast to the Akankon Company : it was probably thrown away without experiment. At Axim, as at Cape Coast Castle and other parts of the shore, women may be seen gold-gathering even on the sea-sands. They rarely wash more than 40 Ibs., or a maximum of 50 Ibs., per diem ; and they strike work if they do not make daily half a dollar (2s. 3d.} to two dollars. They have nests of wooden platters for pans; the oldest and rudest of all mechanical appliances i, The largest, two feet in diameter, are used for rough work in the usual way with a peculiar turn of the wrist. The 1 Or peroxide of iron, with 8 to 23 per cent, of blue oxide of titanium. THE LAND OF GOLD. 113 smallest are stained black inside, to show the colour of gold ; and the finer washings are carried home to be worked at leisure during the night. This is peculiarly women's work, and some are well known to be better panners than others ; they refuse to use salt-water, be- cause, they say, it will not draw out the gold. The whole land is impregnated with the precious metal. I find it richer in sedimentary gold than Cali- fornia was in 1859. Immediately behind the main square of Axim a bank of red clay leads eastward to a shallow depression, the old valley of the Besaon, a swamp during the rains backed by rising and forested ground to the east. On the inland versant a narrow native shaft has been sunk for gold by Mr. Sam, now native agent under Mr. Crocker. We pounded and panned the rock, which yielded about twopence per 2 Ibs., or one ounce to the ton. Observing its strike, we concluded that it must extend through Mr. Irvine's property. Through- out the Gold Coast auriferous reefs run north south, with easting rather than westing ; the deviation varies from 5 west to 15-22 east ; and I have heard of, but not seen, a strike of north-east (45) to south-west. This confirms the ' meridional hypothesis ' of Professor Sedg- wick, who stated, ' As some of the great physical agencies of the earth are meridional, these agencies may probably, in a way we do not comprehend, have influ- enced the deposit of metals on certain lines of bearing.' VOL. II. I 114 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. We may also observe that all the great mineral chains of the old and new world are meridional rather than longitudinal, striking from north-east to south-west. The geologist's theory, combined with the knowledge that the noble metal is l chiefly found among palaeozoic , rocks of a quartzose type,' is practically valuable on the Gold Coast. Every mound or hillock of red clay contains one or more quartz-reefs, generally outcropping, but sometimes buried in the subsoils. They can always be struck by a cross-cut trending east-west. The dip is exceedingly irregular : some lodes are almost vertical, and others quasi-horizontal. We now take the main road leading to the Ancobra. After crossing the fetid Besaon by its ricketty bridge of planks, we find on the right hand, facing Messieurs Swanzy's, a fine bit of rising ground, which I shall call, after its proprietor, ' Mount Irvine.' Over the southern slope runs a cleared highway, which presently becomes a ' bush-path ; ' it is named the ' Dudley Eoad,' after an energetic District-commissioner. This is the first Takwa line, whose length is described to be about fifty miles, or four days' slow journey for laden porters. Mr. Gillett, who had covered twenty-six (sixteen ?) miles of it, describes the path as unbroken by swamps or streams. Further north, according to the many native guides whom I questioned, travellers pass two rivulets, and finally they are ferried over the Abonsa, or Takwa Kiver. 1 WOMEN'S WASHINGS} 115 The second road follows closely the left bank of the Ancobra : it is used by the Hausa soldiers, but only in the heart of the Dries, and it must be impassable during the Eains. Dr. J. Africanus B. Horton, who contributes to a characteristic paper, 1 has never heard of the former when he says ' from Axim to Taquah (Takwa) there is no direct route,' and he justly deprecates the latter. But he cries up the Bushua or Dixcove-Takwa line, upon which he has large concessions. I shall return to this subject in a future chapter. On the north side of Mount Irvine is a second nullah, the Eswa, which flows, like the Besaon, through the dense growth of bush covering the eastern uplands. A few minutes' walk along the right bank leads to a broadening of the bed, a swamp during the Kains and a field of cereals in the Dries. Thence we plunge into the jungle, and after a couple of hundred yards come upon signs <5f mining. In the Eswa bed, where the gulch is choked by two mounds or hillocks, appear the usual ' women's washings,' shallow pits like the Bra- zilian catas, whence the pay-dirt has been extracted. On the right bank, subtending the bed, their husbands have sunk the usual chimney-hole to scratch quartz 1 The African Times, January 2, 1882. The paper is full of in- accuracies ; it begins by placing Tomento (Tumento) ninety-five miles (for thirty) along the river-course from the mouth, and he makes steam-launches ' take from two to four days (say one) to go up to it.' i 2 Ii6 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. from the bounding- wall of the reef. These rude be- ginnings of shafts reach a depth of 82 feet, and perhaps more. All are round, like the circular hut of the African savage ; similarly in Australia the first pits were circular or oval. They are descended in sweep- fashion by means of foot-holes, and they are just large enough for a man to sit in and use his diminutive tool. The quartz is sent up to grass by a basket, and carried to the hut. After a preliminary roasting, the old custom of Egypt, it is broken into little bits and made over to the women, who grind it down upon the cankey-stone which serves to make the daily bread. In some parts of Africa this is men's work, and it is always done at night, with much jollity and carousing. I named this place the ' Axim Eeef.' It had been taken by Dr. J. Ogilby Eoss, formerly district medical officer, Axim, and now preparing to explore the regions behind the Ancobra sources. He allowed, however, his prospecting term to elapse, and thus it has been se- cured by Mr. Grant for Mr. J. Irvine. It taught us three valuable lessons. 1. Wherever catas, or ' women's washings,' are found, we can profitably apply the hydraulic system of sluicing and fluming not by an upper reservoir only, but also from below by a force-pump. Water is procurable at all seasons by means of Norton's HINTS. 117 Abyssinian tubes, 1 and the brook-beds, dammed above and below, will form perennial tanks. I am surprised that English miners on the Gold Coast have not borrowed this valuable hint to wash from the people who have practised it since time immemorial. Wherever we read, as on Mr. Wyatt's map, ' Grold-dust found in all these streams ; ' ' Natives dive for gold in the dry,' and * Old gold-shafts all along this track,' we should think of ' hydraulicking.' 2. The natives, here and elsewhere, prospect for and work the bank-reefs after the subtending gutter- bed has proved auriferous. There is, however, no con- nection between the two, and the precious metal in the subsoil is either swept down by the floods or washed out of the sides, as we shall see on the Ancobra River. 3. The negroes, who ignore pumps and steam- navvies, have neglected the obvious measure of deep- digging in all the stream-beds, where much detrital gold and even nuggets will assuredly be found. This should be done either by shafting or by opening with 1 steam-navvies ' the whole course of the channel during the ' Dries.' Regaining the main road and passing towards the northern town, which is separated from southern Axim by the fort and the grassy drill-ground, we cast a look 1 The Egyptian campaigners seem to have thought of these valu- able articles somewhat late in the day. Yet two years ago I saw one working at Alexandria. n8 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. at a heap of rotting cases at last stored under a kind of shed. Though labelled ' Akim ' by the ungeographical manufacturer, they contain a board-house, with glass- windows and all complete, intended for Axim, and eventually for the District-commissioner, Takwa. But, with a futility worthy of the futile African, certain authorities at Head-quarters, after buying and landing the proposed bungalow, which probably cost 500., dis- covered that they could not afford the expense of sending it to its destination. Consequently it was made over to the white ants, and it has now duly qualified for fuel. At the end of the northern town a noble bombax notes the last resting-place of Europeans ; and on it hangs a tale deserving a place in ' Spiritualistic prints.' A certain M. Thiebaut, transport-manager to the French Takwa-Company, died at Axim, and was here buried in July 1881. Many persons, including Mr. Grant's mother and wife, declare that they saw during broad daylight his ' spirit ' standing over his grave. And no wonder if he walked ; a decent * ghost ' would feel unhappy in such a i yard,' then a receptacle for native impuri- ties. We represented the case to Mr. Alexander Allan, who succeeded poor Captain O'Brien, and that active and energetic ' new broom ' at once took steps to abate the nuisance. The ' ghost ' has not been seen since its last home has been surrounded by a decent paling and in- scribed ' Ci-git Thiebaut.' The same pious service was APATIM. 119 then done for one of our countrymen, Mr. Crawford who died at Axim in the same year. Leaving on the left a neat bungalow, the ' Effuenta House,' we see to seaward of it the wooded knoll Boso- mato. 1 Here a thatched hut shows where the late M Bonnat proposed to build a trading establishment, and to disembark his goods despite rock and reef. A few yards further the road is crossed by the Breviya (' where life ends '), another foul lagoon-stream, haunted by sirens and crossed by a corduroy-bridge. It leads to a village of the same name, which the Anglo-African calls ' Stink-fish Town,' 2 alluding tersely and picturesquely to its sun-dried produce. From this knot of huts and hovels we turn sharp to the east, or inland, and presently enter the Apatim or Bujia concession, which has been leased for mining pur- poses to Mr. Irvine. There is a shorter road further north, but it is barred, we were assured, by a bad swamp. Our path, fairly open, ran up and down a succession of round-topped, abrupt-flanked hills, thrown together without system, and showing no signs of a plateau. They are parted by creek- valleys, gulches, and gullies, 1 A.bosom, Obosom or Bosom, vulg. Bossum, are imaginary beings, giiardians and so forth, worshipped by the people and called ' fetishes ' by Europeans. The word ' fetish ' is properly applied only to charms, philters, amulets, and all that genus. See p. 78, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, London, Tinsleys, 1865. * As usual it is a translation ; the natives call the preserve 'bomom,' from ' bon," to stink. 120 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. thick with tangled vegetation and varying in depth from a few feet to two and even three hundred. Many of them carry water even in the driest season. The country is remarkably like that behind Cape Coast Castle, where the Home Government, during the last Ashanti war (1873-74), proposed to lay down a tramway. The land is not heavily timbered, but there is wood sufficient for everyday purposes. Its chief growth is the spiny bombax, whose timber is hardly durable enough for permanent shafting. Here, however, and in all the mines upon and near the seaboard, carpenter-work should be imported from England ; it will be at once cheaper and better. The country is everywhere seamed with reefs and "ridges of naked quartz, beginning near the coast and striking in the right direction. There must be many more underground, and all will be bared by * washing ' the country. Mr. E. B. N. Walker, whose energy and enterprise obtained this, as well as other concessions, tells me that during a second visit one of his company 'picked up two or three small pieces of quartz showing " free gold " among the refuse around the native pits.' We progressed slowly enough, as we delayed to botanise, to net butterflies, 1 and to shoot for specimens. 1 Our large collection all came to grief, because we had neg- lected to carry camphor. The hint may be useful to those who follow us. APATIM HILL. 121 The path crossed and recrossed the Impima rivulet, which in parts was dammed and double-dammed ; its bed of quartz-gravel and red ironstone again suggested deep digging. After a two hours' stroll we traversed the snaking course by a rude bridge, and presently came to the half-way plantation, Impat&si : it is faced by a dwarf clearing, and we noted a fine clump of barnboo-cane. The next village was Edu-Krn, marked upon the maps'Edu.' We then passed over the dry bed of the Bujia wady, which looked as ' fit ' as the Jmpima ; and, at about twenty -five yards north of the bed we breasted the rough ascent of the Apatim Hill. Here we turned to the right and found Mr. Grant's trial-shaft. It had been sunk amongst a number of round holes dug by the native miner, and it appeared to us that they had been working the southern butt- end of the eastern reef. He had preferred it to another pit sunk a little distance from the centre by a man named Jones, whose venture yielded the poorest results. Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of * hydraulicking ' this hill-side ; and from three pounds of its yellow clay, gathered at random, we washed about fourpence worth of gold-dust, upwards of SI. a ton. Other specimens assayed 1 oz. 13 dwts. and 13 grains. The quartz at a little lower than a fathom 122 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. had yielded poorly, 1 but better results were expected from a deeper horizon. A few minutes of uphill-walk led us to the little Apatim village, our objective. We had spent three hours and a half over a distance which would be easily covered in two. The march may be about two and a half miles (direct geographical) from Axim, and five along the native path. During the night my compa- nion took a good observation of Castor and Pollux, and with the aid of his chronometer laid down the position of the Apatim village at N. lat. 4 55' and W. long. (G.) 2 14' 2". Consequently the nearest point from Cen- tral Axim is 2,200 yards, and 200 from the shore. The north-western angle runs clean across the Ancobra River. 2 The concession measures 4,000 square yards, the centre being an old native shaft a little north of the Bujia bed. The quadrangle lies between N. lat. 4 53' 56" and 4 55' 56", and W. long. (G.) 2 12' 48" and 2 14' 48". The lease costs 121. per annum, paid quarterly, and 120?. when the works shall open. Its 1 Messieurs Johnson and Matthey found only O650 oz. gold and 0-225 silver. 2 Mr. Walker wrote to me, ' I am inclined to believe that the concession will be found to extend to the Eiver Ankobra on the west and north-west sides. But I do not feel certain that this would be of any material advantage, the distance from Axim by land being so short, and the road between that port and the propertj' being capable of improvement, so as to render transport a matter of small expense.' KWABINA SENS ENS A. 123 lessor had forbidden his fraudulent people to prospect or to mine, because, as usual, they systematically robbed him of his royalty. This universal practice has made the kings and chiefs throughout the country ready and even anxious to sell mining-lands for small sums which will be paid honestly and regularly. They are also fully alive to the prospective advantages of European staffs settling amongst them. Like them we shall find the systematic dishonesty and roguery of the natives a considerable drawback ; the fellows know good stone at sight and can easily secrete it. The cure for this evil will be the importation of labour, especially of Chinese labourers. At Apatim, the name of the district as well as the village, we were civilly received by the chief, Kwabina Sensense. He is also lessor of the unfortunate Akankon concession, and his right to sell or to let either of them has been seriously disputed. This practice, again, may lead, unless checked, to serious difficulties. When the local government shall have established a regular depart- ment and a staff of Grold-commissioners, every owner should be compelled legally to prove his title to the land. West Africans know nothing of yards and fathoms ; they have hardly any words to express north or south. 1 Con- sequently they will sell, either wittingly or in their 1 The four points are taken from the buried body, the feet being to the east and the head lying west. 124 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ignorance of dimension and direction, the same ground, or parts of it, to two or three purchasers. Indeed, they would like nothing better, and consequently 'jumpers ' must be expected. Sensense is a dark man, apparently on the wrong side of fifty. His grizzly beard, grown comparatively long, his closely-trimmed mustachios, and his head-cloth, worn like a turban, made me take him at first sight for a Moslem. He has a cunning eye, which does not belie his reputation. His fad is to take money and to do no work for it ; he now wants us to pay for the clearing of an uncleared path. The villagers fear him on account of certain fetish-practices which, in plain English, mean poison ; and he keeps up their awe by every- where displaying the outward signs of magic and sorcery. A man with this gift can rise at night when all sleep ; cast off his body like a snake's slough ; be- come a loup-garou ; shoot flames from eyes and ears, nose, mouth, and arm -pits ; walk with his head on the ground and kill man either by drinking his blood or 'by catching his kra (umbra), which he boils and devours. Here the sign of ' fetish ' is mostly the horo, or pot full of rubbish. At Axim and Akankon we shall find our chief a mighty bore, each visit being equivalent to a bottle of gin. After a restful sleep in the cool and pleasant air of Apatim, we proceeded to visit the valley east of the THE BUJIA GULCH. 125 settlement, despite Sensense's warning that the ground was ' fetish.' He had made the same objection to M. Bonnat, his evident object being to keep the rich placer for private use or for further sale. There are evil reports about the origin of the Frenchman's fatal illness after disregarding this and similar warnings. The deep and steep-banked depression runs north south, and is appa- rently the head of the Bujia stream. The vegetation, especially near the water, which flows some 300 feet below the village, was exceedingly dense and tangled, except where the ground had been cleared for bananas, maize, or ground-nuts. The bottom, especially at the sharp corners, gave the idea of exceeding richness ; and there were many old works apparently deserted. The ' fetish- pot ' stood everywhere, filled with oil, water, and palm- wine, leaves, cowries, eggs, and all manner of filth. This stuff, stirred by the komfo diviner, answers questions and enables man to soothsay. It also corre- sponds with the obeah of the West Indies, the ubio of the Efik race, a charm put into the ground to hurt or kill. How hot the rich hole was ! What a perspiration and what a thirst came out of the climb ! In the evening we walked about half a mile to the south-west of the village, and prospected the central shaft, whence the measurements were made. Here it is sunk in a western reef, palpably running parallel with the eastern, which we first inspected. And this 126 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. visit gave us a fair idea of the property. It consists of at least three ridges of clay running from north to south, and each containing one or more meridional walls of quartz. Some of the latter may turn out to be * master lodes.' I regret that this fine Apatim concession was not thrown into the market before the so-called i Izrah.' The distance from Axim to the mining-ground is so small that provisions and machinery could be trans- ported for a trifle. The village lies 220 feet above sea-level ; and a hillock in its rear, perhaps 80 feet higher, commands a noble view, showing Axim Bay : it could be used as a signal-station. The rise is a fine, healthy position for the dwellings to be occupied by the European staff, and in such air white men could work for years. Moreover, the short distance from the shore offers peculiar advantages for ' hydraulicking.' Flumes and sluices could carry the golden subsoil to the sea and discharge it into a series of tanks and cisterns, which would be cradled for 'pay-dirt.' Finally, it will be easy to baffle the plundering negro workman by sending all stone containing free gold to be worked in England, where superior appliances extract more than enough to pay transport-costs. Indeed, it is a question with me whether, despite great expenses, reduction at home even of inland produce will not be found prefer- REDUCING ORE. 127 able. 1 This remark applies only to rich ore ; the poorer can be worked upon the spot. We returned to Axim with the highest opinion of ' Apatim,' and I rejoiced to hear that the mine will be opened without delay. 1 Mr. C. H. Creswick, of the Gold Coast Mining Company, kindly drew up for me the following table of expenses from Abontiyakon (his diggings) to England, and the costs of reducing a ton of ore. *. d. 3 15 canoe-transport to the Abonsa Eiver. 1 100 Abonsa to Axim by a boat of thirteen hands carrying five tons 036 landing at Axim and shipping on board steamer. 1 15 freight and landing charges at Liverpool. 15 carriage to reduction-works. 2 12 6 costs of reduction. 8 11 which practically would rise to 9Z. or 10Z. For local reduction Mr. Creswick calculates the outlay at 21. per ton, including interest on prime cost of machinery, allowance for wear and tear, and labour-pay. 128 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. CHAPTEE XVII. THE RETURN-VISIT TO KING BLAY ; AT^BO AND BEIN. I SPARE my readers the slightest description of the troubles that attended our departure from Axim on January 31. Briefly, we began loading at dawn and the loads were not headed before 10 A.M. The black caravan, or rather herd, was mustered by its guide and manager, the energetic W. M. Grant. His personnel consisted of seven Kruboys from Cape Palmas and forty-three Axim carriers, who now demand eight and sixpence for a trip which two years ago cost a dollar. They stray about the country like goats, often straggling over four miles. As bearers they are the worst I know, and the Grold Coast hammock is intended only for beach-travelling. The men are never sized, and they scorn to keep step, whilst the cross-pieces at either end of the pole rest upon the head and are ever slipping off it. Hence the jolting, stumbling movement and the sensation of feeling every play of the porters' muscles, which make the march one long displeasure. JOE OF DIXCOVE. 129 Yet the alternative, walking, means fever for a new comer. On return we cut long bamboos and palm- fronds and made the Krumen practise carrying, Hindu- fashion, upon the shoulder. The rest of the moving multitude was composed of the servantry and the camp-followers. One bouche inutile bore a flag, a second carried a gun, and so forth, the only principle being to work as little as possible and to plunder all things plunderable. There were exceptions. Joe (Kwasi Bedeh) of Dixcove, Cameron's old servant, who boasts of being a pagan, and who speaks English, French, and Dutch, a handy and intelligent young fellow, who can cook, sew, carpenter, or lead a caravan in fact, can serve as factotum and his accounts, mar- vellous to recount, are honestly kept. I should want no better servant in these coast-countries and in exploring the far interior. The cook, ' Mister Dawson,' of Axim, is a sturdy senior of missionary presence : having been long employed in that line, he wears a white tie on Sundays, and I shrewdly suspect him of preaching. A hard worker, beginning early and ending late, he is an excellent stuffer of birds and beasts, and the good con- dition of our collection is owing entirely to him. His son, Kwasi Yau (Sunday Joe), is a sharp * boy ' in the Anglo-Indian sense. The carpenter, our model idler, who won't work and can't work, receives 31. per mens., when #8 should be the utmost ; we cleared him out on VOL. II. K 130 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. return to Axim. Meanwhile he saunters about under an umbrella, and is always missing when wanted for work. Our companions and body-guards are Bianco and Nero, both bought by Cameron at L'pool for a sus- piciously trifling sum. The former is a small smooth- haired terrier, who dearly loves to bark and bite, and who shows evident signs of early training in the cab- line. A dog with all the manners of a doggess, he eventually found a happy home in the fort, Axim. The second, a bastard Newfoundland with a dash of the bloodhound, and just emerging from puppyhood, soon told us the reason why he was sold for a song. That animal was a born murderer ; he could not sight a sheep, a goat, or a bullock without the strongest desire to pull it down ; therefore he had been sold into slavery, African and old-English fashion, instead of being hanged. He had fine qualities obedience, fidelity, affection, a grand voice, and a ferocious presence. All these good gifts, however, were marred by an over- development of destructiveness. He survived his jour- neys by passing many of his hours in the water, and he was at last ' dashed ' to Dr. Koulston, of Takwa. We took once more the northern road to Brevia, or * Stink-fish Town,' and crossed its tongue of red clay bounded by the bed of the Anjueri stream. Here again appeared a large block of greenstone deeply grooved by the grinder. Thence we debouched upon the surf- ELISA CART AGO. 131 lashed shore, tripped over by the sandpiper and the curlew and roped by the bright-flowered convolvulus. Streaks of the auriferous black sand became more frequent and promising as we advanced. We ran close to Akromasi, or One-tree Point, upon whose flat dorsum linger the bush-grown ruins of a fort. It was named Elisa Cartago by its founders, the Portuguese, who were everywhere haunted by memories of the classics. Bowdich l is eminently in error when he places the remains ' at the extreme navigable point of the river,' and opines that the work was built by Governor Einghaven (Euyghaver), buried at Elmina in 1700. He was misinformed by Colonel Starrenberg, a Dutch officer who canoed three days up the Bosom Prah Eiver, a fact probably unknown to Commodore Com- merell. Bosnian 2 shows ' Elisa Cartago op den Berg Ancober,' crowning the head of Akromasi Point, with a road leading up to the palisades which protect the trade-houses. Lieutenant Jeekel, 3 an excellent au- thority, also places it at the river-mouth. According 1 Folio, p. 217. 2 Letter L 1737. 3 Map of the former Dutch possessions on the Gold Coast (dis- tricts of Apollonia, Axim, Dixcove, Sekondi, Chama, and El-Mina), by Lieut. C. A. Jeekel, Koyal Dutch Navy. Lithographed at the Topographical Depot of the War Office, Major C. W. Wilson, K.E., Director, 1873. It extends only from the Ebumesu to the Sweet Eiver (Elmina) and up the Ancobra valley ; and it is best known for the seaboard. K 2 132 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. to some it was taken in early days by the French, who still hold it. Captain Ellis has transferred to this site the story of Fort Eguira, an inland, or rather up-stream, work, destroyed, as Dr. Reynhaut and others tell us, in an * elendige manier ' (a piteous way). The gallant Mynheer commanding fought the natives till his men were shot down, after using * rock- gold ' (nuggets) for bullets. He rolled sundry powder- barrels under the palaver-hall, and stationed there a boy with a match to be applied when he stamped on the floor. He then flung open the gates, hung out a flag of truce, and invited the bloodthirsty savages, who were bent on killing him by torture, to take the hoard of gold for which the attack was made. When all crowded the great room he reproached them with their greed of gain, gave the sign, and blew them and himself into eternity. I am told by a good authority that the natives, whose memories are tenacious on some points, will not show to strangers the ruins which cost their forefathers so dear. The last village on the sands is Kukakun, where the wreck of a schooner saddens the scene. Within a few hundred yards of Akromasi we bent abruptly eastward and exchanged the sands for the usual stiff soil of red clay. The gut is formed by the point- bluff and a southern block, and the surface is covered with dense second-growth pandanus, the false sugar- THE FUTURE TRAMWAY. 133 cane, ferns large and small, and the sloth-tree, the Brazilian ubd or Preguifa, with tall, thin white trunk and hanging palmated leaves. The African palm-birds (orioles of the Merulidce family), whose two colours, red (ntiblii) and golden yellow (enadsi\ apparently divide them into as many fighting factions, give a touch, a bright colour to the dulness, and chatter over their pensile homes, which strangers would mistake for cocoa-nuts. Severely hustled and horribly shaken up, we ran down the little valley of the Avin streamlet. It comes from afar, heading, they say, in Abasakasu, a region where gold abounds. In three-quarters of an hour we had cleared the four short miles which separate Axim from the Ancobra ferry. This is the line of a future tramway, which will transport goods from the port to the river ; at present they must be shipped in bar-boats, which cost much and carry little. The ground divides itself into three sections the red clay north of Axim ; the sands, whose green-grown upper levels are fitted to support iron-pot sleepers ; and the Avin valley, which debouches upon the left bank of the Ancobra. The first and the last divisions are safe for creosoted wood. My friend Mr. Kussell Shaw would, I doubt not, take the contract for 4,000., and a macadamised cart-road could be made for 5001. This would be the beginning of a much-wanted 134 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. change. At present the prices of transport are appall- ing. The French mines pay from 21. to 21. 10s. per ton from England to Axim ; from Axim to Takwa, forty miles by river and thirty by land, costs them 600 francs (24L) per ton. Moreover, native hands are not always forthcoming. The Ancobra River, the main artery and waterway of this region, must not be written after the Jonesian or modern mode, * Ankobra ' and ' Ankober,' nor with Bosman ' Eio Cobre ' (Eiver of Copper). It has evidently no connection with Abyssinian Ankober. To the native name, l Anku ' or l Manku,' the Portuguese added Cobra, expressing its snaky course. Bowdich, followed by many moderns, calls it See'nna, for San ma or Sanuma, meaning ' unless a gale (of wind).' The legend is that a savage and murderous old king of the Apollonians, whose capital was Atabo, built a look-out upon a tall cocoanut-tree, and declared that nothing but a storm could lay it low. Sanma is still the name of the settlement on the right bank near the river- mouth. We rested at Kumprasi, a few huts close to the embouchure of the iron-bedded Avin streamlet and backwater. The little zinc-roofed hut, called by courtesy a store, belonging to Messieurs Svvanzy was closed. Katubwe, the northern hill on the left bank, had been bought, together with Akromasi Point and THE ANCOBRA MOUTH. 135 the Avin valley, by the late M. Bonnat, who cleared it and began shafting it for gold in the usual routine- way. During the last six months it has been over- grown with dense vegetation. Mr. Walker believes, not unreasonably, that this lode is connected with the Apatim or Bujia reefs. Ferrying across, we could note the wild features of the Ancobra's mouth. The bar, which in smooth wea- ther allows passage to a load of five tons, not unfre- quently breaks at an offing of four miles, and breaks obliquely. The gape is garnished on either side by little black stumps of rocks, and the general effect is very unpleasant. A fine school of sharks fattens on the fish inside the bar. At this season the entrance narrows to a few feet, the effect of a huge sandspit on the right lip, and carries only six feet of water. During the rains it will rise eleven feet at Sanma, and at Tumento twenty-four feet in a day, falling with the same dangerous rapidity. We shall see more of the Ancobra, which here separates two districts. Between it and Cape Threepoints the land is called Avalawe ; and the westward region, extending to Cape Apollonia, is named Amrehia, the Amregia of Jeekel and Dahse, meaning, 'where people meet.' We halted for breakfast at Sanma, where Messieurs Swanzy have another storehouse, and where the French Company is building one for itself with characteristic 136 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. slowness. The settlement is ill-famed for the Chigo or jigger (Pulex penetrans\ unknown in my day upon the West African coast. It has killed men by causing gangrenous sores. From ' Tabon,' ! the Brazil, it crept over to Sao Paulo de Loanda, and thence it spread far and wide up and down coast, and deep into the interior. This fact suggests that there may be truth in the theory which makes the common flea of India an immigrant from Europe. At 1 P.M. we resumed our way along the beach, under sunshine tempered by the < smokes.' These mists, however, are now clearing away for the tornado-season, and ' insolation ' will become more decided. We ran by sundry little bush-villages : their names will be found in my companion's careful route-survey. I shall notice only those which showed something notable. There is sameness in the prospect, which, however, does not wholly lack interest. Soon after dawn the village urchins begin disporting themselves among the breakers and billows upon broken bits of boat, while their fathers throw the cast-net nearer shore. The brown-black pigs and piglets root up the wet sand for shell-fish ; and, higher up, the small piebald cattle loiter in the sun or shade. From afar the negro-groups are not unpicturesque in their bright red and brimstone yellow 1 ' Tabon ' is evidently corrupted from the popular greeting 'Sta bom ? ' (Are you well ? How d'e do ?) THE COCOA-TREE. 137 sheets, worn like Koman togas. A nearer view displays bridgeless, patulous noses, suggesting a figure of ; cheek-bones like molehills, and lips splayed out in the manner of speaking-trumpets : often, indeed, the face is a mere attachment to the devouring-apparatus. Throughout the day sexes and ages keep apart. The nude boys perch upon stones or worn-out canoes. Their elders affect the shade, men on one side of the village and women on the other. All the settlements are backed by cocoa-trees in lines and clumps. Those who view Africa biliously compare them with hearse- plumes ; I find in them a peculiar individuality and likeness to humankind. There is the chubby babe, six feet high ; the fast-growing ' hobbedehoy ; ' the adult, bending away from you like a man, or, woman-like, in- clining towards you ; there is the bald, shrunken senior ; and, lastly, appears death, lean and cold and dry. Between sea and settlement stand the canoes, flat- bottomed and tip-tilted like Turkish slippers ; where the land is low and floods are high, each is mounted upon four posts. Fronting and outside the village stands a wall-less roof of flat matting, the palaver-house. The settlement is surrounded by a palisade of fronds stripped from the bamboo-palm and strengthened by posts ; the latter put forth green shoots as soon as stuck in the ground, and recall memories of Robinson Crusoe. The general . entrance has a threshold two to two and a half 138 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. feet high. The tenements are simple as birds' nests, primitive as the Highlander's mud-cabin and shieling of wattle and heather. The outer walls are of bamboo- palm fronds, the partitions are of bamboo-palm matting, and the roofs are of bamboo-palm thatch. Each place has its osafahin, or headman, and each headman has his guest-house, built of better material, swish or adobe. The only approach to grandeur are the long surges and white combers of the mournful and misty Atlantic. They roll like the waving prairie-land, curl their huge heads, and dash down in a fury of foam. ' On the top of a billow we ride,' with a witness. Here and there black dots peer through the surf, and to touch them is death. This foul shore presents a formidable barrier to landing : there absolutely is no safe place between Apollonia and the Ancobra. European employes avoid tempting the breakers ; they disembark and re-embark for home, and that is all. Mr. Grant assures us that there is no risk ; Mr. Gillett, who has worked the coast since 1875, says the contrary; no man knows it better or fears it more. Some places are worse than others ; for instance, Inenyapoli is exceptionally dangerous. The sea is shallow, and ships, requiring eight fathoms, must, to be safe, anchor four miles out. The coast-soundings in the Admiralty charts are positively unsafe, and will remain so until revised. On the other hand, the reefs LAGOON-LAND. 139 and rocks of Axim Bay have wholly disappeared, with some exceptions seen off Kikam and Esyama. Looking inland we find the shore mostly subtended by a marigot, or salt-water lagoon, a miniature of those regular rivers which made the Slave Coast what it was. And along the sea we can detect its presence by the trickling of little rills guttering and furrowing the sandy surface. The formation of these characteristic African features, which either run parallel with or are disposed at various angles to the coast, is remarkably simple. There is no reason to assume with Lieutenant K. C. Hart that they result from secular upheaval. 1 The * powerful artillery with which the ocean assails the bulwarks of the land ' here heaps up a narrow strip of high sand -bank ; and the tails of the smaller streams are powerless to break through it, except when swollen by the rains. They maintain their level by receiving fresh water at the head and by percolation through the beach, while most of them are connected with the sea. We halted for rest at the Esyama village ; its land- marks are the ronnier, the glorious palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis\ here called * women's cocoa-tree.' The village looked peculiarly neat with its straight, sandy street-roads, a quarter of a mile long ; and the tene- ments generally are better than those of Axim. We noticed the usual feature, a long thatched barn of 1 Page 186, Gold Coast Blue Sook, London, 1881. 140 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. yellow clay school-cum-chapel. The people are fond of planting before their doors the felfa, croton or physic- nut (Jatropha curcas\ whose oil so long lighted Lisbon. It is a tree of many uses. Boys suck the honey of the flower-stalk ; and adults drink or otherwise use, as cor- rective of bile, an infusion of the leaves and the under bark. They could not give me the receipt for the valuable preparation of the green apple, well known to the Fantis of Accra. After returning to Axim we heard of rich diggings two hours' march inland, or north with easting from Esyama. They are called * Yirima,' or ' Choke-full ' that is, of gold. The site is occupied by King Blay's family, and the place is described as containing three or four reefs which have all been more or less worked by the natives. After we left the coast Yirima was visited by Mr. Grant, who reported it as exceptionally promising. About sunset we hit the Ebumesu, or ' Winding Water.' The people declare that it had a single mouth till the earthquakes of July 1862, which shook down Accra, raised a divide, and made a double embouchure. The eastern fork, known as the Pana, is the drain of a large and branchy lagoon, brackish water, bitumen- coloured or brassy-yellow, with poisonous vegetation, and bounded by mangroves abounding in tannin. These water-forests grow differently from the red and white rhizophores of Eastern Africa. We shall again be THE EBUMESU BARS. 141 ferried over the upper part of the western mouth. Both have bad bars, especially the latter. I there- fore can by no means agree with Mr. Walker's report : ' The western outlet of the Ebumesu, near the village of Eku Enu, or Ekwanu, is quite practicable for ordinary surf-boats during the dry season say half the year and even in the middle of June I found the bar smooth and safe. Having for thirty years worked some of the worst bars and beaches' (the Gaboon ? or the Sherbro ?) * along some hundreds of miles of the West Coast, I am able to state that the Ebumesu bar might be safely utilised for landing goods and machinery ; but during the heavy surf of the rainy season goods could always be disembarked at Axim, and, if necessary, carried along the beach to the mouth of the Ebumesu, and thence by boat to the tramway from that river to the mine.' This last statement is quite correct. All the Aximites described the Ebumesu bars as prac- tically impassable. Cameron and I agreed that the only way of entering them is by running the boat ashore, unloading her, and warping her round the point, as we shall afterwards do at Prince's. But the best line to the Izrah concession has not yet been dis- covered. I strongly impressed the necessity of careful search upon Mr. A. A. Kobertson, the traffic-manager of the Company. For the present I hold the surf along shore and the Ebumesu bar to be equally dangerous. 142 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. The land-tongue between the two streams is the favourite haunt of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and it produces nothing save mud and mangroves, miasma and malaria. Yet here in 1873-74 loyal and stout- hearted King Blay defended himself against the whole Apollonian coast, which actively sympathised with the Ashantis. 1 He was at last relieved by the Wasas (Wassaws) coming to his side ; and now he has little to fear. He can put some 5,000 musketeers into the field ; and, during the late Ashanti scare, he offered to aid us with 7,000, if we could supply the extras with arms and ammunition. When the * Queen of Shades ' arose, and it became too dark to see the world, we halted at the Sensyere village, and found good sleeping-quarters in the guest- house of the headman, Bato. Fortunately we had brought mattresses. The standing four-poster of the country offers only cross-planks covered with the thinnest matting. As the ancient joke of many a lugu- brious African traveller says, it combines bed and board. Next morning, despite the chilly damp and the * old- woman-cannot-see,' as the Scotch mist is here called, our men were ready within reasonable limits. After two hours' hammock we found ourselves at Atabo, capital of eastern Apollonia, about to pay our promised return-visit to good King Blay. 1 Captain Brackenbury, vol. ii. p. 299, The Ashanti War, &c., gives an account of King Elaj fighting the Ashantis on the Ebumesu. A TABO. 143 It is useless to describe the settlement, which in no way differs from those passed on the path. The country- people related its origin as follows : A Fanti man from the country between Secondee(Sekondi), or Fort Orange, and Shamah (Chamah), at the mouth of the Bosom Prah, when driven out by war, first founded * Kabeku,' near the present place of that name. His sons built Bein, or Benin, 1 meaning a ' strong man,' and Atabo, in Fanti atdba, the name of a tree with a reddish-yellow fruit. The latter was paramount till late years, when turbul- ent and unruly Bein was allowed to set up for herself an independent king ; and the sooner things return to the status quo ante the better for peace. King Blay's guest-house of whitewashed swish is a model of its kind. You pass through a large compound, which contains the outhouses, into a broad, deep veran- dah, generally facing away from the sea. It opens upon a central room adorned with German prints of Scrip- tural subjects Mariahilf, for instance, all gaudy colour and gilt spangles. On each side of this piece are sleeping-rooms. The furniture of the five is exceed- ingly simple a standing bedstead, a table, and a few wooden chairs. But Ahin Blay is a civilised man who strews his floors with matting, and has osier fauteuils from Madeira. These quarters are quite wholesome 1 The aspirate is hardly audible. Captain Brackenbury, generally so careful, manages to confound Bein and Benin. 144 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. and comfortable enough for temporary use. They would be greatly improved by mounting on pillars or piles ; and they might serve for all seasons save the rainy. Mr. Graham, who dispenses elementary knowledge to the missionary pupils, came to us at once, and kindly offered his aid as ' mouf.' These useful men, who serve as go-betweens and interpreters, are called * scholars ' by the people, and are charged with making profit out of whites and blacks. In the afternoon Mr. Graham brought me two neolithic stone-implements. We then set out for the ' palace,' a large congeries of houses and huts, guided by a mighty braying of horns and beating of drums, and by Union Jacks, with the most grotesque adjuncts of men and beasts, planted in the clean and sandy street-road. King Blay received us in his palaver-hall, and his costume now savoured not of Europe, but of * fetish.' He had been ' making cus- toms,' or worshipping after country-fashion, and would not keep us waiting while he changed dress. The cap was a kind of tall hood, adorned with circles of cowries and two horns of the little bush-antelope; the robe was Moorish, long and large-sleeved, and both were charged with rolls of red, white, and blue stuff, sup- posed to contain grigris, or talismans. The Ashanti medal, however, was still there; indeed, he wore it round his neck even on the march, when his toilette was reduced to a waist-cloth and a billycock. ENGLISH FORT, BEIN. 145 After discussing palm- wine in preference to trade- gin, we persuaded King Blay, despite all his opposition, that * time is gold,' and that with strange and indelicate haste we must set out early on the morrow for the Izrah mine. His main difficulty was about clearing the path ; he had issued strong orders upon the subject, but African kings often command and no one cares to obey. The monarchy is essentially limited, and the lieges allow no stretch of power, unless the ruling arm be exceptionally long and strong. Hearing that the gold-hilted official swords of the King of Bern were for sale, and wishing to inspect the place, we set off at 3.30 P.M. to cover the 4,769 yards measured along the sands by Mr. Graham. Reaching our destination, eighteen miles distant from Axim, we were carried up the long straight street-road which leads to the old English fort. It is the normal build- ing, a house on bastions, both well and solidly made of stone and lime. Amongst the materials I found a fine yellow sandstone-grit and a nummulite so weathered that the shells stood out in strong relief. Both were new to us on this trap-coast, and no one could say where they were quarried; many thought they must have come from Europe, others that they are brought from inland. The masonry of the sea-front was pitted with seven large wounds, dealt by as many shells when we broke down our own work. Such was the conse- VOL. IT. L y 146 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. quence of sympathising with the Ashantis in 1873, when Axim also was bombarded. What changes these factory-forts have seen, begin- ning with the days of the jolly old Hollanders, who, in doublets and trunk-hose, held high state, commanding large garrisons and ruling the rulers of the land. What banquets, what carousals, with sopies of the best schiedam, and long clay-pipes stuffed with the finest tobacco, when an exceptional haul of gold-dust or cap- tives had come to hand ! But Time got the better of them ; the abolition of the export slave-trade cut the ground from under their feet; diminished profits made economy necessary, and the forts were allowed to become the shadows of their former selves. Then came the cession to England, when all appeared running on the road to ruin. Now, how- ever, things are again changed, and ' Kesurgam ' may be written upon these scenes of decay. The Mines will once more make the fortune of the Gold Coast, and the old buildings will become useful as hospitals, and store-houses, and barracoons for coolie emigrants. The Bein fort has been repaired and whitewashed inside by the lessees, Messieurs Swanzy, whose agent, Mr. Carr, we found here in possession. Unlike Axim, it still preserves intact the outer work with its dwarf belfry over the strong doorway. But the cistern in the FISH-SLICER "SWORDS. 147 middle of this slave-court must make the cleanly old Netherlanders turn in their tombs. Opposite the fort is the normal school-room, occa- sionally served by Mr. Graham, of Atabo ; Bein has a tide-waiter, but no pedagogue. Beyond it rises the large and uneven swish-house of the ' King,' who has lately been summonsed, as a defaulting debtor, to Cape Coast Castle : the single black policeman who served the writ evidently looked upon us as his colleagues. The people eyed us with no friendly glances ; they were ' making custom ' for the ruler's return. The vague phrase denoted, in this case, a frantic battering of drums, big and little; a squeaking of scrannel pipes ; a feminine ' break-down ' of the most effr&n&e description, and a general libation to the Bacchus of Blackland. A debauched and drunken Ashanti, who executed for our benefit a decapitation-dance, evidently wishing that we had been its objects, thanked us ironically for a sixpence. We met some difficulty in seeing the swords, which were not to be sold. They were the usual rusty and decayed fish-slicers ; Cameron, however, was kind enough to sketch them for me, and they will appear in my coming book. Most of the adult males had travelled inland to the Takwa or French mines, where the Apollonians bear the highest reputation. Whole gangs flock to the diggings, bringing their own provisions and L 2 1 48 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. implements. Thus they have begun working on tribute and contracting for piece-work. 1 This is a favourable phase of the labour-question. At the same time it is clear that the labourer can easily keep the richest specimens for himself and palm off the worst stuff upon the stranger. Here we are next door to the Ivory Coast, and elephants, they say, are still to be found within two days north of Bein. The hunters cross a broad stream (the Tando ?) and a dry swamp ; they then enter an uninhabited forest ; and, after a couple of marches, they reach the animals' haunts. Small tusks are at times brought in, but no Europeans, so far as I know, ever killed a tusker in these wilds. My informants heard that a route from Bein leads to Gryman, and that it may be travelled without difficulty. The following note, by Mr. Edward L. McCarthy, describes an excursion from Bein to the unvisited Essua-ti, made by him in August 1881 : < Accompanied by Prince John Coffee, heir to King Blay, three other chiefs, their servants, and my own party of Krumen, we left the town of Bein, Apollonia, to go up to the village in the bush called Esu-ti. Half a mile from the town we found canoes awaiting us, and in these we were poted along for over half an This information was given to me by M. Plisson, traffic-manager to the Company. TO THE ELEPHANT-HAUNTS. 149 hour over what in the dry season is a native path, but now a narrow channel of water winding about in a dense jungle of reeds. Here and there we came upon small hillocks covered with trees, in which numerous monkeys sported about. Emerging from these reeds, one broad sheet of water presented itself to the eye, encircled by a low shore fringed with canes, bush, and palm-trees, and at its western extremity a range of hills rose out of the background. The lagoon receives several small streams, and empties itself into the sea by the Ebumesu river, its mouth being about half-way between Bein and the Ancobra. According to the natives the river used to be navigable to its mouth, but of late years has become overgrown with reeds. A few years back they set to work to cut a channel through them, but getting tired of the work gave it up. The length of the lagoon appears to be about three to four miles, and about one to one and a half in breadth. Its major axis runs parallel to the coast- line, or nearly due east and west. Twenty minutes' paddling brought us round the point of a small head- land, where we came in sight of a pretty lake-village, built upon piles, at some little distance from the shore, the whole forming a most picturesque and animated scene. From house to house canoes laden with people, plantains, &c., were passing to and fro ; groups of villagers, some standing, others sitting, upon the raised ISO TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. bamboo-platforms outside their houses, were busy bar- tering fish for plantains, while the children played around, apparently unconscious of any danger from falling into the water. The settlement consisted of over forty houses, mostly of bamboo, a few of " swish," forming one long irregular line, and three or four standing away from the rest round a corner of land, after the Fanti custom. These houses were built on a bamboo- platform supported by piles, and raised above the water some three and a half feet. One half of the platform is covered by the house; the other half, left free, is used to fish from, for the children to play about on, and for receptions when palavers are held. ' The distance from the shore varies with the over- flow of the lake, at the time of my visit about thirty to forty yards, though for miles beyond this the ground was saturated with water, whose depth varied from three and a half to nine feet. The piles are made of stout sticks; the mode of driving them in is to lash two canoes abreast by means of two sticks or paddles, placed transversely, leaving an open space of about two and a half feet between them. Two men in each canoe, and facing each other, then vigorously twist and churn about the pole, or rather stick, into the soft bottom of the lagoon. Some fifteen of these poles are thus driven in and firmly braced together by cross-pieces, A CRANNOG (LAKE- VILLAGE}. 151 upon which the platform is constructed, and on this again the house is built. * We stopped here to breakfast before ascending the Bousaha River ; and, while so doing, I counted at one time over forty natives sitting round us on the platform. I was not without my fears that we should all be preci- pitated into the water, but the structure, though in appearance frail and very rude, was far stronger than what it looked. ' I closely questioned the natives as to why they had built their village upon the lake, and they invariably gave as their reason that they chiefly fished at night ; and, as the water often overflowed, they would have to build their houses too far away to be able to come and go during the night ; whereas " now," they said, " we are close to where we catch our fish, and we often catch them even from our houses." Underneath each house were tied from one to five, and sometimes more, canoes. These were much lighter, more rounded off in the keel, stem, and stern, than the beach-canoes. ' Three white men, they told me, had visited their village Captain Dudley in 1876, judging from the age of a child who was born at the time of his visit ; Captain Grant and Mr. Gillett, in 1878, I afterwards learnt, were the other two. None of them went further into the interior. ' After breakfast we crossed the lagoon, passing on 152 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. our way several canoes fishing in the middle. The water was very clear and blue, and of considerable depth, judging from a stone dropped in. Unfortunately I had no other means of sounding. Not until a dozen yards from the shore were any signs of a stream dis- cernible. Pushing aside some reeds, we entered a narrow lane of water, varying from three feet to eighteen feet in width, deep, and, according to the natives, navig- able for three days by canoes. This stream is known by the name of Bousaha, and the lagoon by Ebumesu. After two hours' hard paddling in a northerly direction we stopped to walk to the village of Niba, a large place, principally engaged in raising food for the coast fishing-villages and Bern, and also in elephant-hunting. * Elephants at the time of my visit were reported in large numbers two days' journey in the bush, and the villagers were then organising a party for a hunt. Outside the village I came across the skull of a young elephant, from which I extracted the teeth. The only report of a white man having been here before was long ago, when, some of the old men told me, he came from Assini direction, but turned back again. The village was neatly laid out in streets and was beauti- fully clean. i Another three hours' pull, still bearing northwards, brought us to the village of Essuati, a smaller place than Niba, but very prettily laid out with trees, sur- FISH-TRAP. 'S3 rounded by seats in its central street. The people here, as at Niba, were mainly engaged in agriculture. * Crowds came to see the " white man," many of the women and children never having been to Axim, the nearest place where whites are to be found, and, con- sequently, had never seen one before. ' After a few days' stay here I returned to the coast. While there I came across a curious fish-trap, a de- scription of which may not be uninteresting. Across a stick planted in the river-bed a light piece of bamboo was tied, and at its further extremity was suspended a string carrying fish-hooks. Above these a broad piece of wood, suspended so as to be half in and half out of the water, acted as a float and spindle. Above this again were tied four large shells, so that when a fish is hooked the shells begin to jingle, and the fishermen, hid in the bush, immediately rush out and secure the fish.' bcuted/ Yieft/ hookg 154 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. CHAPTER XVIII. THE IZRAH MINE THE INYOKO CONCESSION THE RETURN TO AXIM. THE next day (February 2) showed me my objective, Izrah, after a voyage of nearly three months. The caravan, now homeward-bound after a fashion, rose early, and we hammocked in the cool and misty morning along shore to Inyenapoli the word means Greater Inyena, as opposed to Inyenachi, the Less. In the house of Mr. J. Eskine I saw his tradesman bartering cloth for gold-dust. The weighing apparatus is complicated and curious, and complete sets of im- plements are rare ; they consist of blowers, sifters, spoons, native scales, weights of many kinds, and 6 fetish gong-gongs,' or dwarf double bells. Gold-dust is the only coin of the realm; and travellers who would pass north of the Protectorate must buy it on the coast. It is handier than one would suppose ; even a farthing can be paid in it by putting one or two grains upon a knife-tip, and there is GOLD- WEIGHTS. 1 5 5 a name, peseha (~Port.peso ?), for a pennyworth. Larger values go by weight ; the aki (ackie\ l or sixteenth of an ounce, being the unit of value. The people may be persuaded to take an English sovereign, but they spurn a French napoleon. Amongst the many de- siderata of the Coast is a law making all our silver coins legal tenders. At present the natives will scarcely take any thing' but threepenny-bits, new and bright and bear- ing H.B.M.'s 'counterfeit presentment.' Copper has been tried, but was made to fail by a clever District-com- missioner, who refused to take the metal in payment of Government dues. The old cowrie-currency, of which the tapo, or score, represented two farthings, is all but extinct. Its name will be preserved in the proverb, 4 Tkere is no market wherein the dove with the pouting breast (the cyprcea) has not traded.' The same is the case with the oldest money, round and perforated quartz-stones, which suggest the ring-coinage of ancient Egypt. 1 The word aki sounds much like the Arab rvuJtkah or wukkiyah. Its weight, the 16th of an ounce, never varies ; but the value ranges from 4s. 6d. to 5s., according as the ounce is worth 31. 12s. to 4?. 10*., the average being assumed at 4Z. Other proportions are : The toJiu (carat-seed) = 5d. The benna = 2 tikis. The periquen, pereguen, or peredrvtme = 32 akis, or two ounces in weight ; and ranging in value from 9Z. to 10Z. (Bowdich, p. 283). The word is Ashanti, little used by the Fantis. For a list of these complicated gold weights, of which Mr. Grant has promised me a set, see Appendix B, A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language, Rev. Christaller, Basel, 1881. 156 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. From Inyenapoli, preceded by King Blay, who so managed that a fair path had been hastily cut through the bush, we struck inland, the course being north- wards, bending to the north-east and east. The first hour, covering some three miles, lay partly over a flat plain of grass used for thatch, pimpled with red ant- hills and broken by lines and patches of dense jungle. These savannahs are common near the sea ; we had already remarked one behind Bern. They denote the * false coast,' and they become during the wet season almost impassable swamps and mud-fields. Then we struck the valley of * Ebumesu, winding water,' whose approach, rank with mire and corded with roots, is the Great Dismal Swamp of Dahome in miniature. Here, seven and a quarter miles from the mouth, the stream measures about twenty yards broad, the thalweg is deep and navigable, and the water, bitu- men-coloured with vegetable matter, tastes brackish. There is the usual wasteful profusion of growth. Ferns ramp upon the trees ; Cameron counted at Akankon two dozen different species within a few hundred yards. Orchids bunch the boughs and boles of dead forest- giants ; and llianas, the African ' tie-tie,' varying in growth from a packthread to a cable, act as cordage to connect the growths. There is evidently a shorter cut up the river, at whose lagoon-mouth craft can be hired. Our ferryman PALM-WINE. 157 with his single canoe wasted a good hour over the work of a few minutes. We then remounted hammock and struck the * true coast,' a charming bit of country, gradually upsloping to the north and east. The path passed through the plantation-villages, Benya and Arabo, growing bananas and maize, cassava and ground- nuts, peppers and papaws, cocoas and bamboo-palms (Raphia vinifera). The latter not only build the houses, they also yield wine of two kinds, both, however, inferior to the produce of the oil-palm (Elais guineensis). The adube, drawn from the cut spathe, which continues to yield for two or three months, is held to be wholesome, diuretic, and laxative. The insefu is produced in mortice-like holes cut along the felled trunk ; they fill freely for a fort- night to three weeks, when fires must be lighted below to make the juice run into the pots. It is sweeter and better flavoured than the former, but it is accused of being unwholesome. The people drink palm-wine at different hours of the day, according to taste. The beverage is mild as milk in the morning ; after noon it becomes heady, and rough as the sourest cider. The useful palm bears a huge bolster-like roll of fruit, which should be tried for oil : Cameron brought home a fine specimen for Kew. Here the land is evidently most fertile, and will form good farms for the Company. Leaving Arabo, we forded the double stream called the 1 58 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Bila, which runs a few yards west of the concession. The banks are grown with rice, showing how easily they will produce all the food necessary for the labourers. The quality, moreover, is better, and the grain more nutritious than the Chinese import. The bed of bright sand, supplying the sweetest water, has in places been worked for gold by the women, but much remains to be done. In another hour, making a total of six miles from Inyenapoli, we reached our destination, Arabokasu, or * One Stone for Top.' We lodged our belongings in the bamboo-house newly built by Mr. Grant, finding it perfectly fit for temporary use. Before I left Axim Mr. C. C. Eobertson landed there, instructed by the Izrah Company to choose a fair site for a frame- house mounted on piles. It was presently made in England, but unfortunately not after the Lagos fashion, with the bed-rooms opening upon a verandah seven to nine feet broad, and a double roof of wood with air- space between, instead of thatch and corrugated iron. The house measures 52 x 32 feet, and contains four bed-rooms, a dining-room, and the manager's office. A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300L to 500., an exceptional article 700L , We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is properly Izia, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the THE IZRAH MINE. 159 spot. This style of nomenclature is quite * country- fashion.' Apparently Izia became Izrah to assume a ' Scriptural ' sound ; if so, why not ' go the whole animal ' and call it the Isaiah ? This fine concession is a rectangular parallelogram, whose dimensions are 2,000 yards long from north to south, by a breadth of half. The village stands outside the south-western angle, and the Fia rivulet runs through the south-eastern corner. The surface is rolling ground, with a rise and a depression trending from south-west to north-east. The whole extent, except where 4 bush ' lingers, is an old plantation of bananas, manioc, and ground-nuts. There is an ample supply of good hard timber, but red pitch-pine or creosoted teak from England would last much longer. Amongst the trees are especially noted the copal, the gamboge, rich in sticky juice, the brovi, said to be the hardest wood, and the eZum, or African mahogany (Oldfieldia africana), well known in Ceylon as excellent material for boat-building. There was an abundance of the Calabar-bean (Physostigma venenosum\ once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints. The * tie-tie,* as Anglo- Africans call the rope-like creepers, was also plentiful ; it may prove valuable for cordage, and possibly for paper-making. I was pleased to see the ease with which the heaped-up jungle- 160 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. growth is burnt at this season and the facility of road- making. Half a dozen Kru-boys with their matchets can open, at the rate of some miles a day, a path fit to carry a * sulky ; ' and the ground wants only metalling with the stone which lines every stream. At the same time I hold that here, as in Mexico, we should begin with railways and tramways. Nor will there be any difficulty in keeping down the jungle. The soft and silky Bahama-grass has been brought from Sa Leone to Axim, where it covers the open spaces, and it grows well at Akankon. There is no trouble except to plant a few roots, which extend themselves afar; and the carpet when thick allows, like the orange-tree, no undergrowth. The * Izrah ' concession is due to the energy and activity of Mr. K. B. N. Walker, who has told its history. In March 1881, when he first visited it, there had been a black * rush ; ' the din and clamour of human voices were audible from afar, and on reaching the mine he found some 300 natives hard at work. I was told that the greatest number at one time was 2,000. The account reminds us exactly of the human floods so famous in other parts of the mining world. The men were sinking pits of unusual size along the south-eastern slope of the hillock, where the great clearing now is. The excitement was remarkable ; and, negroes not being given to hard and continuous IZRAH. 161 labour without adequate inducement, the bustle and the uproar, and the daily increasing numbers of miners flocking from considerable distances, were evidence sufficient that there was an unusually good *find.' Their pits, attaining a maximum of 12 feet square by 55 deep, extended over some 150 yards from NN.E. to SS.W., with a breadth of about 20. From some of these holes rich quartz had been taken, one piece, the size of a 32-pounder cannon-ball, yielding more than ten ounces of gold. A shaft, however, soon caved in, for the usual reason : it had been inadequately timbered and incautiously widened at the bottom to the shape of a sodawater-bottle. All these works owed a royalty to Ahin Blay ; but his dues were irregularly paid, and consequently he preferred to them a fixed rental of 1001. per annum. The following anecdote will show how limited is the power of these ' kings.' He of Apollonia wished to sell this southern patch of ground, worked by the natives, it being, in fact, the terminal tail of the Izrah reef and the key of the property. But one Etie, head- man of Kikam, bluntly refused. Presently this chieflet agreed to sell to Mr. Grant the whole tract, a length of one thousand fathoms from north to south, the breadth being left undetermined. But Etie was deep in Mes- sieurs Swanzy's books, and he wanted ready money. The tempter came in the shape of Mr. Dawson, a native VOL. n. M 162 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. missionary whom I met a score of years ago at Agbome, and whose name appears in all narratives of the last Ashanti war. Although an employe of the Takwa or French mine, he bought for himself, paying 200., the best part of the reef (100 fathoms), leaving the butt- end, of inferior value, to Mr. Grant. This was a direct breach of contract, and might be brought into the local law-courts. I advised, however, an arrangement a Vaimable, and I still hope to see it carried out. Life at Arabokasu was pleasant enough. The site, rising about 120 feet above ocean-level, permits the * Doctor,' alias the sea-breeze, to blow freshly, and we distinctly heard the sough of the surf. Morn- ings and evenings were exceedingly fine, and during the cool nights we found blankets advisable. These < small countries ' (little villages) are remarkably clean, and so are the villagers, who, unlike certain white- skins, bathe at least once a day. At this season we had nothing to complain of mosquitoes or sand-flies, nor was ' Jnsektenpulver ' wanted inside the house. The only physiological curiosity in the settlement was a spotted boy, a regular piebald, like a circus-pony ; even his head grew a triangular patch of white hair. We wanted him for the London Aquarium, but there were difficulties in the way. Amongst the Apollonians albinoes are not uncommon ; nor are the children put to death, as by the Ashantis. Both races cut the boss from hunchbacks OUR DIARY. 163 after decease, and ' make fetish ' over it to free the future family from similar distortion. Our villagers told us strange tales of a magician near Assini who can decapitate a man and restore him to life, and who lately had placed a dog's head on a boy's body. Who can * doubt the fact ' ? the boy was there ! I will now borrow freely from the diary kept during our five days' inspection of the Izrah diggings. Came- ron worked hard at a rough survey of the ground which Mr. Walker had attempted with considerable success, seeing that he carried only a pedometer and a small pocket-compass. My proceedings were necessarily limited, as I had no authority to disburse money. February 3. The night had been somewhat noisy with the hyena-like screams which startled our soldiers en route to Kumasi. They are said to proceed from a kind of hyrax (?) about the size of a rabbit ; the Kra- men call it a ' bush-dog, and, as will appear, Cameron holds it to be a lemur. The morning was cool, but not clear, and the country so far like the ' Garden of Eden ' that there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. But the mist was a Scotch mist, which, in less humid lands, might easily pass for fine rain ; and the drip, drip, drip of heavy dew- drops from the broad banana-leaves sounded like a sharp shower. At this hour the birds are wide awake and hungry; a hundred unknown songsters warble x 2 164 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. their native wood-notes wild. The bush resounds with the shriek of the parrot and the cooing of the ringdove, which reminds me of the Ku-ku-ku (Where, oh, where ?) of Umar-i-Khayyam. Its rival is the tsil-fui-fui-fui, or * hair grown,' meaning that his locks are too long and there is no one to cut or shave them. Upon the nearest tall tree, making a spiteful noise to frighten away all specimens, sits the * watch-bird,' or apateplu, so called from his cry ; he is wary and cunning, but we bagged two. The ' clock-bird,' supposed to toll every hour, has a voice which unites the bark of a dog, the caw of a crow, and the croak of a frog : he is rarely seen and even cleverer than * hair grown.' More familiar sounds are the roucoulement of the pigeon and the tapping of the woodpecker. The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small bush-antelope with black robe, of which a specimen was brought home, and the only accident was the stinging of a Kruboy by a spider more spiteful than a scorpion. Eeaching the ground after a ten minutes' walk, we examined the principal reef as carefully as we could. The strike is nearly north south, the dip easterly, and the thickness unknown. The trial-shaft, sunk by Mr. Walker in the centre of the southern line, was of con- siderable size, eight by twelve feet ; and the depth measured thirty, of which four held water based upon clay-mud. The original native shafts to the south are HOW THEY LAZE/ 165 of two kinds, the indigenous chimney-pit and the parallelogram-shaped well borrowed from Europeans. The latter varied in dimensions from mere holes to oblongs six by seven feet ; and all the more important were roofed and thatched with pent-houses of palm-leaf, to keep out the rain. The shaft-timbering, also a loan from foreigners, consisted of perpendicular bamboo- fronds tied with bush-rope to a frame of poles cut from small trees ; they corresponded with our sets and laths. There were rude ladders, but useful enough, two bamboos connected by rungs of ' tie-tie.' The ' sollars ' were shaky platforms of branches, but there was no sign of a winch. We set Krumen and porters to clear and lay out the southern boundary, and to open a path leading direct to the beach. One would fancy that nothing is easier than to cut bush in a straight line from pole to pole, especially when these were marked by strips of red calico. Yet the moment our backs were turned the wrong direction was taken. It pains one's heart to see the shirking of work, the slipping away into the bush for a sleep, and the roasting of maize and palm-nuts ' ground-pigs' fare,' they call the latter whenever an opportunity occurs. The dawdling walk and the dragging of one leg after the other, with intervals to stand and scratch, are a caution. Even the villagers appear incapable of pro- tracted labour unless it leads immediately to their benefit, and the future never claims a thought. 166 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. February 4. After the south-eastern corner had been marked with a tall cross, we opened a path from Arabokasu to the trial-shaft. We threw a bridge of the felled trunks cumbering the clearing over the Fia rivu- let, and again examined its bed. Gold had been found in it by the women, and this, as usual, gave rise to the discovery of its subtending reef. The whole of the little river-valley extending to the sea should be bought and worked ; there is no doubt that it will turn out rich. In the channel we found an outcrop of slates, both crumbling and compact ; this is always a welcome sign. To the east of the water there is a second quartz-reef, running parallel with the upper ridge, and apparently untouched by the pick. The next two days were spent in finishing the southern line and in planting a post at the south-west- ern extremity. Here we found that our workmen had gone entirely wrong, and we were forced to repeat the work. I had exposed myself over-freely to the sun, and could do little for the next week : fortunately my ener- getic companion was in better condition. February 7. Cameron took bearings from the south of the concession, which he placed, with Mr. Walker, four geographical miles from the sea. Other informants had exaggerated it to him, and M. Dahse writes six. After 1,000 to 1,200 yards he struck the false coast,' crossed a deep and fetid swamp, and, after a short ADIEU TO IZRAH. 167 rise, came upon the miry borders of the Ebumesu. He canoed 800 yards down-stream without difficulty ; and, finding the water brackish while the ebb-tide ran strong, he considered that this part was rather a lagoon than a river. The people also assured us that it runs along the coast, ending near and north of the Bein Fort-village. In the evening my companion and Mr. Grant walked to the north-west of the concession ; the place is called fey Mr. Walker Izia-bookah (Izia Hill), but the natives ignore the term. Here, at a distance of 900 yards north and by west (true) of the Arabokasu village, they found and collected specimens of a fine reef of hard white quartz. ' Women's washings ' were numerous, showing the proper way to begin working the ground. The right of prospecting the whole of the section to the N.E. had been secured by Mr. Walker for Mr. Irvine, and presently the ' Apollonian concession ' appeared in the mining journals. We had now done all we could ; the circumstances of the case compelled us to study the geology and topo- graphy of the property rather than its geology and mineralogy. Nothing now remained save to rebrousser chemin. Good King Blay, who had formally made over to me possession of the * Izrah ' mine, left us for his own village, in order to cure an inflamed foot. He attributed it to the * fetish ' of some unfriend ; but it turned out 168 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. to be Guinea-worm, a malady from which many are suffering this season. We parted upon the most friendly terms and arranged to meet again. Both of us came to the conviction that the ' Izrah Concession ' will pay, and pay well. But instead of the routine shafting and tunnelling it must be treated by hydraulicking and washing away the thirty feet of auriferous soil, whose depth covers the reef. The bed of the Fia will supply the water, and a force-pump, worked by men, or preferably by steam-power. Thus we shall keep the mine dry : otherwise it will be con- stantly flooded. Moreover, the land seems to be built for ditching and sluicing, and the trenches will want only a plank-box with a metal grating at the head. I can only hope that the operations will be conducted by an expert hand who knows something of the Cali- fornian or the Australian diggings. On February 8 we left Arabokasu, intending to march upon the ' Inyoko Concession.' Our guide and people, however, seemed to change every five minutes what they might call their 4 minds,' and at last they settled to try the worst, but to us the most interesting line. At 8 A.M. we struck into the bush via a heap of huts, the * Matinga ' village, at the south-eastern comer of the fine mineral property. Here ' women's washings ' again appeared. At the Achyako settlement we crossed the two branches of the Fia. One measures twenty AN UGLY MARCH. 169 feet wide and two feet six inches deep in the dry season ; it runs a knot an hour, and thus the supply is ample. About a mile further on we were carried across the Gwabisa stream, four feet wide by eighteen inches deep, running over a bed of quartz-pebbles. This ended the ' true coast.' The ' false coast ' began close to the little settle- ment known as Ashankru. It shows a fine quartz-reef, striking north fourteen degrees east. The formation was shown by the normal savannah and jungle-strips. About noon we were ferried over the eastern arm of the Ebumesu, known as the Papa. I have noted scanty belief in the bar of the Ebumesu proper, the western feature. The eastern entrance, however, perhaps can be used between the end of December and March, and in calm weather would offer little difficulty to the surf- boats transhipping machinery from the steamers. Beginning a little east of the Esyamo village, the Pap lagoon subtends the coast. We shot over it in the evening, and at night found quarters at the Ezrimenu village marked Ebu-mesu in old maps. This return march of two hours or so had been a mere abomination. The path, which had not been cleared, led through a tangle of foul and fetid thicket, upon which the sun darted a sickly, malignant beam. Creepers and llianas, some of which are spiny and poisonous, barred the thread of path, which could not 170 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. be used for hammocks. The several stream-beds, about to prove so precious, run chocolate-tinted water over vegetable mire, rich, when stirred, in sulphuretted hydrogen. The only bridges are fallen trunks. Amongst the minor pests are the nkran, or ' driver,' the ahoho, a highly-savoured red ant, and the hahinni, a large black formica terribly graveolent ; flies like the tzetze, centipedes, scorpions, and venomous spiders, which make men ' writhe like cut worms.' There was a weary uniformity in the closed view, and the sole breaks were an occasional plantation or a few pauper huts, with auriferous swish, buried in that eternal green. God made the country and man made the town, sang the silly sage, who evidently had never seen a region untouched by the human hand. Finally, this * Fia route ' will probably become the main line from Axim to the Izrah mine, and the face of the country will be changed within a year. As I was still weak Cameron and Mr. Grant early next morning (Feb. 9) canoed over the 300 yards or so of the Papa lagoon bounding Ezrimenu village on the land- ward side. They then struck nearly due north ; and, after walking three-quarters of an hour, perhaps two miles and a half, over a good open path, easily con- vertible into a cart-road, they reached the Inyoko Concession. It measures 2,400 yards square, begin- THE INYOKO CONCESSION. 171 ning at the central shaft, on the northern side of the hill which gives it a name ; and thus it lies only about eight miles westward of the Ancobra Biver. The ground has not been much worked of late years, but formerly Kwako Akka, the tyrant of Apollonia, ' rich in blood and ore,' who was deposed by the British Colonial Government about 1850, and was imprisoned in Cape Coast Castle, is said to have obtained from it much of his wealth. They found the strike of the hill approximately north 22 east (true) ; l the dip appears to be easterly, and the natives have worked the Abbruch or debris which have fallen from the reef-crest. This wall may be a continuation of the Akankon formation ; both are rich in a highly crystalline quartz . of livid blue, appar- ently the best colour throughout the Gold Eegion. The surface-ground, of yellowish marl with quartz-pebbles, is evidently auriferous, and below it lies a harder red earth rusty with iron. From the southern boundary of the Inyoko concession, and the village of that name, runs a strong outcrop of a kindly white quartz, which, when occurring in conjunction with the blue, usually denotes that both are richer than when a single 1 In laying down limits great attention must be paid to varia- tion. As a rule 19 45' west has been assumed from the Admiralty charts good news for the London attorney. At Tumento this figure rises to 20 ; upon the coast it must be changed to 19 15' (W.), and in other places to 16 40*. i;2 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. colour is found. Such at least is Cameron's experi- ence. Mr. Walker, who secured this concession also, notes that the native pits were very shallow and superficial. He was pressed for time, and sunk his trial-shaft but little more than three fathoms: here free gold was visible in the blue quartz, which yielded upwards of one ounce per ton. My companion found the shaft still open, and ob- served that the valley contained many holes and washing-pits. One was pointed out to him by Mr. Grant as having yielded twenty ounces of dust in one day : these reports recall the glories of California and Australia in the olden time. The little Etubu water, which runs 200 yards from the shaft, would easily form a reservoir, supplying the means of washing throughout the year. Here, then, are vast facilities for hydraulic work ; millions of cubic feet can be strained of thin gold at a minimum expenditure. There will be less ' dead work,' and ' getting ' would be immediate. Thus, too, as in California, the land will be prepared for habitation and agriculture, and the conditions of climate will presently be changed for the better. Early in the forenoon (Jan. 9) we hammocked to the Kikam village, and were much disappointed. King Blay, too lame to leave his home, had sent his inter- preter to show us the Yirima or ' Choke-full ' reef; and THE YIRIMA MINE, 173 the man, doubtless influenced by some intrigue, gave us wrong information. Moreover the safahin Eti6, before mentioned, had gone, they said, to his lands at Prince's : he was probably lurking in some adjacent hut. We breakfasted in his house, but all the doors were bolted and locked, and his people would hardly serve us with drinking water. We attempted in vain to buy the boma, or fetish-drum, a venerable piece of furniture hung round with human crania, of which only the roofs remained. King Blay, however, eventually sent us home a 6omct, and it was duly exhibited in town. Kikam was the only place in Apollonia where we met with churlish treatment ; no hospitality, however, could be expected when the strangers were supposed to be mixed up in a native quarrel. Unwilling to linger any longer in the uninviting and uninteresting spot, we ordered our hammocks, set out at noon, and, following the line over which we had travelled, reached Axim at 5 P.M. We had no other reason to complain of our week's trip except its inordinate expense. Apparently one must be the owner of a rich gold-mine to live in and travel on the Gold Coast. We had already in a fort- night got through the 501. of silver sent from Eng- land ; and this, too, without including the expenses of bed and board. We came home with the conviction that the Inyoko 174 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. property should have been the second proposed for exploitation, coming immediately after the Apatim. Our reasons were the peculiar facilities of reaching it and the certainty that, when work here begins, it will greatly facilitate communication with 'Izrah.' But progress is slow upon the Gold Coast, and our wishes may still be realised. I cannot better conclude this chapter than with an extract from Captain Brackenbury's ' Narrative of the Ashanti War.' l It will show how well that experienced and intelligent officer foresaw in 1873 the future of the Gold Coast. * Are there no means of opening this country up to trade, no means of infusing into it an element superior to that of the Fanti races, of holding in check the savagery of the inland tribes, and preventing the whole coast again becoming abandoned to fetish- ism and human sacrifices ? To the writer's mind there is but one method, and that one by an appeal to man's most ignoble passion the lust of gold. This country is not without reason called the Gold Coast. Gold is there in profusion, and to be had for the seeking. We have ourselves seen the women washing the sand at Cape Coast and finding gold. When Cap- tain Thompson visited the Wassaw (Wasa) country, he 1 Blackwoods, Edinburgh and London, 1874. Vol. ii. pp. 351, 352. CAPTAIN BRACKENBURY. 175 found the roads impassable at night by reason of the gold-pits upon them. Captain Butler describes western Akim as a country teeming with gold. Captain Glover has said that in eastern Akim gold is plentiful as potatoes in Ireland, and the paths were honeycombed with gold-pits. Dawson has distinctly stated his opinion that the Fanti gold-mines are far more valu- able than those of Ashanti that the only known Ashanti gold-mine of great value is that of Manoso ; whereas the Wassaw and the Nquamfossoo mines, as well as the Akim mines, have rock-gold (nuggets) in profusion. He says that the Ashantis get their gold from the Fantis in exchange for slaves, whom they buy for two or three loads of coller- (kola-) nuts, worth less than half an ounce of gold, and sell to the Fantis for as much as two and a quarter ounces of gold. Let our Government prospect these mines ; let Acts be passed similar to those by which vast railway companies are empowered to compel persons to sell their land at a fair price ; let our Government, by means of Houssa troops, guarantee protection to companies formed to work the mines, and let the payment to the kings in whose country they are be by royalties upon the gold ob- tained. The kings would offer the utmost resistance to their mines being thus taken and worked ; but they have never worked them properly themselves, and they will never work them properly ; and it would be no in- 1 76 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. justice to allow others to do so. If the tiHe value of these services were ascertained by Government mining engineers, if the Government would guarantee protec- tion to those engaged in working them, companies would soon be formed to reap the rich harvest to be found upon the coast. Chinese coolies would be im- ported, who would breed in with the natives and infuse some energy into the Fanti races. Trade would soon follow, roads be made, and the whole country opened up. The engagement of our Government should be a limited one, for if once the gold-mines were at work there would be no further fear that the country would ever fall back into the hands of the Ashantis.' The counsel is good, but we have done better. Private companies have undertaken the work, and have succeeded where the Government would fail. So far from resisting, the * kings ' have been too glad to accept our offers. And now the course is forwards, without costing the country a farthing, and with a fair prospect of supplying to it a large proportion of the precious metal still wanted. NOTE. Since these lines were written the Yiri (full) ma (quite) reef has been leased by Mr. Grant, who sent home specimens showing, I am told, 14 oz. per ton. The fine property belongs to King Blay, who built a village upon it and there stationed his brother to prevent 'jump- ing.' In the spring of 1862 he wished to keep half the ground for his own use. 177 CHAPTER XIX. TO PRINCE'S RIVER AND BACK. ON February 15 we proceeded down coast to inspect the mining-lands of Prince's Eiver valley, east of Axim ; and this time it was resolved to travel by surf-boat, ignoring that lazy rogue the hammock-man. Yet even here difficulties arose. Mast and sail were to be borrowed, and paddles were to be hired at the rate of a shilling a day each. They are the life of the fishing Aximites ; yet vhey have not the energy to make them, and must buy those made in Elmina. The eastern coast, like that of Apollonia, is a succession of points and bays, of cool-looking emerald jungle and of ' Afric's golden sands ' reeking with unkindly heat. Passing the long black tongue of Prepre, or Inkubun, and the red projection, Ponta Terceira, we sighted the important Ajamera village, so called from a tree whose young leaves show a tender pinkish-red. On the Awazan Boppo Hill, about two miles from the trial-shaft of his concession, Dr. Ross VOL. n. N 178 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. found a native * Long Tom.' It was a hollowed palm- trunk rotten with age, closed at one end and open at the other, with a slant downwards ; two forks supported it over a water-filled hollow, measuring ten feet each way by three deep. Ajamera lies a little west of the peninsula, Africanice Madrekanah, a jutting mass of naked granite glazed red by sea-water : on either side of the sandy neck, pinned down, like Pirate's Bay, by cocoa-nuts, there is the safest landing-place. And now we sight our port, distant some nine miles from Axim. In front rises Prince's Hill, clad in undergrowth with a topping tuft of tall figs. At its eastern base lies the townlet, showing more whitewash than usual ; and, nearer still, the narrow mouth of the fiery little Yenna, Prince's or St. John's River. The view is backed by the tall and wooded ridge of Cape Threepoints, the southernmost headland of the Gold Coast, behind which is Dixcove. It is interesting to us because a syndicate has been formed, and engineers are being sent out to survey the pathless ' bush ' between the sea and Tumento on the Ancobra, whose site was at the time unknown. Cameron presently discovered that the Takwa ridge is nearer Axim than Dixcove is, and that the line would pass within easy distance of Kinyanko, one of its raisons d'etre. This wild plan has been supported by sundry con- cessionists whose interests lie behind Dixcove and at DIXCOVE. 179 Kinyanko. Dixcove of the crocodile-worship has one of the worst bars on the coast. Canoes and surf- boats must run within biscuit-throw of the Rock Kum- Brenni ' (' White Man's Death ' ), and the surf will often shut up the landing-place for four or five successive days. The place will become important, but not in this way. The Eev. Mr. Milum, in whose pleasant society I voyaged, showed me his sketch of the station with an isolated red ' butte,' possibly an island of old, rising close behind the houses and trending north south. Grain-gold was found in it by the native schoolmaster, who dug where he saw a thin smoke or vapour hovering over the ground : throughout the Coast this, like the presence of certain ferns, is held a sure sign that the precious ore is present. Moreover, a small nugget appeared in the swish being prepared for a house-wall. Thus ' washing ' will be easy and in- expensive, and the Wesleyan mission may secure funds for extending itself into the non-maritime regions. We turned the boat's head shorewards, and, after encountering the normal three seas, ran her upon the beach near the right jaw of Prince's River. The actual 1 In the Oji or Ashanti-Fanti tongue Iro or ~bronni (the Ga ' blofo ') means somebody or something European. It is derived from abro (Mo), maize, introduced by white men ; others say that when the first strangers landed upon the coast, the women, who were grinding, said, ' These men are white as maize-meal.'' ' Abro- kirri ' (Europe) is, however, explained by the Rev. Mr. Riis as per- haps a corruption of Puto, Porto, Portugal. N 2 i8o TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. mouth is between natural piers of sea-blackened trap- rock, and the gullet behind it could at this season be cleared by an English hunter. We unloaded and warped our conveyance round the gape till she rode safe in the inner broad. And now we saw that Prince's is not the river of the hydrographic chart, but a true lagoon-stream, the remains of a much larger formation. There has been, here and on other parts of the coast, a little archipelago whose islets directed the riverine courses ; the shallows between were warped up by mangrove and other swampy vegetation, and the whole has become, after a fashion, terra firma. Each holm had doubtless a core of rock, whose decay produced a rich soil. Now they are mounds and ridges of red clay standing up abruptly, and their dense growths of dark yew-like trees contrast with the yellowish produce of the adjacent miry lowlands. The chief of Prince's Town, Eshanehi, alias ' Septi- mulus, ? a name showing a succession of seven sons, not without a suspicion of twins, would have accompanied us up stream. Guinea-worm, however, forbade, and he sent a couple of guides, one of whom, Wafapa, alias * Barnabas,' a stout, active freedman of the village, proved very useful. We resolved to shoot the banks going, and to collect botanical specimens on return. The land appears poor in mammals, rich in avifauna, and exceedingly abund- ANIMAL LIFE. 181 ant in insect life. Of larger animals there are leopards, cat o' mountains and civet-cats, wild hog and fine large deer ; we bought a leg" weighing 11^ Ibs., and it was excellent eating seasoned with 'poor man's qui- nine,' alias garlic. Natives and strangers speak of the jungle-cow, probably the Nyare antelope (Bos brachy- ceros) of the Gaboon regions, the empacasso of the Portuguese. Two small black squirrels, scampering about a white-boled tree, were cunning enough never to give a shot. We sighted only small monkeys with white beards and ruddy coats. ' He be too clever for we,' said the Kruboys when the wary mannikins hid in the bush. I saw nothing of the kontromfi, cynoce- phalus or dog-faced baboon, concerning whose ferocity this part of Africa is full of stories. Further north there is a still larger anthropoid, which the natives call a wild man and Europeans a gorilla. The latter describe its peculiar whoop, heard in the early night when the sexes call to each other. Our results were two species of kingfishers (alcedo\ the third and larger kind not showing ; a true curlew (Numenius arquata}, charming little black swallows ( Wardenia nigrita}, the common English swallow ; a hornbill (buceros}, all feathers and no flesh ; a lean and lanky diver (plotus}, some lovely little honeysuckers, a red oriole, a fine vulture (Gypohierax angolensis}, and a grand osprey (halicetus*), which even in the 182 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. agonies of death would not drop his prey. Many other birds were given over to Mr. Dawson, who worked from dawn till dusk. Mr. Grant dropped from the trees three snakes, one green and t\vo slaty- brown. The collection found its way to the British Museum after the usual extensive plunder, probably at a certain port, where it is said professional collectors keep customhouse-men in pay. Mr. E. B. Sharp was kind enough to name the birds, whose shrunken list will be found at the end of the volume. Cameron, observing for his map, was surprised by the windings of the bed ; we seemed ever within hearing of the sea. Where a holm of rock and bush splits the course its waters swarm with fish, as shown by the weirs and the baskets, large and small ; some of its cat-fish (siluTi) weigh 10 Ibs. Every shoal bred oysters in profusion, young mangroves sprouted from the submerged mollusk-beds, and the ' forests of the sea ' were peopled with land-crabs. At first the vegetation of the banks was almost wholly of rhizophores, white and red ; the wood of the latter burns like coal, and the bark is admirable for tanning. In places their long suckers, growing down- wards to the stream, resembled a cordwainer's walk set on end. A bush of yellow-flowered hibiscus clothes the banks that are less level ; and, higher still, grows a tall and beautiful mimosa with feathery web and pen- PROSPECT ON PRINCES RIVER. 183 dent pods of brightest green and yellow. Then came the brabs and palms, fan-, cocoa-, oil-, and bamboo-, with their trunks turned to nurseries of epiphytes and air- plants. The parasites are clematis and a host with hard botanical names. Towards evening, as the stream narrowed, the spectacle was imposing. The avenues and trees stood up like walls, but living walls ; and in places their billowy bulges seemed about to burst upon us like Cape-rollers. Every contrast was there of light and dark, short and tall, thick and thin ; of age and death with lusty youth clinging around it; of the cocoa's drooping frond and the aspiring arm of bombax, the silk-cotton-tree, which rains brown gossamer when the wind blows ; of the sloth-tree with its topping tuft, and the tangled mantle of the calamus or rattan, a palm like a bamboo-cane. The bristly pod of the dolichos (pruriens) hangs by the side of the leguminosse, from whose flattened, chestnut-coloured seeds snuff-boxes are made further east. It was also a floresta florida, whose giants are decked with the tender little blossoms of the shrub, and where the bright bracts and yellow greens of this year's growth light up the sombre verdure of an older date. The type of this growth is the red camwood-tree, with its white flower of the sweetest savour. Imagine an English elm studded with pinks or daisies, gardenias or hyacinths. 1 84 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. There is nothing more picturesque than the shiftings and changes of aspect upon these African streams, which at first seem so monotonous. After dawn the smoking water, feeling tepid to the hand and warmer than the atmosphere, veils the lower levels and makes the forest look as if based on air. Noon brings out every variety of distance with startling distinctness, and night, especially moonlit night, blurs with its mists long tracts of forest, rains silver over the ridges, and leaves the hollows in the blackest shade. Seen from above, the sea of trees looks like green water raised to waves by the wind, and the rustling in the breeze mimics the sound of distant surf. A catamaran of four cork-trees, a cranky canoe, the landing-place of a bush-road, a banana-plantation, and a dwarf clearing, where sat a family boiling down palm-nuts for oil, proved that here and there the low- land did not lack lowlanders. The people stared at us without surprise, although this was only the fourth time they had seen a surf-boat. The river-bed, grid- ironed with rocky reefs, showed us twenty -two turns in a few miles ; some were horseshoe-bends, sweeping clean round to the south, and one described a curve of 170. After slow and interrupted paddling for an hour and a half, at 6 P.M., when night neared, we halted at the village of Esubeyah, or ' Water-made ; ' ' and my 1 The radical of water is ' su,' curiously corresponding with Turkish and with that oldest of the Turkish tongues, Chinese. ROMANSHORN MILK. 185 companion made sure of his distances by a latitudinal observation of Canopus. Next morning we had ' English tea ' for the first and last time in West Africa ; usually we preferred the Russian form, drunk in a tumbler with a slice of lime that sinks or of lemon that floats. Mr. Gillett had given us a bottle of ' Eomanshorn ' from the Swiss farm, an admirable preparation which also yields fresh butter. The price is high, Is. Qd. a bottle, or, for the case of forty-eight imperial pints, 72s. ; this, however, is the Coast, not the cost figure. For invalids, who are nauseated by the sickly, over-sugared stuff popularly called * tin-juice,' and who feel life put in them by rum and milk, it is an invaluable comfort. We left Esubeyah in the ' lizard's sun ' at 7 A.M., and found the river changed for the worse. The freshets had uptorn from the banks the tallest trees, which in places formed a timber-floor ; and the surf-boat gal- lantly charged, till she leaked, the huge trunks, over which she had often to be lifted. Nothing would be easier than to clear away these obstacles ; a few pounds of gun-cotton would remove snags and sawyers, and dredging by boats would do the rest. Then Prince's River would become an excellent highway. An hour and a half s slow paddling placed us at the landing-place of Bekal (a village in general), the usual hole in the bush. Here navigation ends in the dry 1 86 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. season. We walked to and through the mean little settlement, and established ourselves at Anima-kru, 1 a mile from the landing-place on the Yenna, or Prince's Kiver. It faces a splendidly wooded mound upon the right or opposite bank. Mra Kwdmi, the headman, received us hospitably, cleared a house, and offered us the usual palm-wine and snuff: the powder, composed of tobacco, ginger, and cloves, is boxed in a round wild fruit. The village contained only two men ; the rest were drinking, at Prince's town, the proceeds of a puncheon of palm-oil. The plantations still showed fruits and flowers probably left by the Portuguese wild oranges, mangoes, limes, pine-apples, and the ' four o'clock.' a kind of * marvel of Peru,' supposed to open at that hour. The houses, crepi or parget below and bamboo above, are mere band-boxes raised from the ground ; the smaller perfectly imitated poultry-crates. All appeared unusually neat and clean, with orna- mental sheets of clam-shells trodden into the earth before the thresholds. * Fetish ' was abundant, and so was that worst of all plagues the sand-fly. After breakfasting we set out north over a sandy level, clearly reclaimed from the sea, and in a few 1 The English croom ' is a corruption of kni-m/u or Itrum, ' in the village.' Properly speaking ' kru ' and ' man ' are the town, or common centre of many akura (plantation-hamlets), in which the owners keep their families andfamilue. MINING-GROUNDS. 187 minutes struck the true coast. Here begins the St. John mining-ground, conceded for prospecting to Messieurs Gillett and Selby. A fair path runs up hil- locks of red-yellow clay, metalled with rounded quartz and ironstone-gravel, roped with roots and barred with trees ; their greatest elevation may have been 120 feet. Two parallel ridges, trending north-north-east, are bisected by torrents pouring westward to the river : now dry, they have rdlled down huge boulders in their frequent floods. These ' hard-heads,' which try the hammer, show a revetment of cellular iron upon a solid core of greenstone and bluish trap. Some frag- ments not a little resembled the clay-slates of the Brazilian gold-mines. Such was the concession which we named Sao Joao do Principe. Presently the chief, Mra Kwami, announced to us that we had reached the northern boundary-line of the estate. He now would have left us, as it is not customary, when gold is in question, for one head- man to enter another's country. We succeeded, how- ever, in persuading him to show us the other side of the river. A short walk up and down hill led to the ford of the * Yenna,' the native name, probably a corruption of ' St. John.' It lies a little above the dyke where the stream breaks into a dwarf fall, and below the crossing where a ferry formerly plied. We now found a regular river, no longer a lagoon-stream ; 1 88 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the clear water, most unlike the matter-suspending and bitumen-coloured fluid of the lower bed, was beautified by lilies with long leaves and broad flowers of virgin white. We rode the Kruboys pick-a-back across the broken reef through which the stream bursts and brawls, and walked a few paces up the left bank to the Kumasi l village. It had been lately deserted ; but we found there Kwako Benta, headman of Ajamera, who had spent a week in forcing the deserters to rejoin the corps. He was the reverse of cordial, probably wishing at once to prove importance and to give our guide the cold shoulder : we persuaded him, however, to show us the Muku concession, granted to Messieurs Lintott and Spink. The ground which fronts the reef-ford reflects that of the left bank, and is pitted with diggings, large and small. In a dry torrent-bed, running north south, was an oblong shaft, a native copy of European work, four feet by six, and timbered in the usual negro way. Its further bank was a high and steep slope of yellow clay with a midway step, containing another and a similar shaft : to the north and west were many other signs of exploitation. The rich-looking quartz of the lode is white and sugary, with black streaks and veins : its strike is nearly meridional, between north 20 and 25 1 The Ashantis translate the word ' under the Kum-tree ; ' the Fantis make it mean ' slay all.' ' HYDRA u LIC KING: \ 89 east, and the dip 40-45 east. A glance shows that Fluthwerk and ' hydraulicking ' would easily wash down the whole alluvial and auriferous formation to the floor of grey granite which has supplied the huge * cankey-stones ' l littering the village. Cameron, who had before visited the site, and had remarked how vigorously the placer-gravels had been attacked by the natives, would ' hydraulick ' by means of the St. John's Eiver. This might also be done by damming up and tapping the adjacent bottom. And, if rou- tine work be wanted, it would cost little to construct upon the topmost crest a large reservoir with channels to conduct the rains, and thus secure a fair fall for the water. We slept once more at Anima-Kru ; and here Cameron made sure of his position by Jupiter and Procyon, and by his valuable watch-chronometer, the gift of his brother-officers : it worked peculiarly well. The St. John's mine lies in north lat. 4 49' 44", and in west long. (Gr.) 2 6' 44". While the owners would place it seven miles from the sea, it is distant only 2*2 from 'old Fort Brandenburg.' 1 This proto-historic implement, also called a ' saddle-quern,' is here made out of a thick slab of granite slightly concave and artificially roughened. The muller, or mealing-stone, is a large, heavy, and oval rolling-pin used with the normal rocking and grinding motion. These rollers are also used for crushing ore, and correspond with the stone polisscrirs of ancient date. igo TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Early next morning we packed and prepared for return, the chief Mra Kwami insisting upon escorting us. And now the difference of travel in Africa and England struck me forcibly. Fancy a band of negro explorers marching uninvited through the Squire's manor, strewing his lawn and tennis-ground with all manner of rubbish ; housing their belongings in his dining- and drawing- and best bed-rooms, which are at once vacated by his wife and family ; turning his cook out of his or her kitchen ; calling for the keys of his dairy and poultry-yard, hot-houses, and cellar; and rummaging the whole mansion for curios and heir- looms interesting to the negro anthropologist. Fancy also their bidding him to be ready next morning for sporting and collecting purposes, with all his pet ser- vants, his steward and his head-gardener, his stud- groom and his gamekeeper ; and allowing, by way of condescension, Mr. Squire to carry their spears, bows, and arrows ; bitterly deriding his weapons the while, as they proceed to whip his trout-stream, to pluck his pet plants, to shoot his pheasants, and to kill specimens of his rarest birds for exhibition in Africa. Fancy their enquiring curiously about his superstitions, sitting in his pew, asking for bits of his East window, and criticising his ' fetish ' in general, ending with patting him upon the back and calling him a * jolly old cock.' Finally, fancy the Squire greatly enjoying such treat - COLLECTING PLANTS. 191 merit, and feeling bitterly hurt Unless handled after this fashion. Paddling down stream, we collected for Kew. But the hopelessness of the task weighs upon the spirits : a square mile of such flora would take a week. There is a prodigious variety of vegetation, and the quantity of edible berries, * fowl's lard,' ' Ashanti-papaw,' and the Gruinea-peach (Sarcophalus esculentus) would gladden the heart of a gorilla. Every larger palm- trunk was a fernery ; every dead bole was an orchidry ; and huge fungi, two feet broad, fed upon the remains of their victims. Climbers, chiefly papilionaceous, and llianas, bigger than the biggest boa-constrictor, coiled and writhed round the great gloomy trees which rained their darkness below. In the sunlight were pretty jasmines (J. grande), crotons and Ian tanas, with marantas, whose broad green leafage was lined with pink and purple. Deep in shadow lay black miry sloughs of sickening odour, near which the bed of Father Thames at low water 'would be scented witn rose-water ; and the caverns, formed by the arching roots of the muddy mangrove, looked haunts fit for crocodile and behe- moth and all manner of unclean, deadly beasts. And there are little miseries for African collectors. ' Wait-a- bit ' thorns tear clothes and skin. Tree-snakes turn the Kru-boys not pale but the colour of boiled liver ; their ' bowels fail them,' as the natives say. Each 192 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. tree has its ant, big or small, black or red ; and all sting more or less. We see their armies marching up the trunks, and the brush of a bough brings down a little shower. Monstrous mangrove-flies and small brown-coloured ' huri,' most spiteful biters, and wasps here and there, assail the canoe ; and we are happy if we escape a swarm of the wild bees : their curious, treacle-like honey is enjoyed by the people. We landed in due time at ' Prinsi,' whose civilised chief had laid out a clean path, lined with umbrella- figs backed by a bush of self-sown guavas. A good upper-storied house was found for us, with standing bedsteads, sofa, table, and chairs. It belonged to one of the penins, or elders. The chapel, with its three front and five lateral windows, is the best we have yet seen. The schoolmaster, Mr. Sego, lives in a house hard by ; and the adjacent school, a wattled cottage, echoes to the voices of some thirty to forty scholars. The town looks prosperous. Building is easy ; oysters and other shells supply lime ; the clay dug to the north makes good adobes, and stcne is easily quarried from the old fort. We found Prince's in a state of unusual jollity, drinking the proceeds of their three puncheons, dancing and playing what Sa Leone calls ( warry.' 1 The bell and 1 A game with counters and holes in the ground or a board hollowed with cups. The same, called bdo, or tables, is found in East Africa (Zanzibar) and Cameron traced it extending clear across the Dark Continent. PRINCE'S FORT. 193 the psalm blended curiously with the song and the palm-clapping that announces negro terpsichore. Of course ' fetish ' was present, in the shape of a woman peculiarly ornamented. Her very black face was dazzlingly chalked, lines by threes running from hair- roots to nose-bridge and meeting others drawn across the temples ; the orbits of the eyes were whitened, and thence triple streaks stretched up the nose and across the cheeks. Hung to the extensive necklace of beads and other matters were tassels of dry white fibre ; her forearms carried yellow bunches of similar material, and she held a broom of blackened bamboo and the metal bell familiar to Unyamwezi. Whilst the juniors danced and sang the elders drank and gambled. After a cool and comfortable night we visited the ruins which Bosnian calls Casteel Groot Frederiksburg tot Pocquesoe (Prince's). Our Hydrographic Chart has ' old fort Brandenburg,' which is at Cape Threepoints. Others declare that it was the only good establishment owned by the Elector ; and the best authority, Lieut. Jeekel, terms it Gr l Friedrichsburg (Hollandia). I may note that 'Prinsi 'Ollandia' is still the native name. These buildings interest us greatly, because in the coming days of immigration they will serve for hospitals, stores, and barracoons. Ascending a few feet of bushy hill, called in books 'Mamfra,' and once evidently an island, we came upon the eastern flank, three sub- VOL. II. 194 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. stantial bastions and a cavalier, with masonry knitted by creepers. We then wound round by the southern or sea side, and, turning the angle, made the eastern flank. The gateway, stockade, and belfry shown in Bos- man (' Eerste Brief,' 1737) have disappeared; so also has the slave-court, but the double doorway remains. The spacious centre, planted with bananas almost wild, would make a grand garden ; the walls are built to stand for ages ; and, although the floors of the upper ?tories have been torn down, there would be no difficulty in restoring them. As steps and stairs are absent, it was not possible to reach the battlements. These are luxuriant with vegetation, of which I should preserve a portion for shade and coolth. A fine arched cistern now affords a shelter to bats ; and a building which appears to be the chapel remains on the northern side. Old iron guns still cumber the embrasures and the ground. Issuing by the northern face, which has been torn down for ashlar, we set up the photographic stand and took the north-western angle. Here an enormous fig draws its life from the death of the wall. The morning air in the shade was delicious, a great contrast with the heavy dampness of Axim ; and the view of the St. John's River west and of Cape Threepoints east was charming. With usual neglect the photographer had sent out his machine and dry plates without any means KOKOBENE-AKITAKL 195 of developing them ; we therefore worked blindly and could not see results. When embarking in Prince's Bay, where the surf was perfectly safe, we were informed a little too late of a valuable gold-mine called Kokobene. It lies close behind the village Akitaki, which we had seen during our morning's walk along the beach leading to Cape Threepoints. The chief, Eshanchi, promised to for- ward specimens of the reefs, and did not forget to keep his promise. The quartz-specimens which were brought to us at Akankon by Wafapa, or Barnabas, promised excellently, and I authorised Mr. Grant to buy an ex- ploring right of the Kokobene- Akitaki diggings. Their position as well as their quality will render them valu- able : they will prove a second Apatim. We returned to Axim on February 19, after a short but very satisfactory trip which added much to our knowledge of the coast and its ways. It had also the merit of being economical ; we took matters in hand, and consequently our four days cost us only 21. 8s. I have spoken much about * hydraulicking ' in this chapter, and I shall now borrow a few details con- cerning the operation from Sir William Logan, who, in his ' Geological Survey of Canada,' quotes Mr. William P. Blake. Speaking of California, the learned author writes, ' In this method the force of a jet of water with great pressure is made available both for excavating o 2 196 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. and washing the auriferous earth. The water, issuing in a continuous stream with great force from a large hose-pipe like that of a fire-engine, is directed against the base of a bank of earth and gravel, and tears it away. The bank is rapidly undermined, the gravel is loosened, violently rolled together, and cleansed from any adhering particles of gold, while the fine clay and the sand are carried off by the water. In this manner hundreds of tons of earth and gravel may be removed, and all the gold which they contain liberated and secured with greater ease and expedition than ten tons could be exca- vated and washed in the old way. All the earth and gravel of a deposit is moved, washed, and carried off through long sluices by the water, leaving the gold behind. Square acres of earth on the hill-sides may thus be swept away into the hollows without the aid of a pick or a shovel in excavation. Water performs all the labour, moving and washing the earth in one operation, while in excavating by hand the two processes are of necessity entirely distinct. The value of this method and the yield of gold as compared with the older one can hardly be estimated. ' The water acts constantly with uniform effect, and can be brought to bear upon almost any point, where it would be difficult for men to work. It is especially effective in a region covered by trees, where the tangled roots would greatly retard the labour of workmen. 1 HYDRA ULICKING: \ 97 In such places the stream of water washes out the earth from below, and tree after tree falls before the current, any gold which may have adhered to the roots being washed away. With a pressure of sixty feet and a pipe of from one and a half to two inches' aperture, over 1,000 bushels of earth can be washed out from a bank in a day. 'Earth which contains only one-twenty-fifth part of a grain of gold, equal to one-fifth of a cent in value to the bushel, may be profitably washed by this method ; and any earth or gravel which will pay the expense of washing in the old way gives enormous profits b} the new process. To wash successfully in this way requires a plentiful supply of water, at an elevation of from fifty to ninety feet above the bed-rock, 1 and a rapid slope or descent from the base of the bank of earth to be washed, so that the waste water will run off through the sluices, bearing with it gravel, sand, and suspended clay. ****** ' In the case of a deposit in North Carolina, where ten men were required for thirty-five days to dig the earth with pick and shovel and wash it in sluices, two men with a single jet of water could accomplish the same work in a week. The great economy of this 1 This is by no means necessary. The jet can be thrown from below like the fireman's hose playing upon a burning house. I shall return to this highly important subject. 198 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. method is manifest from the fact that many old deposits in the river-beds, the gravel of which had been already washed by hand, have again been washed with protit by the hydraulic method. * In California the whole art of working the diluvial gold-deposits was revolutionised by this new method. The auriferous earth lying on hills and at some dis- tance above the level of the watercourses would in the ordinary methods be excavated by hand and brought to the water, but by the present system the water is brought by aqueducts to the gold-deposits, and whole square miles which were before inaccessible have yielded up their precious metal. It sometimes happens from the irregular distribution of the gold in the diluvium in California that the upper portions of a deposit do not contain gold enough to be washed by the ordinary methods, and would thus have to be removed at a con- siderable expense in order to reach the richer portion below. By the hydraulic method, however, the cost of cutting away and excavating is so trifling that there is scarcely any bank of earth which will not pay the expense of washing down in order to reach the rich deposits of gold beneath.' To conclude. Our collection of plants was sent to the Herbarium, Kew; and, as the Appendix (II. Part II.) shows, was kindly catalogued by the learned Professor D. Oliver. 199 CHAPTER XX. FROM AXIM TO INGOTRO AND AKANKON. AFTER a long palaver with the three claimants to the Akankon mining-ground, Kofi Blaychi (Little Blay), Kwako Jum, and Safahin Sensense (the lessor), we left Axim once more (February 24) to inspect the head of the Ancobra river. At the sleeping-place, Kumprasi, we were visited by Mr. Cascaden, District-commissioner for Takwa, a fine-looking man of fifteen stone, pulled down to twelve by dysentery. He was speedily fol- lowed to England by his remplafant, Dr. Duke. Next morning, when the thick white fog, which made the smoking river resemble Father Khine in autumn, had been licked up by fiery rays, we em- barked, together with Chief Apo, of Asanta, the honest old owner of the ' Ingotro concession.' Our convey- ance was the Effuenta, a steam-launch attached to the mine of that name, bought second-hand, and a fine specimen of what launches ought not to be. Built by Messieurs Dickenson, of Birkenhead, she is much too small (36 feet by 8) for a river which, even in the depth of 200 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the dries, averages two fathoms, and rarely runs less than ten feet. The engines are over far from' the boiler, and the long raking stern swells out into a big belly worthy of a manatee or a Dutch hoy. Her boiler had been replaced with the usual inconsequence. She had been repaired by an ' intelligent artisan,' Mr. Emery ; but, as he was allowed no tools and no time, he contented himself with reporting her in good work- ing order. Consequently after every half-hour we had to unscrew the safety-valve, let off steam, and fill the boiler with a funnel and a tin pot. Pleasant three hours under a thin board-awning, in a broiling sun, off a poisonous mangrove-swamp ! Presently she had to be started by the surf-boat lashed to one side, and a large canoe to the other. Finally, after a last break- down, we saw steam-launch Effuenta, lying high and dry upon the beach at Sanma. We had nothing to complain of the engineer, Mr. William Ofeorge, a S Leonite, and of the helmsman, Kwamina Ekum, a Gold Coast man. Both did their best with the heavily laden trio of boats. Cameron es- tablished himself compass, log, lead, and dredge in the steamer stern. His admirable geographical labours in ' Crossing Africa ' are, after a few years of a swift- moving age, lapsing Lethe-wards ; and To have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail In monumental mockery. MAPS AND CtfAKTS. . 201 Now he has another opportunity of doing valuable ser- vice, none "of these positions having been established by observations, and of showing travellers how topography should be worked. He has before him for correction the Hydrographic chart, which pretends to nothing within the Coast, and the * Kiver Ankobra and Tar- quah (!) Gold Mines,' printed in 1878 by Captain Louis Wyatt, then District-commissioner for Axim. This first attempt at a regular survey is meritorious for an amateur; but of course it cannot compare with the produce of a scientific and experienced naval surveyor. We had Lieut. Jeekel, before alluded to, but his scale, 1 : 250 : 000, is too small for details. I did not see, till long after our return from this excursion, the then unfinished map by M. Paulus Dahse, a veteran West- Coaster, who has spent years in travelling through the interior. My fellow-voyager also was the first to show me the various cartes printed and published by the late M. Bonnat. 1 The Ancobra is an enlarged copy of the Yenna or Prince's Kiver. There are the same swampy borders and * impenetrable forests,' as Captain Wyatt entitles 1 Carte des Concessions de ' The African Gold Coast par M. J. Bonnat. Paris, August 1879. Beginning south at Tumento, it does not show the southern fork of the Bonsa or Abonsa River, which falls into the An cobra's left bank; and it ends a little north of Asseman, the cemetery of the ' kings.' M. Bonnat had already printed in 1877 a Chart of the River Ankobra, extending north as far as the ' Gold Mines of Aodoua.' 202 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. them ; while the mangrove never quite disappears from this true lagoon-stream. The monotonous fringe of rhizophores is broken, about two miles from the mouth, by bamboo-palms and hibiscus-beds, then by the bombax, the rubber-vine, the locust-tree (inga), and the banana-plantation. The mounds and hillocks on either side, beginning with the Akromasi and Kabudwe mounds, near the mouth, are evidently parts of an ancient archipelago built by the mangrove and silted up to mainland. The long and curious reaches are shown in my companion's map, and T shall notice only those details which claim something of general interest. After about eight miles' steaming up a huge loop to the west, and a bend easterly, we passed the Kwa- bina Bosom, or Fetish-Eocks, two wall-like blocks, one mangrove-grown and the other comparatively bare. Contrary to native usage, we chose the fair way between the latter and the left bank, for which innovation, said our escort, we shall surely suffer. Beyond the Fetish-Kocks the right bank shows a cleared mound ready for immediate planting: this concession once belonged to Dr. Koss, of Axim. Oppo- site it the mining-ground has been leased for pro- specting by Messieurs Gillett and Selby. The notable feature of the river is now the prawn-basket, a long cone closed at the blunt apex: the Ancobra is a FETISH-ROCKS. 203 ' Camarones,' supplying a first-rate article for curries. This is the work of the uninteresting little villages, scatters of mere crates built in holes worn in the bush ; all disappear during the floods, and are rebuilt in the dry season for growing rice and tapping palm-trees. Besides a few humans they contain nothing save lean dogs and etiolated poultry ; cattle, sheep, and even pigs are wholly unknown. In the afternoon we pushed through a wild thunder- storm of furious tropical rain, which pitted the river- face like musket-balls. It arose in the south; but throughout the Ancobra valley wet weather apparently comes from all directions. Chief Apo gravely ascribed it to our taking the wrong side of the Fetish-Rocks. I have heard, even in civilised lands, sillier post-hoc- ergo-propter-hocs. There were two landing-places for the large Ingotro concession, both on the right bank. The lower leads, they say, over dry land, but the way is long and hilly. That up stream is peculiarly foul, and to us it was made fouler by the pelting shower. At low water, in the dry season, the little JSanwa creek, subtending the higher ground on the north, becomes too shallow for the smallest dug-out ; and we had to wade or to be carried over an expanse of fetid and poisonous mangrove-mud festering in the sun, and promising a luxuriant growth of ague and fever. The first rise of sandy yellow loam 204 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. showed the normal Gold Coast metalling of iron-stone and quartz-gravel, thinly spread with water-rounded pebbles. Then the path, very badly laid out, merged into a second foul morass, whose depths were crossed by the rudest of bridges, single and double trunks of felled or fallen trees. Nothing easier than to corduroy this mauvais pas. A second rise showed a fine reef of white and blue quartz, which runs right through the settlement to the banks of the Nanwa stream. A quarter of an hour's walk from the landing-place placed us in the Nanwa village, now popularly known as Walker-Kru. It consists of a few mean little hovels, the usual cage- work, huddled together in most unpicturesque con- fusion. Prick-eared curs, ducks, and fowls compose the bestial habitants, to which must be added the regiments of rats (and ne'er a cat) which infest all these places. There were no mosquitoes, but the sand- fly bit viciously on mornings and evenings between the dark and sunlit hours, confining one to the dim cage and putting a veto upon the pleasant lounge or seat in the cool open. We found lodgings in the guest-hut of the headman, Kwako Juma, like most of his brethren, a civil man and a greedy. But the Krumen, boat- men and carriers, were also lodged in the little settle- ment, and these people always make night hideous with their songs and squabbles, their howling voices, THE INGOTRO CONCESSION. 205 and hyaena-like bursts of laughter. It is very difficult to ' love one's neighbour as oneself when he appears in this form under these circumstances. By times next morning we woke too soon the vil- lagers, who enjoy long talks by night and deep slum- bers in early day. They appear much inclined to slumber again. But both Apo of Asanta and Juma of Nanwa were exceedingly anxious to know when mining- works would begin, and, that failing, to secure as much ' dash ' as possible. The Ingotro concession, the largest we have yet seen, measures 3,000 fathoms square, the measure- ments being taken from the central shaft. Assuming every thousand fathoms roughly to represent a geo- graphical mile, the area would be of nine square miles. This will evidently admit of being divided and sub- divided into half a dozen or more estates. As yet little of its wealth has been explored, chiefly owing to the dense growth of forest. As Mr. Walker remarks, ' Although timber is a great desideratum on a mining- estate, the thick woods have the disadvantage of con- cealing many rich deposits of gold, and I have very little doubt that the diminution of the population, and the consequent overgrowth of the bush or jungle, has much to do with the great falling off in the production and export of gold from this region.' The emancipation of slaves and * pawns ' would have 206 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. in Africa no other effect. Free men will not work, and * bush,' unless kept down, will grow with terrible feracity. When Indian file was duly formed, we descended the Nanwa hillock, which takes its name from the stream. Here the little rivulet, deeply encased, bore a fine growth of snowy water-lilies. It had been newly bridged with corduroy. The next passage boasted tree- trunks, and after that all was leaping. The Nanwa must rise near the trial-shaft, which we are about to visit, and it snakes through the property in all directions with a general rhumb from west-north-west to east-south- east. At this season there is little or no flow, and the bed is mostly a string of detached pools, where gold has been washed and will be washed again. Thus the facilities for * hydraulicking ' are superior, and the number of shallow native pits at once suggests the properest process. We then struck across the heavily timbered country, which is the wildest state of ' bushiness.' A few paces led to ' King's Groom,' a deserted mining-village in a dwarf clearing rapidly overgrowing with the Brazilian Catinga. Hereabouts we saw nothing save 'hungry quartz.' Then we struck across three several ridges, whose slopes were notably easier on the eastern, and more abrupt on the western side. The people had sunk several pits in places likely to yield ' kindly VALLEY OF THE NANWA. 207 quartz,' and they had made no mistakes as to the overlay of the lode, its foot-wall or its hanging-wall. Cameron presently made an offset to the north, and, cutting his road, walked ten minutes up the tail of Tuako Hill, at whose southern base lies the Nanwa bed. Here, guided by Mr. Grant, who knew the place well, he found a native shaft thirty feet deep and a lode of disintegrated quartz in red or yellow ferruginous clay, the surface looking as rich as the stone it overlies. A few paces further and a third drop led us again to the swampy valley of the Nanwa, here flowing south. It is bounded by two rises, tree-grown from foot to head. That on the left bank is the Tuako, the hus- band, along whose skirt we have been walking ; the other, on the opposite side, is Jama, the wife. From their conjugal visits the gold is born. Some attempts had been made to blast a rock in the skirt of Jama's garment ; but all had notably failed. The reeking, unwholesome bottom showed extensive traces of dig- ging and washing. Following the water, we came to the second little mining-village, also deserted. The name * Ingotro ' means a broad-leaved liliaceous plant, the ivura-haban (water-leaf) of the Fantis, used for thatching when palm-fronds are not found. From this place an old bush-path once led directly to the lands we call ' Izrah,' but it has long been closed by native squabbles. A 208 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. few yards further placed us in an exceedingly rich bottom, honeycombed by native workers. Hard by it appeared the central shaft, lying between two hills, the Ingotro-buka and the Nanwa-buka, which define the course of the rivulet. The distance from Nanwa village may have been three miles, but we had spent more than three hours in making collections. Amongst the insects was the silk- spider, a large arachnid of sulphur-yellow tint, with three black trans- verse bars. It weaves no web, but spins a thread of the strongest texture and the richest golden hue. I had sent from Fernando Po several pounds of this fine silk, intending to experiment upon it in a veil or lace shawl; and afterwards I learned that the Em- press Eugenie had a dress made of it, which cost a fabulous number of francs. Bacon and other old writers talk of ' spider's silk' like gathering moon- beams. 1 1 The Ananse or Agya ananse (father spider), as the Oji-speak- ing peoples call the insect, is with them either a creator of man (corresponding so far with the scarabeus in the Nile valley) or a representative of the evil principle. Bosnian (Letter xvii.), de scribing a ' great hideous hairy species,' says, ' The negroes call this spider ananse, and believe that the first men were made by that creature ; and, notwithstanding some of them by conversation with the Europeans are better informed, there are j-et a great number that remain of that opinion, out of which folly they are not to be reasoned.' The people have a number of fables called Anansescm, such as Spider and Sanderson and tlic Three Ghosts ; in these spider- stories the insect, like the fox with us, is the most intelligent of animals (the late Rev. J. Zimmerman's Akra or Go, Grammar, 1 IMPREGNATED WITH GOLD: 209 The upper shaft had been sunk, as it should be, in the eastern flank of the hill, which faces north 71 east, and which runs north 3 west (both true). The surface and subsoil are the usual sandy loam scattered with gravel of quartz and ironstone, and the spoil- banks showed blue and white quartz. The clay-slate, dark, soft, and laminated, appeared everywhere. Lower down, on the same slope, Mr. Grant had dug a second shaft, somewhat smaller than the upper: both were full of rain-water. Mr. Walker mentions a large native pit near the centre, whence rich stone had been taken. He picked up from the refuse several pieces of quartz showing free gold, which gave, when assayed, 2'6 oz. gold and 0-3 oz. silver per ton. This was from a depth of only ten feet. His own trial- shaft, when he left the Coast, was not more than three feet deep ; but every sample showed traces of gold, and an Australian miner of thirty years' experience declared that the ' stuff' promised a rich yield below. Like ourselves, he found the whole country ' impregnated with gold.' On the path within fifty yards of the Nanwa village Stuttgart, 1858). It is represented as speaking through the nose like the local ' bogy,' and its hobbling gait is imitated by the story-teller. Another superstition is that the Anunu (the Akra form of the word) injures children sleeping in the same room with it. At Fernando Po I found another valuable spider which preys upon cockroaches. When a cruiser was particularly afflicted by the llatta, a couple of these insects would effectually clear chests and drawers in a few days. There are other species, Entakuma, &c. VOL. II. P 210 TO THE GOLD CO4ST FOR GOLD. we knocked off some pieces of quartz that displayed the precious ore to the naked eye. The slope in which the two shafts had been sunk fell into a depression between the hills which indicated the richest surface-diggings. Here a number of de- tached sinkings had been run together by the recent rains into a long miry pool. Mr. Walker also speaks of a ' very large number of shallow native pits.' No one could see this exceedingly rich * gulch ' with- out determining that it should be washed upon the largest scale. It will be time to sink shafts and make deep diggings here when sluicing and surfacing shall have done their work. From Ingotro we marched back to Nanwa and took leave of Chief Apo ; his parting words were a request that work might be begun as soon as possible, and that at any rate his concession should be properly marked out. The limitation must not be neglected, but the exploitation of the diggings is another affair. The ground is exceptionally rich in gold, and it offers every facility for extracting the metal. But the climate of the lowlands presents difficulties. In so large an area of broken ground, however, there are eminences that command a prospect of the sea and which are within the influence of the sea-breeze. The conditions will, doubtless, improve when the adjacent mining-grounds, Inyoko and Izrah, shall have been opened and the A DIAMOND? 211 country cleared and ventilated. In the meantime light works and hydraulicking on an extensive scale might be begun at once, especially during the rainy season, under seasoned and acclimatised overseers. An amelio - ration must be the result, and even before the rich surface has been washed it will be possible to set up heavy machinery for deep working, shafting, and tun- nelling. Embarking about 3 P.M. on board Effuenta, we steamed up the Ancobra, which here looks more like a river and less like a lagoon. The settlements become more important, the first being Nfia-kru, or the ' dog- village.' There were many influents, which showed like dark breaches in the rampart of verdure. Such was the Ahema (Huma), a creek that breaks the left bank. This name may become memorable. Upon its upper course Messieurs Gillett and Selby have a small mining concession, and in its golden gravels Mr. 0. Pegler, Associate of the School of Mines, found a crystal which he strongly suspected to be a diamond. It was taken to Axim, where its glass-cutting properties were proved. Unfortunately during one of these trials the setting gave way, and the stone fell into a heap of rubbish, where it could not be found. Many have suspected that these regions will prove diamante ferous ; and it is reported that an experienced French mineralogist, who has visited the South African p 2 212 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. diggings, landed at Assini and proposed to canoe up the Tando Eiver to the Takwa mines, prospecting in search of his specialty. A portentous cloud ahead growled its thunder and discharged thin rain, while the westing sun shone clear and bright. In Dahome the combination suggests the ghosts of Kutomen going to market, 1 in Fanti-land 1 The Akra-men make Sisaman, their Kutomen, Scheol or Hades, a town on one of the Volta holmg or somewhere beyond. The Gold Coast has three species of departed ' spirits ' (faamamfo) the shades of men who fell in fight or by accident (as by a tree-fall) ; common spirits, and lingering spirits, so called because they do not enter Shade-land, but hover about man's dwellings. The slain never associate with the commonalty ; they walk about rubbed with white clay and clad in white ; nor are they afraid of, whereas the others fly from, and are unwilling to be seen by, the living. ' It is said in the Dead-land below the earth there are kings as well as slaves. If you have been long sick in this world you will recover health there after three years, but one killed in battle or by acci- dent will be well in a month or so. It is said that Dead-land is below (earth) ; others declare it is above (the sky). About this there is no certainty. Where one is taken to when he dies there his spirit is ; when they die and take you to the spirits' grove, then your spirit is in the grove. The town (or land) of the departed spirits is not in the grove, but in the earth ; it is a large town, and going there a mountain has to be climbed. The way of one who died a natural death is dark in heaven ; but if one who died in battle or by accident take that way, some of the white clay with which he is rubbed falls down; therefore his way (via lactea) appears white. In the spirits' grove the departed spirits do not stay always ; only on certain days they assemble there for eating, drink- ing, and playing.' Yet these ' spiritualists ' (mith the spirits) have scant pleasure in contemplating the future. Their proverb is, ' A corner in the world of matter is better than a world of spirits.' Page 407, Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Languages, by Kev. J. G. Christaller. < SIL VER-STONE: 2 1 3 the hunchback woman becoming a mother, and in England his Satanic Majesty beating his wife. Off the Eketekki village we saw, for the first time, bad snags, which will require removal. About sunset the Aka-kru settlement, the largest yet noted, appeared on the left bank. Here the Akankon Mining Company has a native house of wattle and dab, looking somewhat better than the normal mud-cabin. It had been unceremoniously occupied by natives, who roared their laughter when ordered to turn out. From Aka-kru there is a direct line to the Effuenta, within an hour's walk of the Takwa mine ; the four stages can be covered in twenty hours. 1 At 6.30 P.M. we saw, a little above Aka-kru, and also on the left bank, Jyachabo, or ' Silver- ' (Jyacho) ' stone.' Of this settlement Captain "Wyatt notes, ' It is said that a silver-mine was formerly worked here by the Dutch and Portuguese.' Hard by the north of it lie the ruins of the old Hollanders' fort, St. John, which the natives have corrupted to l Senchorsu ; ' the people, however, did not seem to know their where- abouts. 1 Mr. Gillett, who had lately passed over it, gave me these notes on the line. No. 1 stage from Aka-kru crosses virgin land, the property of the ' King ' of Axim, to Autobrun (three hours) ; No. 2 leads over fine level ground to Dompe (nine hours slow) ; No. 3 to Abrafu, on the Abonsa River, one march south of the Abonsa station (three hours) ; No. 4 to the Effuenta mine (five hours). 214 TO THE COLD COAST FOR GOLD. We determined to push on to Akankon, despite the ugly prospect of a dark walk through the wet bush, and of deferring the survey to another time. Suddenly we saw on the right bank the black silhouette of a house, standing high and lone in its clearing, and we made fast to a good landing-place, an inclined plane of corduroy. It was an unexpected pleasure ; both had been put up after Cameron left the mine by the native caretaker, Mr. Morris. We slept soundly through a cool and pleasant night at 'Riverside House.' The large building of palm- fronds, with a roof like the lid of a lunch-basket, contains three rooms, and will be provided with out- houses. Inside and outside it is whitewashed above and blackwashed below. The coal-tar was suggested by my nautical companion ; and, for the first time on the Ancobra River, we exchanged the bouquet d'Afrique for the smell of Europe. The big crate stands high* upon the right bank, here rising about twenty feet, and affording a pleasant prospect of breezy brown stream deeply encased in bright green forest. The draught caused by flowing water keeps the clearing clean of sand-flies, the pest of the inner settlements, and European employes will find the place healthy. The up-sloping ground behind the house could be laid out in a pottage-garden ; and, as THE AKANKON MINE. 215 Bahama-grass grows fast, there will be no difficulty about disposing of the under-growth. Next morning (February 27) we were joined by Mr. Morris, who told the long tale of his grievances. He had been in charge of ten men for five months, during which he had not received a farthing of pay. Consequently his gang had struck work. Thus chatting we followed the cleared path leading up the right bank of the little Akankon creek : now dry, it is navigable for canoes during the rains, and falls into the Ancobra under a good corduroy bridge near the landing-ramp. A line of posts showed the levels which had been carefully marked by Cameron. It was a pleasure to see the bed ; it had been scraped in many places by the gold-washer, and it promises an ample harvest when properly worked. We left on the left hand Safahin Sensense's village, a cluster of huts sur- rounded by bananas ; we crossed the shallow head of the creek, all a swamp during the rains ; we walked up a dwarf slope, and after half an hour we found our- selves at ' Grranton.' The position of Granton is not happily chosen. Though the hill-side faces south it is beyond reach of the sea-breeze ; the damp and wooded depression breeds swarms of sand-flies, and being only forty feet above the river, it is reeking hot. The thermometer about noon never showed less than 92" (F.), and often 216 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. rose to 96 ; in the Rains it falls to 72, and the nights are cold with damp. It will be a question which season will here prove the safest for working. On the coast I should say the Rains ; in the higher lands about the Effuenta mine I am told that the Dries must be preferred. Granton is, or was, composed of eight tenements disposed to form a hollow square. Five of them are native cages of frond and thatch, which I should have preferred on a second visit. The rest are planks brought from Europe, good carpentry-work, and raised a little off the ground. Unfortunately the bulk- heads are close above, instead of being latticed for draught. The items are two boxes sleeping-room and store-room with a larger lodging of four rooms which sadly wants a flying-roof. The offices are kept in good order by the penniless caretaker, who has been left entirely without supplies, and who is obliged to borrow our ink-bottles. We lost no time in visiting the * Akankon ' reef, a word appropriately meaning * abandoned ' or ' left alone.' The people, however, understand it in the sense that, when a miner has taken possession of the ground, and has shown a right to it, his fellows leave him to work and betake themselves elsewhere. Im- mediately behind the huts we came upon a broad streak cochineal-red, except where tarnished by oxygen, THE CINNABAR-VEIN. 217 where it looked superficially like ochre. The strike ran parallel with the quartz-reef, north 5 east (true). Cameron had broken some of the stone into chips, subjected it to the blow-pipe, and obtained bright globules of quicksilver. Veins of sulphide of mercury, cinnabar, or vermilion have been found in other parts of the Protectorate : we suspected their presence at Apatim, and collected specimens, still to be assayed. The natives have an idea that when ' the gold turns white ' it is uncanny to work the place ; moreover, silver is always removed from the person when miners approach the gold-diggings. I should explain the phenomenon by the presence of mercury. A good road, with side-drains, running about half a mile to the north, has been kept open by the care- taker. To its right is a manner of hillock, evidently an old plantation, in some places replanted. From the top a view to the west shows three several ridges, the Akankon proper, Ijimunbukai, and Agunah, blue in the distance. Northwards the Akankon hog's-back is seen sweeping riverwards from north to north-east, rising to the hill Akankon-bukah. Here Mr. Amondsen, a Danish sailor long employed in Messieurs Swanzy's local sailing craft, and lately sent out by the Company, informed me that he proposed to transfer the quarters for European employes. He has, however, I am told, changed his mind and built upon ' Plantation Hillock.' 2i8 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. On the left or western side of the road the Akan- kon ridge is subtended by a hollow, the valley of a streamlet in rainy weather. This supply, which can easily be made perennial, will greatly facilitate wash- ing. The highway ended in a depression, where stood the deserted ' Krumen's quarters.' The only sign of work was a peculiar cross-cut made by Mr. Cornish, C.E., one of the engineers. From this point, turning abruptly from north to west, we took the steep narrow path which climbs the Akankon ridge, rising 78 feet above the river. A few paces led us to the prospecting shaft, a native pit squared and timbered by Mr. Cornish. He was assisted by Mr. James B. Eoss, * practical miner, working manager, and mine-owner for the last twenty years in Queensland, Australia.' He thus describes himself ir. the very able report which he sent to his company ; and I am glad to hear that he has returned to the Gold Coast. The shaft, 40 feet from ' the outcrop,' and 50 from the hill-base, is bottomed at the depth of 52 feet. Unfortunately it is only box- timbered, and much of the woodwork was shaken down by the blasts. The sinking through stiff clay, stained with iron, cobalt, man- ganese, and cinnabar, was reported easy. But where the hanging and foot walls should have been, fragments of clay, iron, and mica-slate showed that the former lie still deeper. My companion proposed a CHOKE-DAMP. 219 descent into the shaft by bucket and windlass. I de- clined, greatly distrusting such deserted pits, especially in this region, where they appear unusually liable to foul. Two days afterwards a Kruboy went down and was brought to grass almost insensible from the choke- damp ; his hands clenched the rope so tightly that their grip was hard to loose. We then mounted to * the outcrop ' near the ridge- summit, 100 yards north-north-east. This reef-crest is a tongue of quartz and quartzite veining grey granite : it was found dug out and cleared all round by the people. Mr. Cornish had contented himself with splitting off a fragment by a shot or two. When the whole hill shall have been properly washed, the contained reefs will present this wall-like appearance. The dimensions are ten feet long by the same height and half that thickness, and the slope shows an angle of 40. We passed onwards to the top of the ridge, winding among the pits and round holes sunk by the native miners in order to work the casing of the reef. One of these, carefully measured, showed 82 feet. About sixty yards to the north-north-east we reached the crest of what Mr. Eoss calls * Ponsonby Hill.' He notices that the strike of the quartz, which shows visible gold, is from north-north-east to south- south-west, and its underlie to the south-east is at the ratio of one inch in twelve. Cameron found that near 220 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the head of the descent, 120 feet to the plain below, three, and perhaps four lodes meet. The true bed, with a measured thickness of 157 feet, strikes north 22 east, the western 355, and the eastern north 37 east (true). All radiate from one point, a knot which gives ' great expectations.' The natives have opened large man-holes in search of loose gold, and here, tra- dition says, many nuggets have been found. A greater number will come to light when the miners shall dig the ' blind creek ' to the east, and when the roots of the secular trees crowning the summit shall be laid bare by the hose. I would wash down and sluice the whole of the Akankon ridge. Next day we proceeded to inspect two other reefs lying to the south-west and to the south-east. The first, Asan-kuma (?), lies a few yards from Granton, on the left of the path leading to our landing-place. The ground was covered with deep bush, and painfully infested with the Nkran, or enkran, 1 which marched in detached but parallel lines. It rises gently in slopes of yellow clay towards the west, and doubtless 1 Anglice the ' driver,' a small black formica which bites severely, clears out houses, destroys the smaller animals, and has, it is said, overpowered and destroyed hunters when, torpid with fatigue, they have fallen asleep in the bush. The same horrible end, being eaten alive, atom by atom, has befallen white traders whose sickness pre- vented their escape. ' Accra,' which calls itself Ga, is known to the Oji-speaking peoples as ' Enkran,' and must be translated 'Land of Drivers,' not of White Ants. A PLACE FOR < HYDRA ULICKING? 221 it covers quartz- reefs, as the lay is the usual meridional. The talus, pitted with the shallow pans called * women's washings,' shows signs of hard work,,- probably dating from the days when every headman had his gang of ' pawns ' and slaves. Rising at the head of the creek, itself a natural gold-sluice, its bed and banks can carry any number of flumes, which would deposit their pre- cious burden in cisterns near the river. I need hardly say they must be made movable, so as to raise their level above the inundation. Here the one thing wanted would be a miner accustomed to * hydraulicking ' in California or British Columbia, Australia or South Africa. I hope that the work will not be placed in inexperienced hands, whose blunders of ignorance will give the invaluable and infallible process a bad name. Retracing our steps, we made the chief Sensense's village, and persuaded him to guide us. The short cut led through a forest and a swamp, which reeked with nauseating sulphuretted hydrogen. We avoided it on return by a detour. After a short hour's walk we ascended a banana-grown hillock, upon which lay the ruins of the little mining-village Abeseba. A few paces further, through a forest rich in gamboge and dragon's blood (not the D. draco), in rubber and in gutta- percha (?), where well-laden lime-trees gave out their perfume, placed us upon the great south-eastern reef. 222 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD, It was everywhere drilled with pits, and we obtained fine specimens from one which measured twenty feet deep. Several of them were united by rude and dan- gerous tunnels. I have heard of these galleries being pierced in other places ; but the process is not common, and has probably been copied from Europeans. On March 1 was held a formal palaver of headmen and elders. The Akankon concession had been bought by Messieurs Bonnat and Wyatt from Sensense of the fetish, whose ancestors, he declared, had long ruled the whole country. The rent, they say, was small $4 per mensem and 15 pereguins (^ISoZ. 1 ) per annum when operations began. I have heard these gentlemen blamed, and very unjustly, for buying so cheap and selling so dear 17,000. in cash and 33,000. in shares. But the conditions were well worth the native's acceptance ; and, if he be satisfied, no one can complain. The apparently large amount included the expenses of ' bringing out ' the mine ; and these probably swallowed a half. When Sensense received his pay, a host of rival claimants started up. In these lands there is no law against trespass; wherever a plantation is deserted the squatter may occupy it, and popular opinion allows him and his descendants the permanent right of using, letting, or selling it. I do 1 Assuming at 9Z. the pereguin, which others reduce at 81. and others raise to 10Z. CONTESTED CLAIMS. 223 not think, however, that this rule would apply to a white man. Sensense's claims were contested by three chiefs Kofi Blay-chi, Kwako Bukari, who brought an acute advocate, Ebba of Axim, and Kwako Jum, a fine speci- men of the sea-lawyer; this bumptious black had pulled down the board which marked the Abeseba reef, and had worked the pits to his own profit. After many meetings, of which the present was our last, the liti- gants decided that hire and ' dashes ' should be shared by only two, Sensense and Kofi Blay-chi. Energetic Jum, finding his pretensions formally ignored, jumped up and at once set out to * enter a protest ' in legal form at Axim. The crowd of notables present affixed their marks, which, however, they by no means connected with the ' sign of the Cross.' We witnessed the document, and a -case of trade-gin concluded an unpleasant busi- ness that threatened the Apatim as well as the Akankon concession. I repeat what I have before noted : too much care cannot be taken when title to ground in Africa is concerned. And a Eegistration Office is much wanted at head-quarters ; otherwise we may expect endless litigation and the advent of the London attorney. Moreover, the people are fast learn- ing foreign ideas. Sensense, for instance, is nephew (sister's son) to Blay-chi, which relationship in Black- 224 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. land makes him the heir : meanwhile his affectionate uncle works upon the knowledge that this style of succession does not hold good in England. The eventful evening ended with a ball, which de- manded another distribution of gin. The dance was a compound affair. The Krumen had their own. Form- ing an Indian file for attack, they carried bits of board instead of weapons ; and it was well that they did so, the warlike performance causing immense excitement. The Apollonians preferred wide skirts and the pas seul of an amatory nature; it caused shrieks of laugh- ter, and at last even the women and wees could not prevent joining in the sport. Years ago I began to collect notes upon the dances of the world ; and the desultory labour of some months convinced me that an exhaustive monograph, supposing such thing possible, would take a fair slice out of a man's life. I learnt, however, one general rule that all the myriad forms of dancing originally express only love and war, in African parlance ' woman-palaver ' and ' land-palaver.' However much the ' quiet grace of high refinement ' may dis- guise original significance, Nature will sometimes re- turn despite the pitchfork ; witness a bal de I ' Optra in the palmy days of the Second Empire. The Kruman ball ended in a battle royal. The results were muzzles swollen and puffed out like those of mandrills, and black eyes that is to say, blood-red BALL AND BATTLE. 225 orbits where the skin had been abraded by fist and stick. As they applied to us for justice and redress, we administered it, after * seeing face and back,' or hearing both sides, by a general cutting-off of the gin-supply and a temporary stoppage of ' Sunday- beef.' I cannot leave this rich and unhappy Akankon mine without a few reflections ; it so admirably solves the problem * how not to do it.' The concession was negotiated in 1878. In April 1881 Cameron proceeded to open operations, accompanied by the grantee and four Englishmen, engineers and miners. He was, however, restricted to giving advice, and was not permitted to command. The results, as we have seen, were a round shaft made square and a cross-cut which cut nothing. As little more appeared likely to be done, and harmony was not the order of the day, my companion sent the party home in June 1881, and followed it himself shortly afterwards. Since that time the Company has been spending much money and making nil. The council- room has been a barren battle-field over a choice of superintendents and the properest kind of machinery, London-work being pitted, for 'palm-oil' in commission- shape, against provincial work. And at the moment I write (May 1, 1882), when 7,COOL have been spent or wasted, the shares, 10s. in the pound paid up, may be bought for a quarter. I can only hope that VOL. H. Q 226 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Mr. Amondsen, who met me at Axim, may follow my suggestions and send home alluvial gold. Cameron's most sensible advice concerning the local establishment required for Akankon was as follows : He laid down the total expenditure at 21,0002. per annum, including expenses in England. This sum would work 100 tons per diem with 350 hands (each at is. hire and 3d. subsistence-money) and sixteen cooks and servants. The staff would consist of six officers. The manager should draw 8002. (not 1,2002.), and the surgeon, absolutely necessary in case of accidents, 4502. with rations. This is the pay of Government, which does not allow subsistence. The reduction-officer and the book-keeper are rated at 5002., and the superin- tendent of works and the head-miner each at 2402. The pay of carpenters and other mechanics, who should know how to make small castings, would range from 1802. to 1502. The first native clerk and the store- keeper would be paid 1002.; the time-keeper, with three assistants, 702. and 652. The manager requires office, sitting-room, and bedroom, and the medico a dispensary ; the other four would have separate sleeping- places and a common parlour. Each room would have its small German stove for burning mangrove-fuel ; and a fire-engine should be handy on every establishment. All the white employes would mess together, unless it ARRANGEMENTS FOR MINERS. 327 be found advisable to make two divisions. The house would be of the usual pitch-pine boarding on piles, like those of Lagos, omitting the common passage or gal- lery, which threatens uncleanness ; and the rooms might be made gay with pictures and coloured prints. The natives would build bamboo-huts. Cameron, well knowing what ennui in Africa means, would send out a billiard-table and a good lathe : he also proposed a skittle- or bowling-alley, a ground for lawn-tennis under a shed, an ice-machine and one for making soda-water. Each establishment would have its library, a good atlas, a few works of reference, and treatises on mining, machinery, and natural history. The bulk would be the cheap novels (each 4c.) in which weary men delight. In addition to the l Mining Journal,' the * Illustrated,' and the comics, local and country papers should be sent out ; exiles care more for the ' Little Pedlington Courant ' than for the ' journal of the City,' the ' Times.' Gardening should be encouraged. The vegetables would be occros (hibiscus) and brinjalls, lettuce, tomatoes, and marrow ; yam and sweet potatoes, pumpkins, peppers and cucumbers, whose seeds yield a fine-flavoured salad- oil not sold in London. The fruits are grapes and pine- apples, limes and oranges, mangoes and melons, papaws and a long list of native growth. Nor should flowers be neglected, especially the pink and the rose. The land, Q 2 228 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. fenced in for privacy, would produce in abundance holcus-millet, rice, and lucern for beasts. There would be a breeding-ground for black cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, and a poultry-yard protected against wild cats. The routine-day would be as follows: At 5.15 A.M. first bell, and notice to ' turn out ; ' at 5.40 the ' little breakfast ' of tea or coffee, bread-and-butter, or toast, ham and eggs. The five working-hours of morning (6-11 A.M.) to be followed by a substantial d&jeuner a la fourchette at 11.30. Each would have a pint of beer or claret, and be allowed one bottle of whisky a week. Mr. Ross, the miner, preferred breakfast at 8 A.M., dinner at 1 P.M., and ' tea ' at 5 P.M. ; but these hours leave scant room for work. The warning-bell, at 12.45 P.M., after 1 hr. 45 min. rest, would prepare the men to fall in, and return to work at 1 P.M. ; and the afternoon-spell would last till 5.30. Thus the working-day contains 9 hrs. 30 min. Dinner would be served at any time after 6 P.M., and the allowance of liquor be that of the breakfast. An occasional holiday to Axim should be allowed, in order to correct the monotony of jungle-life. 229 CHAPTEE XXI. TO TUMENTO, THE GREAT CENTRAL DEPOT.' MARCH 4 was a sore trial to us both. "We ' went down ' on the same day and by our own fault. We had given the sorely-abused climate no chance ; nor have we any right to abuse it instead of blaming ourselves. The stranger should begin work quietly in these regions ; living, if possible, near the coast and gradually in- creasing his exercise and exposure. Within three months, especially if he be lucky enough to pass through a mild * seasoning ' of ague and fever, he becomes ' acclimatised,' the consecrated term for a European shorn of his redundant health, strength, and vigour. Medical men warn new comers, and for years we had read their warnings, against the ' exhaustion of the physical powers of the body from over-exertion.' They prescribe gentle constitutionals to men whose hours must do the work of days. It is like ordering a pauper- patient generous diet in the shape of port and beef- steaks ; for the safe system, which takes aquarter of a year, 230 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. would have swallowed up all our time. Consequently we worked too hard. Our mornings and evenings were spent in collecting, and our days in boating, or in walking instead of hammocking. Indeed, we placed, by way of derision, the Krumen in the fashionable vehicle. And we had been too confident in our past * seasoning ; ' we had neglected such simple precau- tions as morning and evening fires and mosquito-bars at night ; finally, we had exposed ourselves somewhat recklessly to sickly sun and sweltering swamp. Four days on the burning hill-side completed the work. My companion was prostrated by a bilious attack, I by ague and fever. ' I thought you were at least fever-proof,' says the candid friend, as if one had compromised oneself. Alas ! no : a man is not fever-proof in Africa till he takes permanent possession of his little landed estate. Happily we had our remedies at hand. There was no medico within hail ; and, had there been, we should have hesitated to call him in. These gentlemen are Government servants, who add to their official salaries (400L per annum) by private practice. For five visits to a sick Kruboy six guineas have been charged ; 51. for tapping a liver and sending two draughts and a box of pills, and 37. 10s. for treating a mild tertian which lasted a week. The late M. Bonnat cost 801. for a fortnight. Such fees should attract a host of talented- OUR SICKNESS. 231 young practitioners from England; at any rate they suggest that each mine or group of mines should carry its own surgeon. Cameron applied himself diligently to chlorodyne, one of the two invaluables on the Coast. We had a large store, but unfortunately the natives have learnt its intoxicating properties, and during our absence from Axim many bottles had disappeared. I need hardly say that good locks and keys are prime necessaries ia these lands, and that they are mostly i found wanting.' I addrest myself to Warburg's drops (Tinctura Warburgii\ a preparation invaluable for travellers in the tropics and in the lower temperates. The action appears to be chiefly on the liver through the skin. The more a traveller sees, the firmer becomes his con- viction that health means the good condition of this re- bellious viscus, and that its derangement causes the two great pests of Africa, dysentery and fever. Indeed, he is apt to become superstitious upon the subject, and to believe that a host of diseases gout and rheumatism, cholera and enteric complaints result from, and are to be cured or relieved only by subduing, hepatic disturbances. My ' Warburg ' was procured directly from the inventor, not from the common chemist, who makes the little phialful for 9^. and sells it for 4s. Qd. Some years ago a distinguished medical friend per- 232 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. suaded Dr. Warburg, once of Vienna, now of London, to reveal his secret, in the forlorn hope of a liberal remuneration by the Home Government. Needless to say the reward is to come. I first learnt to appreciate this specific at Zanzibar in 1856, where Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton used it successfully in the most dangerous remittents and marsh-fevers. Cases of the febrifuge were sent out to the Coast during the Ashanti war for the benefit of army and navy: the latter, they say, made extensive use of it. I have persistently recommended it to my friends and the public ; and, before leaving England in 1879, I wrote to the ' Times,' proposing that all who owe (like myself) their lives to Dr. War- burg should join in relieving his straitened means by a small subscription. At this moment (June 1882) measures are being taken in favour of the inventor, and I can only hope that the result will be favourable. The ' drops ' are composed of the aromatic, sudorific and diaphoretic drugs used as febrifuges by the faculty before the days of ' Jesuits' bark,' to which a small quantity of quinine is added. Thus the tincture is suc- cessful in many complaints besides fevers. Evidently skilful manipulation is an important factor in the sum of its success. Dr. Warburg has had the ex- perience of the third of a century, and the authorities could not do better than to give him a contract for making his own cure. UP THE ANCOBRA. 233 The enemy came on with treacherous gentleness a slight rigor, a dull pain in the head, and a local irrita- tion. ' I have had dozens of fevers, and dread them little more than a cold,' said Winwood Eeade ; indeed, the English catarrh is quite as bad as the common marsh-tertian of the Coast. The normal month of im- munity had passed ; I was prepared for the inevitable ordeal, and I flattered myself that it would be a mild ague, at worst the affair of a week. Altro ! Next morning two white men, owning that they felt ' awful mean,' left Granton, walked down to River- side House, and at 8 A.M. embarked upon the hapless Effuenta. The stream rapidly narrowed, and its aspect became wilder. Dead trees, anchored by the bole-base, cumbered the bed, and dykes and bars of slate, overlaid by shales of recent date, projected from either side. The land showed no sign of hills, but the banks were steep at this season, in places here and there based on ruddy sand and exposing strips of rude conglomerate, the cascalho of the Brazil. This pudding is composed of waterworn pebbles, bedded in a dark clayey soil which crumbles under the touch. On an arenaceous strip projecting from the western edge the women were washing and panning where the bottom of the digging was below that of the river. This is an everyday sight on the Ancobra, and it shows what scientific ' hydraulick- ing ' will do. 234 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. After six hours of steaming, not including three to fill the boiler, we halted at Enframadie, the Fanti Frammanji, meaning * wind cools,' that is, falls calm. It is a wretched split heap of huts on the left bank, one patch higher pitched than the other, to avoid the floods ; the tenements are mere cages, the bush lying close to the walls, and supplies are unprocurable. In fact, the further we go the worse we fare as regards mere lodgings ; yet the site of our present halt is a high bank of yellow clay, which suggests better things. There is no reason why this miserable hole should not be made the river-depot. On March 4 we set out in the * lizard's sun,' as the people call the morning rays ; our vehicle was the surf-boat, escorted by the big canoe. Enframadie is the terminus of launch-navigation; the snags in the Dries stop the way, and she cannot stem the current of the Rains. The Ancobra now resembles the St. John's or Prince's Eiver in the matter of timber- floorwork and chevaux de /rise of tree-corpses disposed in every possible direction. After half an hour we paddled past the ' Devil's Grate,' a modern name for an old and ugly feature. H.S.M.'s entrance (to home ?) is formed by black reefs and ridges projected gridiron- fashion from ledges on either side almost across the stream, leaving a narrow Thalweg so shallow that the boatmen must walk and drag. During the height of GOLD AMALGAM GOING HOME. 23$ the floods it is sometimes covered for a few hours by forty feet of water, rising and falling with perilous continuity. Beyond ' Devil's Grate ' a pleasant surprise awaited us. Mr. D. C. MacLennan, manager of the Effuenta mine, 1 stopped his canoe to greet us. He was justly proud of his charge a box of amalgam weighing 15 Ibs. and carrying eighty ounces of gold. It was to be retorted at home and to be followed within a fort- night by a larger delivery, and afterwards by monthly remittances. The precious case, which will give courage to so many half-hearted shareholders, was duly em- barked on the A.S.S. Ambriz (Captain Crookes) ; and its successor, containing the produce of a hundred tons, on the B. and A. Benguela (Captain Porter). Consequently the papers declared that Effuenta was first in the field of results. This is by no means the case. As early as November 1881 Mr. W. E. Crocker, of Crockerville, manager of the important "Wasa (Wassaw) mining- property, sent home gold amalgam, and black sand 2 a total of sixty-eight ounces to twenty-five tons. 1 The name was given by M. Dahse ; it is that of the first worker, Efuata, a woman born on Saturday (Efua), and the third of a series of daughters (ata). 2 I have before noticed this 'golden sea-sand.' It has lately been found, the papers tell me, on the coast about Cape Commerell, British Columbia. A handful, taken from a few inches below the surface, shows glittering specks of ' float-gold,' scales so fine that it was difficult to wash them by machinery. Mem. This is what 236 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. After an hour's paddling we sighted a few canoes and surf-boats under a raised clay-bank binding the stream on the left. This was Tumento (Tomento), our destination ; the word means * won't go,' as the rock is supposed to say to the water. The aspect of the Ancobra becomes gloomy and menacing. The broad bed shrinks to a ditch, almost overshadowed by its sombre walls of many-hued greens ; and the dead tree-trunks of the channel, ghastly white in the dull brown shade, look to the feverish imagination like the skeleton hands and fingers of monstrous spectres out- spread to bar thoroughfare. We landed and walked a few yards to the settle- ment. A * Steam-launch ' sounds grandiose, and so does a ' Great Central Depot ' seen on paper. And touch- ing this place I was told a tale. Some time ago two young French employes, a doctor and an engineer, were sent up to the mines, and fell victims to the magical influence of the name. Quoth Jules to Alphonse, ' My friend, we will land ; we will call a fiacrre ; we will drive to the local Three Provincial Brothers ; we will eat a women do every day on the Gold Coast. The Colonist says that a San Francisco company has at length hit upon the contrivance. It consists of six drawers or layers of plates punched with holes about half an inch in diameter, and covered with amalgam. The gold- sand is ' dumped in ; ' and the water, turned on the top-plate, sets all in motion : the sand falls from plate to plate, leaving the free loose gold which has attached itself to the amalgam, and very little remains to be caught by the sixth plate. So simple a process is eminently fitted for the Gold Coast. THE GREAT CENTRAL DEPdT. 237 succulent repast, and then for a few happy hours we will forget Blackland and these ignoble blacks.' So they toiled up the stiff and slippery slope, and found a scatter of crate-huts crowning a bald head of yellow argil. Speechless with rage and horror at the sight of the ' Depot,' they rushed headlong into the canoe, returned without a moment's delay to Axim, and, finding a steamer in the bay, incontinently went on board, flying the Dark Continent for ever. We housed ourselves in Messieurs Swanzy and Crocker's establishment at Tumento. The climate ap- peared wholesome ; the river brought with it a breeze, and we were evidently entering the region of woods, between the mangrove-swamps of the coast and the grass-lands of the interior. At Tumento I met, after some twenty years, Mr. Dawson, of Cape Coast Castle. The last time it was at Dahoman Agbome, in company with the Rev. Mr. Berna- sko, who died (1872) of dropsy and heart-disease. He is now in the employment of the Tkwa or French Com- pany, and his local knowledge and old experience had suggested working the mines to M. Bonnat. Some forty years ago the English merchants of * Cabo Corso ' used to send their people hereabouts to dig ; and more recently Mr. Carter had spent, they say, 4,OOOL upon the works. He was followed by another roving English- man, who was not more successful. The liberation of 238 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. pawns and other anti-abolitionist * fads ' had so raised the wage-rate that the rich placers were presently left to the natives. We exchanged reminiscences, and he at once started down stream for Axim. As we were unable to work, Mr. Grant proceeded to inspect the concession called ' Insimankao,' the Asa- mankao of M. Zimmermann. It is the name of the village near which Sir Charles Macarthy was slain : our authorities translated it ' I've got you,' as the poor man said to the gold, or the cruel chief to the runaway serf. Mr. Dawson, who is uncle by marriage to Mr. Grant, had also suggested this digging. Our good manager, now an adept at prospecting, found the way very foul and the place very rich. It was afterwards, as will be seen, visited by Mr. Oliver Pegler and lastly by Cameron. Amongst the few new faces seen at Tumento were two 'Krambos,' Moslems and writers of charms and talismans. A < Patent Improved Metallic Book,' which looked in strange company, contained their ' fetish ' and apparently composed their travelling kit. Both hailed from about Tinbukhtu, but their Arabic was so imper- fect that I could make nothing of their route. These men acquire considerable authority amongst the pagan negroes, who expect great things from their ' grigris.' They managed to find us some eggs when no one else could. This Hibernian race of Gold Coast blacks DR. WARBURG AND THE FEVER-FIEND. 239 had eaten or sold all its hens, and had kept only the loud-crowing cocks. The presence of these two youths convinced me that there will be a Mohammedan move- ment towards the Grold Coast. A few years may see thousands of them, with mosques by the dozen esta- blished upon the sea-board. The ' revival of El-Islam ' shows itself nowhere so remarkably as in Africa. At Tumento Cameron found himself growing rapidly worse. He suffered from pains in the legs, and owned that even when crossing Africa during his three years of wild life he remembered nothing more severe. In my own case there was a severe tussle between Dr. Warburg and Fever-fiend. The attacks had changed from a tertian to a quotidian, and every new paroxysm left me, like the ' possessed ' of Holy Writ after the expulsion of 'devils,' utterly prostrate. During the three days' struggle I drained two bottles of 4 Warburg.' The admirable drug won the victory, but it could not restore sleep or appetite. Seeing how matters stood, and how easily bad might pass to worse, I proposed the proceeding whereby a man lived to fight another day. We were also falling short of ready money, and the tornadoes were becoming matters of daily occurrence. After a long and anxious pow-wow Cameron accepted, and it was determined to run down to the coast, and there collect health and strength for a new departure. No sooner said than 240 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. done. On March 8 we left Tumento in our big canoe, passed the night at Riverside House, and next evening were inhaling, not a whit too soon, the inspiriting sea- whiffs of Axim. The rest of my tale is soon told. Cameron recovered health within a week, and re- solved to go north again. His object was to inspect for the second time the working mines about Takwa, and to note their present state ; also to make his ob- servations and to finish his map. He did not look in full vigour ; and, knowing his Caledonian tenacity of purpose, I made him promise not to run too much risk by over-persistence. After a diner d'Axim and dis- cussing a plum-pudding especially made for our Christ- mas by a fair and kind friend at Trieste, he set out Ancobra- wards on March 16. He would have no Kru- men ; so our seven fellows, who refused to take service in the Effuenta mine, were paid off and shipped for * we country.' The thirty hands ordered in mid- January appeared in mid-March, and were made over to Mr. MacLennan. My companion set out with faithful Joe, Mr. Dawson the stuffer, and his dog Nero. I did not hear of him or from him till we met at Madeira. My case was different. I could not recover strength like my companion, who is young and who has more of vital force to expend. This consideration made me RETURN TO AXIM. 241 fearful of spoiling his work : a sick traveller 'in the jungle is a terrible encumbrance. I therefore proposed to run south and to revisit my old quarters, ' F. Po ' and the Oil Kivers, in the B. and A. s.s. Loanda (Captain Brown), the same which would pick up my companion after his return to Axim. Life on the coast was not unpleasant, despite the equinoctial gales which broke on March 19 and blew hard till March 25. I had plenty of occupation in working up my notes, and I was lucky enough to meet all the managers of the working mines who were passing through Axim. From Messieurs Crocker (Wasa), MacLennan (Effuenta), Creswick (Gold Coast Company), and Bowden (Takwa 1 ) I had thus an oppor- tunity of gathering much hearsay information, and was able to compare opinions which differed widely enough. I also had long conversations with Mr. A. A. Eobertson, lately sent out as traffic-manager to the Izrah, and with Mr. Amondsen, the Danish sailor, then en route to the hapless Akankon mine. Mr. Paulus Dahse, who was saved from a severe sickness by Dr. Eoulston and by his brother-in-law, Mr. Wulf ken, eventually became my fellow-passenger to Madeira, where I parted from him 1 Alias the African Gold Coast Company, whose shareholders are French and English. It has lately combined with the Mine d'Or d'Abowassu (Abosu), the capital being quoted at five millions of francs. Thus the live working mines are reduced to four, while the ' Izrah ' and others are coming on (May 1882). VOL. II. R 242 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. with regret. During long travel and a residence of years in various parts of the Gold Coast he has collected a large store of local knowledge, and he is most generous in parting with his collection. But, when prepared to embark on board the Loanda, which was a week late, my health again gave way, and I found that convalescence would be a long affair. Madeira occurred to me as the most restful of places, and there I determined to await my companion. The A.S.S. Winnebah (Captain Hooper) anchored at Axim on March 28 ; the opportunity was not to be lost, and on the same evening we steamed north, regaining health and strength with every breath. The A.S.S. Winnebah could not be characterised as ' comfortable.' Mr. Purser Denny did his best to make her an exception to the Starvation rule, but even he could not work miracles. She is built for a river- boat, and her main cabin is close to the forecastle. She was crowded with Kruboys, and all her passengers were ' doubled up.' A full regiment of parrots was on board, whose daily deaths averaged twenty to thirty. The birds being worth ten shillings each, our engines were driven as they probably had never been driven before, and the clacking of the safety-valve never ceased. The weather, however, was superb. We caught the north-east Trade a little north of Cape Palmas, and AGAIN MADEIRA. 243 kept it till near Grand Canary. On April 13, greatly improved by the pleasant voyage and by complete repose, I rejoiced once more in landing at the fair isle Madeira. And now Cameronus loquitur. R 2 244 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. CHAPTER XXII. TO INSIMANKAO AND THE BUTABUE RAPIDS. LEAVING Axim on March 16, I slept at Kumprasi and remarked a great change in the bar of the Ancobra Eiver. During the dry season it had been remarkably good, but now it began to change for the worse ; and soon it will become impassable for three or four days at a time. My surf-boat, when coming across it, shipped three seas. On my return down the river (April 15) the whole sand-bank to the west of the mouth had been washed away, forming dangerous shoals ; the sea was furiously breaking and ' burning,' as the old Dutch say, and the waves which entered the river were so high that canoes were broken and boats were seriously damaged. I stored my goods in the surf-boat, and set out in our big canoe early next morning. A string of dug-outs was next passed, loaded with palm-kernels, maize, and bananas ; it appeared as if they were all bound for the market at Axim. I took specimens of swish and stone from ' Eoss's Hill.' The top soil showed good signs of THE LAST OF THE < EFFUENTA: 245 gold, and the grains were tolerably coarse. Here a floating power-engine would soon bare the reefs and warp up the swamp. Messieurs Allan and Plisson, who were floating down in a surf-boat, gave me the news that the steam-launch Effuenta had at last succumbed in the struggle for life. I landed at Akromasi, a village where the true bamboo-cane grows, and found the soil to be a grey sandy clay ; there were many ' women's washings ' near the settlement. Shortly before reaching the Ahema River we saw the landing-place for the valuable * Apa- tim concession.' They told me on enquiry that the stream is deep and has been followed up in a surf-boat for a mile or two. It may therefore prove of use to Mr. Irvine's property, Apatim. At half-past five that evening I reached Akankon, and slept well at ' Riverside House.' Mr. Morris had begun levelling the ground and building new quarters for general use. I gave him some slips of bamboo and roots of Bahama-grass, as that planted had grown so well. Next morning we got under way early (6.50) and proceeded up the river. The canoe-men, seeing pots of palm-wine on the banks, insisted upon landing to slake their eternal thirst. The mode in which the liquor is sold shows a trustfulness on the part of the seller which may result from firm belief in his * fetish.' Any passer-by can drink wine a discretion, and is expected 246 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. to put the price in a calabash standing hard by. Be- yond the Yengeni Eiver I saw for the first and only time purple clay-slate overlying quartz. Collecting here and there specimens of geology, and suffering much from the sun, for I still was slightly feverish, I reached the * great central depot ' at 4 P.M. Tumento was found by observation to lie in N. lat. 4 12' 20" and in W. long.(Gr.)2 12' 25". Consequently it is only eighteen direct geographical miles from the sea, the mouth of the Ancobra being in W. lat. 2 54'. Some make the distance thirty and others sixty miles. The latter figure would apply only by doubling the windings of the bed. This ascent of the river convinced me more than ever that Enframadie is the proper terminus of its naviga- tion. I passed the next day at Tumento, which proved to be only half the distance usually supposed along the Ancobra bed from its mouth. The time was spent mainly in resting and doctoring myself. At night the rats, holding high carnival, kept me awake till 3 A.M. ; and I heard shots being continually fired from a native mine whose position was unknown. The natives now know how to bore and blast ; consequently thefts of powder, drills, and fuses become every day more com- mon. My first visit (March 20) was to the Insimankao concession. I left the surf-boat behind, and put my luggage into small canoes hired at Tumento, myself TO INSIMANKAO. 247 proceeding in the large canoe. We shoved off from the beach at 8.5 A.M. The Ancobrahad now, after the late rains, a fair current instead of being almost dead water ; otherwise it maintained the same appearance. The banks are conglomerate, grey clay and slate ; gravel, sand, shingle, and pebbles of reddish quartz, bedded in earth of the same colour, succeeding one another in ever- varying succession. Only two reefs, neither of them important, projected from the sides. After an hour and a half paddling we reached the Fura, which I should call a creek ; it is not out of the mangrove-region. The bed is set in high, steep banks submerged during the rains ; and the narrowness of the mouth, compared with the upper part, made it run, after the late showers, into the Ancobra like a mill-race. In fact, the paddlers were compelled to track in order to make headway. After ten minutes ( = 200 yards) we reached a landing-place, all jungle with rotting vegeta- tion below. I do not think that as a waterway the Fura Creek can be made of any practical use ; but it will be very valuable for ' hydraulicking.' Canoes and small surf-boats may run down it at certain seasons," but the flow is too fast and the bed is too full of snags and sawyers to be easily ascended. At the landing-place I mounted my hammock and struck the path which runs over level ground pretty thick with second-growth. The chief Bimfu, who met 248 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. me at Tumento, had broken his promise to guide me, and had neglected to clear the way. On a largish creek which was nearly dry I saw a number of ' women's washings.' Then we passed on the right a hillock seventy to eighty feet high, where quartz showed in detached and weathered blocks. Beyond it were native shafts striking the auriferous drift at a depth of eight to ten feet. A few yards further on the usual washings showed that the top soil is also worth working. Another half-hour brought us to about a dozen native shafts in the usual chimney shape. They were quite new and had been temporarily left on account of the rise of the water, which was here twenty- four feet below the surface. The top soil is of sandy clay, and the gold-containing drifts, varying in thick- ness, they told me, from two to four feet, consisted of quartz pebbles bedded in red loam. The general look of the stratum and the country suggested an old lagoon. An hour and a half of hammock brought me from the landing-place of the Fura Creek to the village of Insimankao. Eain was falling heavily and prevented all attempts at observation. The settlement is the usual group of swish and bamboo box-huts nestling in the bush. A small clean bird-cage, divided into two compartments, with standing bedstead, was assigned to me. THE COLD-REEFS. 249 Next morning I walked to the Insimankao mine by a path leading along, and in places touching, the bank of the Fura Creek, which runs through the whole pro- perty. After thirty-three minutes we reached the * marked tree.' Here the land begins to rise and forms the Insimankao Hill, whose trend is to north-north-east. Mr. Walker calls it Etia-Kaah, or Echia-Karah, meaning 4 when you hear (of its fame) you will come.' It is the usual mound of red clay, fairly wooded, and about 1 50 feet high ; the creek runs about 100 yards west of the pits. The reefs seemed to be almost vertical, with a strike to the north-north-east ; and the walls showed slate, iron- oxide, and decomposed quartz. The main reef 'was from eight to ten feet thick, and I believe that there are other and parallel formations. But the ground is very complicated, and for proper study I should have required borings and cross-cuts. There were two big rough pits called shafts. I 1 Mr. 0. Pegler (A.E.S.M.) describes it as a ' vary powerful reef outcropping boldly from a hill at a short distance from the native village, the strike being north-north-east to south-south-west, and the vein having a great inclination. At the crest of the hill it presents a massive appearance, and is many feet in width in some places between twenty and thirty feet. This diminishes towards the native pits, and there the vein diverges into two portions, both presenting a decomposed appearance, the casing on both foot and hanging wall having a highly talcose character.' This engineer also washed gold specks from the loose soil. Finally, he notes that the massive quartz-outcrop is homogeneous and crystalline, giving only traces of gold, but that the stone improves rapidly with depth. 250 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. descended into the deeper one, which was fourteen to fifteen feet below ground. The walls would repay washing on a large scale ; and the look of the top soil reminded me of the descriptions of old California and Australia when there were rushes of miners to the gold- fields, carrying for all machinery a pick, a pan, and a tin ' billy.' The Insimankao concession contains 1,000 fathoms square ; the measurements being taken from a ' marked tree ' on the north-western slope of the hill with the long name. The position is N. lat. 5 18' 15" and the long. W. (Gr.) 2 14' 03". West of the centre the Fura Creek receives a small tributary. Mr. Walker took fair samples from the well-defined reef and the out- cropping boulders, whose strike is from north-north-east to south-south-west. He notes that the land Egwira, which lies between Wasa and Aowin, was long famous for its mining-industry, and that it appears in old maps as a ' Republick rich in gold.' We heard of the Abenje mine on the same reef, four to five miles east of Insi- mankao; and he declares that it has been abandoned ause the population is too scanty. I left this mining property convinced that working it will pay well. The only thing to be guarded against is overlapping the French concession of Mankuma, which lies immediately to the east. From the mine I walked back to the village, break- THE UPPER ANCOBRA. 251 fasted, and returned in the canoes to the sluice-like mouth of the Fura Creek. I then ascended the Anco- bra, in order to inspect the Butabue rapids, said to be the end of canoe-navigation. We passed on the right a reef and a shallow of conglomerate, washed out of the banks and forming a race ; there is another reef with its rip at Aroasu. In the early part of the afternoon we got to the village of Ebiasu, which means ' not dark.' Here the equinoctial showers began to fall heavily, and I was again obliged to sleep without observations. The village is built upon a steep bank of yellow clay, with rich red oxides ; it stands forty feet above the pre- sent level, and yet at times it is flooded out- Leaving Ebiasu next morning, I found the banks of sand, clay, and small pebbles beginning to shelve. We passed over slaty rocks in the bed ; and the depth of water was often not more than three feet. Women's washings were seen on the left bank, and the river had risen after they had been worked. We could not approach them on account of the reefs and the current. The opposite bank, about five minutes further up, is of soft sandstone ; and here a native tunnel of forty to fifty feet had been run in from the river to communi- cate with a shaft. My men were nervous about leo- pards, and I had to encourage them by firing my rifle into the hole. The normal formation continued, and here the land is evidently built by the river ; there are 252 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. few hills, and the present direction of the bed has been determined by the rocks and reefs, the outliers of the old true coast. These features may have been lower than they are now, and owe their present elevation to upheaval. Immature conglomerate that is, a pudding of pebbles and hardened clay seems to have been deposited in the synclinal curve of the bed-rock, princi- pally slate. Overlying both are the top soil and the sands, the latter often resembling the washed out tail- ings of stamped rock. Passing the village Abanfokru, I found myself amongst the extensive concessions of the French, who have taken the alluvial grounds for washing and work- ing. M. Bonnat's map gives the approximate positions and dimensions ; and the several sites are laid down by M. Dahse. I shall have more to say about this section on my return. Navigation now becomes more intricate and difficult, owing to rocks and reefs, rips and rapids. A large stony holm about mid-stream is called Eduasim, mean- ing ' thief in river.' I need not repeat from my map the names of the unimportant settlements. At the mouth of the Abonsa the bed widens to nearly double, and the north-easterly direction shifts to due north. This great drain, falling into the left bank, lies between five and six miles above the Fura Creek. I shall have more to say about it when describing my descent. BUTABUE RAPIDS. 253 Two miles further north brought us to the begin- ning of the rapids, which apparently end the boat-navi- gation. The only canoes are used for ferrying ; I saw no water-traffic, and there were no longer any fish-weirs. Moreover, the country has been deserted, I was told, since the arrival of strangers. The natives have probably been treated with little consideration. A quarter of an hour's hauling, all hands being applied to the canoe, took us about fifty yards over the Im- payim rapid, whose fall is from four to five feet deep. Immediately after the Butabue influent on the right bank the bed bends abruptly east, and we reached the far-famed rapids of that name. Here the whole surface, as far up as the eye can see, is a mass of rocks and of broken, surging water. The vegetation of the banks, bound together by creepers, llianas, and rattans, is peculiarly fine. I landed upon one of the rocks, sketched the Butabue, whose name none could explain, and returned down stream to the ' great central Depot,' Tumento. I can say little about the Eiver Ancobra above the rapids, except that it resumes its course from the north- north-east and the north, apparently guided by the hills. The sources are now only a few miles distant, but the stream is unnavigable, and they must be reached on foot. The late M. Bonnat walked up by a hunter's path, now killed out, to the ruins of Bush Castle, which 254 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Jeekel calls Fort Euyghaver. He there secured posses- sion of the rich Asaman mines, which the work was intended to defend. There is some fetish there, and the place is known as the burial-ground of the kings. I was also told that four or five marches off a cache of treasure, described to be large, had been made during the Ashanti-Gryaman war, and had been defended by the usual superstitions. Fetish may have lost much of its power on the coast ; in the interior, however, it is still strong, and few white men live long after being placed under its ban. 255 CHAPTER XXIII. TO EFFUENTA, CROCKERVILLE, AND THE AJI BIPA HILL. AT Tumento the halt of a day (March 22) was neces- sary in order to hire carriers and get ready for the march eastward. Here, too, I washed sundry specimens of soft earth from various parts of the river-banks, rinding colour of gold in all except the grey clay. Our Moham- medan friends were there ; the eldest called upon me and was exceedingly civil, besides being to a certain extent useful. For the hire of a shilling and two cakes of Cavendish he found me eggs in a village some three miles off, and he ended by writing me a ' safy,' which would bring me good luck in all my undertakings. It consists of the usual Koranic quotations in black, and of magic numbers in pink, ink. Dr. Roulston and Mr. Higgins, the new District Commissioner for Takwa, entered Tumento about 3 P.M. The carriers hired in addition to my canoe-men would now be wanted, said the cunning old chief, for the * Government man,' with whom he wished to stand well. As the porters had received an advance of pay I 256 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. objected to this proceeding. The fresh arrivals had to find other hands, and were not very successful in the search. Their detachment of twenty-five Haussa sol- diers, who had escorted to the coast Dr. Duke, the acting commissioner lately invalided, were sent abroad in all directions to act press-gang, and the natural lawlessness of the race came out strong. The force is injured by enlisting ' Haussas ' who are not Haussa at all ; merely semi-savage and half-pagan slaves. On detached duty they get quite out of hand ; and they by no means serve to make our Government popular. By the rules of the force they should never be absent from head-quarters for more than six months ; their transport costs next to nothing, as they march by bush-paths. And yet they are kept for years on outpost-duty, where it would require a Glover to discipline them and to make them steady soldiers. They live by plunder. A private on a shilling a day will eat three fowls, each worth 9d. to 10cL, and drink any taken amount of palm-wine. There are no means of punishment, or even of securing a criminal ; the colony cannot afford irons or handcuffs ; there is no prison, and a Haussa, placed under arrest in a bamboo-hut, cuts his way out as easily as a rat from a bird-cage. One of these men was accused of murdering a woman in one of the villages on the way. His comrades brought in husbands, wives, and children indiscrimi- THE MARCH EASTWARDS. 257 nately, not sparing even the chiefs. Bimfu, of Insi- mankao, was among the number ; next morning, how- ever, he threw his pack, bolted to the bush, and even- tually reported his grievances to Axim. The second headman of Tumento, when pressed, managed to secure a very small load. But as payment is by weight, Qd. per 10 Ibs. from the river to Effuenta, and no subsist- ence is allowed, his gains were small in proportion ; he received for three days only 9d., the ordinary value of porter's rations. Next day (March 23) we left Tumento at 7.30 A.M. The caravan consisted of thirty-two men, all told canoe-men from Axim, Tumento bearers, boatswain, and my three body-servants. All were under the command of Joe the Indefatigable, who formed a kind of body- guard of gun-carriers out of the porters that carried the lightest packs. Mr. Dawson assisted me in collect- ing ; Paul prepared to shoulder a bed, and the boat- swain was ordered to catch butterflies. The cries of ' batli,' 'basky,' and ' bokkus ' (bottle, basket, and box) continually broke the silence of the bush and gladdened the collector's ears. I was still able to dispense with the hammock. In the first few minutes the path trends southwards ; it then assumes and keeps an easterly direction. Here is a water-parting : the many little beds, mostly full of water, flow either north towards the Abons or south VOL. II. S 258 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. and westwards to the Ancobra. They are divided by de- tached hills, or rather oblong mounds, of the same for- mation as the beds ; quartz, gravel, and red clay, all disposed in the usual direction. Women's washings were seen everywhere along the road, and in some places ooz- ings of iron from the soil heavily charged the stream- lets. Some of the quartz-boulders were coloured outside like porphyry by the oxide. About three- quarters of the way from Tumento to Apankru is a hill rich in outcrops of quartz. I believe it to be French property. These rises and falls led over 7^ direct geogra- phical miles, usually done in three hours, to Apankru, a second ' great central Depot.' The village lies on the right bank of the Abonsa Kiver, here some forty feet high. It is composed almost entirely of the store- houses of the several companies (Gold Coast) Effuenta, and Swanzy's (English), the African Gold Coast and Mines d'Or d'Aboassu l (French). Only the latter use the Abonsa for transport purposes I think very unwisely. My descent of the stream will show all its dangers of snags, rapids, and heavy currents. Here it rises high during the floods, and sometimes it swamps the lower courtyards. I put up at Mr. Crocker's establishment, which was, 1 At first I supposed the word to be Abo-WasS, or Stones of Wasa: it is simply Abosu, meaning 'on the rock.' WANT OF PUBLIC FEELING. 259 as usual, nice and clean ; and the officials went on to Effuenta. The native clerk took good care of me, pro- bably moved thereto by Mr. Joe, who addressed him, ' Here, gib me key ; want house for my master ! ' During the evening, in the intervals of heavy rain, I obtained a latitude by Castor. Apankru lies in north latitude 5 13' 55", and its longitude (by calculation) is 20' 6" west. The next morning (March 24) was dark and threatening. At 6.30 A.M. we struck into the path, a mere bush-track, the corduroys and bridges made by the Swanzy house having completely disappeared. This want of public feeling, of ' solidarity,' amongst the several mining companies should be remedied with a strong hand. These men seem not to know that rivalry may be good in buying palm-oil, but is the wrong thing in mining. Such a jealousy assisted in making the Spanish proverb ' A silver mine brings wretchedness ; a gold mine brings ruin.' Even in Eng- land I have met with unwise directors who told me, * Oh, you must not say that, or people will prefer such and such a mine.' But, speaking generally, employers are aware that unity of interest should produce solidarity of action. The local employes like to breed divisions, in order to increase their own importance. This should be put down with a strong hand ; and all should learn the lesson that what benefits one mine benefits all. s 2 260 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Many of the little streams run between steep banks, and in the rainy season mud and water combine to make the line impracticable. Yet there is nothing to stand in the way of a cheap tram ; and perhaps this would cost less and keep better than a metalled road. The twisting of the track, * without rhyme or reason,' reminded me of the snakiest paths in Central Africa. Our course, as the map shows, was in every quadrant of the compass except the south-western. On our left or north ran the Aunabe, M. Dahse's Ahunabe, 1 the northern fork of the Abonsa, which falls into the right bank below Apankru. It has a fine assortment of mixed rapids, which show well during the floods. Hills of the usual quartz blocks, gravels, sand, and clay lead, after 1 hr. 40 min. walking and collecting, at the rate of two geographical miles an hour, to Mr. Crocker's second set of huts. They were built on a level for shelter and resting-places before Apankru was in existence, and were baptised ' Sierra Leone ' by emigrants from the white man's grave and the black man's Garden of Eden. Beyond this settlement is a fine quartz hill, round the northern edge of which the path winds to the little Kwansakru. This is a woman's village, where the 1 M. Dahse's paper, Die GoldMste (Geog. Soc. of Bremen, vol. ii., 1882), has been ably translated by Mr. H. Bruce Walker, un. of the India Store Depot. ' AMAZON' SETTLEMENTS. 261 wives of chiefs who have mining-rights, accompanied by their slaves, are stationed, to pan gold for their lazy husbands. In this way may have arisen the vul- gar African story of Amazon settlements. Messieurs Zweifel and Moustier ' were told by a Kissi man that twelve marches behind their country is a large town called Nahalo, occupied only by the weaker sex. A man showing himself in the streets, or met on the road, is at once put to death ; however, some of the softer-hearted have kept them prisoners, and the result may easily be divined. All the male issue is killed and only the girls are kept. Many large ' women's washings ' of old date give us a hint how the country should be worked. All along the line of the Anna-be white sands, the tailings of natural sluices, have been deposited ; the black sand sinking by its own weight. I was unable to find out the extent of the French concessions, and look forward to the coming day of compulsory definition of boundaries and registra- tion in Government offices. These grants are mingled in inextricable confusion with those secured by ' Surgeon- Major Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton, Esq.' Soon after Kwansakru we exchanged the ordinary path for a mere thread in the bush, leading to the southern end of Tebribi Hill. The name, according to Mr. Sam, means * when you hear, it shakes,' signify- 1 " r 'ty(igc, Sac., p. 115. 262 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ing that the thunder reverberates from the heights owing to its steep side and gives it a tremulous motion. This abrupt, cliff-like side is the western, where the schistose gneiss is exposed for a thickness of 60 feet and more : the stone is talcose, puddinged in places with quartz pebbles, and everywhere showing laminations of black sand. The long oval mound of red clay, overgrown with trees, and rising 295 feet above sea- level, is all auriferous ; but there are placers richer than their neighbours. Tebribi was the favourite washing- ground of the Apinto Wasas ; but the old shafts were all neglected after the Dutch left, and no deep sinking was known within the memory of man until the last twelve years. I passed a pit on the western flank ; the winch had been removed, and my people found it im- practicable : we descended to it by cut steps and fol- lowed a cornice, mainly artificial, for a short distance to where its mouth opened. This hole had been sunk 70 to 80 feet deep in the talcose stone ; and it would have been far easier and better to have driven galleries and adits into the face of the rock. We took fourteen minutes to clamber up the stiff side in the pelting rain, with a tornado making ready to break. Ten minutes more, along the level, and a total of three hours, placed us at Mr. Crocker's Bellevue House. I had been asked to baptise it, and gave the name after a place in Sevenoaks which over- < BELLE VUE HO USE: 263 looks the wooded expanse of the Kentish weald. The place being locked up, we at once committed burglary ; I occupied one of the two boarded bedrooms with plank walls, and my men established themselves in the broad and well-thatched verandah. When the view cleared we saw various outliers of hill, all running nearly parallel and striking north with more or less easting ; the temperature was delightful, and between the showers the breezes were most refreshing. At night a persistent rain set in and ruined all chance of getting sights. The next morning broke dull and grey with curtains of smoky fog and mist hanging to the hills ; and the heavy wet made the paths greasy and slippery. Leaving Bellevue House, we walked along the whole length of the ridge in half an hour ; and, descending the north- western slope, we struck the main thoroughfare such as it is. Reaching the level, we found more ' women's washings,' and the highly auriferous ground looked as if made for the purpose of hydraulic mining. Another half-hour along the lower flat led us to Burnettville, Crocker's Ruhe No. 3. It is a large native- built house fronted by long narrow quarters for negroes on the other side of the road. The path crossed several streamlets trending north to the Aunabe, and a bad mud which had seen corduroy in its better days. Blocks of quartz and slate protruded between the 264 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. patches of bog. We then traversed fairly undulating and well-wooded ground, clay-stone coated with oxide of iron ; we crossed another small stream flowing northwards, and we began the ascent leading to ' Government House, Takwa.' It is also known as Mount Pleasant, Prospect Mount, and Vinegar Hill. The site facing the Effuenta mine is the summit of a long thin line about 275 feet high. This queer specimen of official head-quarters was built by the united genius of the owners of the ground, Mr. Com- missioner Cascaden and Dr. Duke. As before said the really comfortable house of boarding has been be- queathed to the white ants at Axim by the Government of the Golden Land, too poor to pay transport. Com- missioner and doctor receive no house-allowance, and according to popular rumour, which is probably untrue, were graciously told that they might pig in a native hut in or about Takw. Consequently they built this place and charge a heavy rent for it. Government House is a large parallelogram of bamboo. The roof is an intricate mass of branches and tree-trunks, with a pitch so flat that it admits every shower. Mr. Higgins was at once obliged to expend 101.-I2L in removing and restoring the house-cover. Under it are built two separate and independent squares of wattle with plank floors raised a foot or so off' the ground ; these dull and dismal holes, which have doors < GO VERNMENT HO USE,' TAKWA. 265 but no windows, serve as sleeping-places. The rest of the interior goes by the name of a sitting-room. The outer, walls are whitewashed on both sides, and between them and the two wattle squares is a space of 6 to 8 feet, adding to the disproportionate appearance of the interior. Had it been divided off in the usual way the tenement would have been much more comfortable. There is a scatter of ragged huts, grandiosely designated as the barracks, on the level space where the Haussas parade. When Mr. Higgins was making himself water-tight, these lazy loons had the impudence to ask that he would either have their lines mended or order new ones to be built. I would have made them throw down their ramshackle cabins, knock up decent huts, and keep them in good order. Leaving Government House, I descended the steep incline of Vinegar Hill, passed through the little Esa- numa village, and crossed two streams flowing south. One is easily forded; the eastern has a corduroy bridge 176 ft. long, built to clear the muds on either side. I shall call this double water the Takwa rivulet, and shall have more to say about it on my return. Another steep ascent placed me at the Effuenta establishment. I was now paying my second visit to the far-famed Takwa Eidge. It is a long line running parallel with Vinegar Hill, but instead of being regular, like its neighbour, it is broken into a series of small 266 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. crests looking on the map like vertebras ; these heights being parted by secondary valleys, some of which de- scend almost to the level of the flowing water. West- ward the hog's-back is bounded by the Takwa rivulet, rising in the northern part of the valley. Eastwards there is a corresponding feature called by the English t Quartz Creek : ' it breaks through the ridge in the southern section of the Effuenta property and unites with the Takwa. My aneroid showed the height of the crest to be 260 feet above sea-level, and about 160 above the valley. Mr. Wyatt has raised it to 1,400 feet a curious miscalculation. At Effuenta I found Mr. MacLennan, the manager whom we last met at Axim. Owing to the drowned- out state of ' Government House ' he had given hos- pitality to Messieurs Higgins and Koulston, and I could not prevent his leaving his own sleeping-room for my better accommodation. I spent, two days with him inspecting the mine and working up my notes ; during this time Mr. Bowden, of Takwa, and Mr. Ex-mission- ary Dawson passed through the station ; and I was unfortunate in missing the former. ' Effuenta House ' is a long narrow tenement of bam- boo and thatch, divided into six or seven rooms, and built upon a platform of stone and swish raised seven feet off the ground. All the chambers open upon a broad verandah, which shades the platform. The inmate THE EFFUENTA MINE. 267 was talking of rebuilding, as the older parts were begin- ning to decay. He had just set up in his ' compound ' two single-room bamboo houses, with plank floors raised four feet off the ground ; these were intended to lodge the European staff. Other bamboo huts form the offices and the stores. The Kru quarters are at the western base of the hill ; a few hands, however, live in the two little villages upon the Takwa rivulet. The Sierra Leone and Akra artificers occupy their own ham- let between the Kru lines and the stamps. Last year there was a garden with a small rice-field, but every- thing was stolen as soon as it was fit to gather. Next morning Mr. MacLennan led me to the dig- gings. This concession, which is the southernmost but one upon the Takwa ridge, contains one thousand by two thousand fathoms ; and desultory work began in 1880. The rock, a talcose gneiss, all laden with gold, runs along the whole length of the hill, striking, as usual, north 6 east (true). In places it forms a basset, or outcrop, cresting the summit ; and the eastern flank is cliffy, like that of the Tebribi. To get at the ore three shafts have been sunk on the western slope of the ridge just below the highest part, and a. passage is being driven to connect the three. A rise for ventilation, and for sending down the stone, connects this upper gallery with a lower one ; and the latter is being pushed forward to unite the three tunnels pierced 268 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. horizontally near the foot of the hill, at right angles to the lode. There is also a fourth tunnel below the manager's house, which will be joined on to the others. The three tunnels open westward upon a tramway, along which the ore is carried to the stamps. I judged the output already made to be considerable, but could not make an estimate, as it was heaped up in different places. The stamp-mill, l\ing to the extreme north of the actual workings, is supplied with water by a leat from the eastern Takwa rivulet. The twelve head of stamps, on Appleby's ' gravitation system,' are driven by a Belleville boiler and engine ; this has the merit of being portable and the demerit of varying in effective power, owing to the smallness of the steam-chest. The battery behaves satisfactorily; only the pump, which is worked by the cam-shaft, wants power to supply the whole dozen ; consequently another and independent pump has been ordered. Krumen, who will never, I think, make good mine-workmen, are constantly employed in washing the blankets as soon as they are charged ; and the resulting black sand is carried to the washing-house to be panned, or rather calabashed, by native women. In time we shall doubtless see con- centrating buddies and amalgamating barrels. The three iron-framed stamp-boxes discharge their sludge into two parallel mercury- or amalgam-boxes, THE EFFUENTA MINE. 269 which Mr. Appleby declares will arrest 75 to 80 per cent, of free gold. It then passes on to the distributing table, the flow to the strakes being regulated by small sluices. Of the latter there is one to each width of green baize or of mining-cloth made for the purpose. The overflow of the sluices runs into a large tailing- tank of board-work, with holes and plugs at different levels to tap the contents. These tailings are also washed by women. Finally, the mercury is squeezed through leathers and the hard amalgam is sent for treatment to England. Retorting is not practised at present in any of the mines. The only reduction-gear belongs to the Gold Coast Mining Company ; and some time must elapse before it is ready for use. My discovery of native cinnabar will then prove valuable. The Effuenta can now bring to bank, with sufficient hands, at least a hundred tons a day of good paying ore ; whereas the stamps can crush at most one-tenth. When this section of the lode, about 200 fathoms, shall be worked, there will still be the balance of 1,000. But even this fifth of the property will supply material for years. The proportion of gold greatly varies, and I should not like to hazard a conjecture as to average, but an ounce and a half or two ounces will not be above the mark. At present the manager works under the difficulty 270 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. of wanting European assistants. His mining-engineer and one mechanic lately left him to return home ; and he has' only a white book-keeper, an English working- miner, and a mechanic, besides a man who made his way from the coast on foot, and who is now doing good, honest work. The progress made by Mr. MacLennan, during his ten months of charge, has been most credit- able. He has literally opened the mine, the works of which were begun by M. Dahse. He has person- ally supervised the transport and erection of all the machinery ; and at present, in addition to the ordinary managerial routine, he has to act as chief of each and every department. Owing to his brave exertions the future of the Effuenta mine is very promising : it will teach those to come ' how to do it,' in contrast with another establishment which is the best guide ' how not to do it.' If the Board prove itself efficient, this pro- perty will soon pay a dividend. But half-hearted measures will go far to stultify the able and energetic work 1 found on the spot. 1 The northern extremity of the Takwa ridge, whose length may be nine to ten miles, remains unappro- 1 This forecast has been unexpectedly verified with the least possible delay. Perfect communication has been established be- tween the shafts and levels; and the mine can now (October 1882) turn out 100 tons a day at five shillings. But imperfect pumps have been sent out, and the result is a highly regretable block. Of the value of the mine there can be no doubt. THE TAMSOO-MEWOOSOO MINE. 271 priated, as far as can be known. The furthest conces- sion has been made, I am told, to Mr. Creswick. South of the section in question lies a property now in the hands of the late M. Bonnat's executors : the grant was given to him as a wedding-present by his friends, the chiefs. Keport says that from this part of the lode, which is riddled with native pits, came some of the spe- cimens that floated the G. C. M. Company. Succeeds in due order the African Gold Coast Company, French and English, which was brought out in 1878. It is popularly and locally known as the Takwa (not ' Tarc- quah ') mine, from the large native village which infests its grounds. I have described the Effuenta, its southern neighbour. Beyond this again is a strip belong- ing to the Franco-English Company ; and, lastly, at the southern butt-end, divided by a break from the main ridge, lies the ' Tamsoo-Mewoosoo mines of Wassaw.' The latter has lately been ' companyed,' under the name of the ' Tacquah Gold Mines Company,' by Dr. J. A. B. Horton and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzgerald, of the famous ' African Times.' When its directors inform us that * twenty ounces of gold lately arrived from a neighbouring mine, the produce of stamping of twenty- five tons of ore, similar to that of Tamsoo-Mewoosoo, ' they may not have been aware that the produce in question was worked from the alluvial drift discovered, about the end May 1881, in the north-western corner of 372 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the Swanzy estates. This drift has no connection with the Takwa ridge-lodes. After morning tea on March 28 I bade a temporary adieu to my most hospitable host, and walked along the ridge-crest to the establishment of the Franco-English or African Gold Coast Company. Here I found only one person, Dr. Burke, an independent practitioner, who is allowed lodging, but not board. M. Haillot, of Paris, formerly accountant and book-keeper, was in temporary charge of this mine and of Abosu during Mr. Bowden's absence. I shall give further detail on my return march. Passing through the spirit-reeking Takwa village, where nearly every hovel is a ' shebeen,' I walked along the valley separating the ridge from its western neighbour, Vinegar Hill, and in half an hour entered the huts belonging to the Gold Coast Mining Company. 1 Here I breakfasted with the brothers Gowan, who had been left in charge by Mr. Creswick. My notes on this establishment must also be reserved for a future page. Twenty-five minutes' walking brought me to where the main road, a mere bush-path, strikes across a gully separating two crests of the Takwa ridge. Then came a good stretch of level ground, composed of sand and gravel of stained quartz, clothed with the ordinary second-growth. When this ended I passed over the 1 These gentlemen are still (October 1882) doing hard and suc- cessful work at the mines. THE ABOSU VILLAGE. 273 northern heads of two small buttes which lie uncon- formably ; the direction of their main axes lies north- north-west, whereas all their neighbours trend to the north-north-east. .The climb was followed by a second level, bounded on the left, or north, by the Abo Yao Hill, the emplacement of the ' Mines d'Or d'Aboassu.' Two branch paths lead up to it from the main line of road. Near the western is a place chosen as a ceme- tery for Europeans ; as usual it is neglected and over- grown with bush. Presently I arrived at the village of Abosu, a walk of about two hours from the Takwa mine. Ten months ago it contained forty to fifty head of negroes ; now it may number 3,000, although the May emigration had begun, when the workmen return to their homes, being unable to labour in the flooded flats. There was the hum of a busy, buzzing crowd, sinking pits and shafts, some in the very streets and outside their" own doors. This alluvial bed must be one of the richest in the country ; and it is wholly native property under King Angu, of Apinto. There is little to describe in the village ; every hut is a kind of store, where the most poisonous of intoxicants, the stinkingest of pomatum, and the gaudiest of pocket-handkerchiefs are offered as the prizes for striking gold. There are also a few gold- smiths' shops, where the precious metal is adulterated and converted to coarse, rude ornaments. The people VOL. II. T 274 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. are able ' fences,' and powder, fuses, and mining-tools easily melt into strong waters. Hence Abosu is a Para- dise to the Fanti police and to the Haussa garrison of Takwa. I looked about Abosu to prospect the peculiarities of the place, where the Sierra Leonite and the Cape Coast Anglo-nigger were conspicuous for ' cheek ' and general offensiveness. These ignoble- beings did not spare even poor Nero ; they blatantly wondered what business I had to bring such a big brute in order to frighten the people. Resuming my way along the flat by a winding path, I came upon a model bit of corduroying over a bad marsh, crossed the bridge, and suddenly sighted Mr. F. F. Crocker's coffee-mill stamping-battery. It lies at the south-western end of a butte, one of a series disposed in parallel ranges and trending in the usual direction. All have quartz-reefs buried in red clay, and are well wooded, with here and there small clearings. The names are modern Crocker's Eeef to the east, Sam's Eeef, and so forth. Then I passed an admirably appointed saw-mill. At this distance from the coast, where transport costs 24. to 2QI. a ton, carpenter's work must be done upon the spot. A wide, clean road, metalled with gravel, and in places bordered by pine-apples, led to store- houses of bamboo and thatch, built pn either side of the way. After walking from Effuenta seven and a *CROCKERVILLE! 275 half geographical miles in three hours and forty-five minutes, I reached the establishment known as Crocker- ville. It dates from 1879, and in 1880 it forwarded its first remittance of III. 10s. to England. The village was laid out under the superintendence of Mr. Sam, the ablest native employe it has ever been my fortune to meet. He is the same who, when District-commis- sioner of Axim, laid out the town and planted the street-avenues. In conversation with me he bitterly derided the native association formed at Cape Coast Castle for obtaining concessions and for selling them to the benighted white man. He resolved not to put his money in a business where all would be at loggerheads within six months unless controlled by an European. The houses are bamboo on stone platforms. One block is occupied by the owner, and a parallel building lodges Mr. Sam and his wife, the two being connected by an open dining-hall. The kitchen and offices lie to the north and east. Further west are quarters for European miners, and others again for Mr. Turner, now acting manager, and his white clerk. Furthest removed are the black quarters, the huts forming a street. Crockerville at present is decidedly short of hands. The number on the books, all told, black and white, is only sixty-two : when the whole property comes to be worked, divided and subdivided, it will require between T 2 276 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. a thousand and fifteen hundred. The hands are mostly country people, including a few gangs employed to sink shafts. One gang lately deserted, for the following reason. Two men were below charging the shots from a heap of loose powder, whilst their friends overhead were quietly smoking their pipes. A ' fire-'tick,' thrown across the shaft, burnt a fellow's fingers, and he at once dropped it upon his brethren underground ; they were badly scorched, and none of the gang has been seen since. I mention this accident as proving how difficult it is to manage the black miner. The strictest regulations are issued to prevent the fatuous nigger killing himself, but all in vain : he is worse, if possible, than his white confrere. If I had the direc- tion all the powder-work should be done by responsible Europeans. I would fire by electricity, the battery remaining in the manager's hands, and no native should be trusted with explosives. Here I fell amongst old acquaintances, and was only too glad to remain with them between Friday and Thursday. Mr. Turner gave me one of his bed-rooms, and Mr. Crocker's sitting-room was always open by day. We messed together, clerks, mechanics, and all, in the open dining-dall : this is Mr. Crocker's plan, and I think it by far the best. The master's eye preserves decorum, and his presence prevents unreasonable complaints about rations. The French allow each THE SWANZY ESTABLISHMENT, 277 European employe 4s. 9d. a day for food and hire of servants, and attempt most unfairly to profit by the sale of provisions and wines. The consequence is that everything is disjointed and uncomfortable : some starve themselves to save money ; others overdrink themselves because meat is scarce; and all complain that the sum which would suffice for many is insuffi- cient for one. The Swanzy establishment has set up an exception- ally light battery of twelve stamps, made in sections for easier transport. Neither here nor in any of the mines have stone-breakers or automatic feeders yet been introduced : the stuff is all hand-spalled. One small ' Belleville ' drives the stamps, another works the Tangye pump, and a third turns the saw-mills. I will notice a few differences between the Swanzy system and that of Effuenta. The wooden framework of the stamp-mill is better than iron. The cam-shaft here carries only single, not double cams, a decided disadvantage : in order to strike the same number of blows per minute it has to make double the number of revolutions. Moreover, by some unhappy mistake, it is too far from its work, and the result is a succession of sharp blows on the tappets, with injury to all the gear. On the other hand proper fingers are fitted to the stamps : this is far better than supporting them by a rough chock of wood. 278 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. At Crock erville, as at Effuenta, only six of the twelve stamps were working: there the pump was at fault; here the blanket-tables had not been made wide enough. I could hardly estimate the total amount of ore brought to grass, or its average yield : specimens of white quartz, with threads, strings, and lobs of gold, have been sent to England from Crocker's Eeef. The best tailings are reserved either for treatment on the spot or for reduction in England. The mine, as re- gards present condition, is in the stage of prospecting upon a large and liberal scale. The stamps are chiefly used to run through samples of from 50 to 100 tons taken from the various parts of the property : in this way the most exact results can be obtained. During my visit they were preparing to work a hundred tons from Aji Bipa, the fourth and furthest butte to the north-west. I visited this mound in company with Mr. Sam, who interpreted the name to be that of the gamboge- frait. We descended, as we had ascended, by the stamping-battery, crossed the bridge, and then struck northwards, over the third hillock, to No. 4. Unlike Crocker's Eeef, Aji Bipa does not show visible gold ; its other peculiarities will best be explained by the report I wrote on the spot. This property is situated near Crockerville and can always be easily reached from that place. In fact, the LINGULA FLAGS. 279 southern boundary marches with the northern limit of the Crockerville estate. The rich gold-bearing lode is situated on the western slope of the hill, and can be seen in all the three shafts which have been sunk. The formation of the hill seems in many respects to correspond with the Lingula flags at and near Clogau, Dolgelli, and Grogafau. This formation is practically the same as that of the range of hills on which the concessions of the Grold Coast Mining Company, of the African Gold Coast Mining Company, of the Effuenta Company, of the Mines d'Or d'Aboassu (Abosu), and the Tamsu concessions are situated, and also as that of Tebribi Hill ; but each of the three areas has its own marked features. In all the rocks are talcose and show a sort of conglomerate of quartz pebbles, in some cases water-worn and in others angular, bedded in a mixture of quartz and granite detritus. This has in the three areas undergone varying degrees of pressure, and has been upheaved at different angles. In some cases the pressure and heat have been so great that the rock assumes a distinctly gneissic character. At Aji Bipa the lode runs N. 38 E. (Mag.) in the centre shaft, and N. 40 E. in the southern shaft, a sort of fault occurring in the centre shaft. In the northern shaft I should put it at 38, but from the way in which the neighbouring rock had cleaved it was difficult to get the strike accurately. The dip is the same in all 2 8o TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. three shafts, viz. 82. The lode being so near vertical, it can be clearly traced for the whole depth of the shafts, and is very well defined. The hanging (eastern) wall is highly coloured with iron oxides, and contains many quartz crystals which are through-coloured with the same, and I do not think it at all unlikely that garnets and other gems may be found in it. One or two minute crystals showed a green colour, and might be tourmaline or emerald ; but perhaps it was only a surface-colour caused by the presence of copper. The foot wall is very well marked by a strip of whitish yellow clay about an inch in thickness. The rock on both sides of the lode is gold-bearing, and is evidently, as well as the real lode, formed of the debris of old quartz and granites. Talcose flakes are frequent, and in some places it seems to be clearly gneiss. Although with a small plant it might not be profitable to treat this, still with large and suitable machinery it may be made to pay, and the trouble of separating the rich lode from the inferior stone avoided. One remarkable trait in the lode is the manner in which it splits into blocks and slabs, all the faces of the quartz pebbles being cloven in precisely the same plane. The length of the concession along the line of lode is 2,780 feet, and from the way in which the lode stands on the western slope of the hill, and the dip being eastward, I am of opinion that if a drift were OXIDISED QUARTZ GRAVELS. 281 put through the hill other and parallel lodes would be found. Of course this can only be proved by expe- rience. The thickness of the lode where I measured it varied from 22^ to 25 inches in the southern shaft ; and although I saw one pinch in the northern, and the fault in the centre one, it can easily be traced and worked, and should prove most profitable. In the centre shaft it is 24 inches, and in the northern 30 inches. A curious sort of black substance occurs close to the line of clay which defines the under side of the lode, and may be remnants of some vegetable material ; but with the means at my disposal I will not give any decided opinion. Over the rock which forms the main body of the hill lie the usual red clay and oxidised quartz gravels, which, if treated by hydraulic mining, ought, as it contains gold, to prove a paying stuff : moreover wash- ing off the surface-dirt would lay bare the rock and render all after-work easy and simple. The alluvials in the bottoms should here prove unusually rich, and means might be adopted by which they should be raised mechanically and then flumed down again. Ample water supply exists both for hydraulic mining and reef- vvor king ; there are good sites for all 282 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. necessary machinery and building, and timber as usual is to be had in any quantity that may be required. The question of transport is of course a most im- portant one, and in the present state of the roads and country very expensive ; but from the route-survey I have made I am convinced that a cheap and efficient service to the mines of this and neighbouring districts would be easily organised, and that instead of paying, as at present, the absurd price of 4s. or 5s. per ton per mile, it could be reduced to an average of from 4y their doughty rivals, the Portuguese of the heroic ages of D. D. Joao II. and Manoel. I here pass over the disputed claim of the French, who declare that they imported the metal from 'Elmina' as early as 1382. 1 The first gold was discovered on his second voyage by Gongalo Baldeza (1442) at the Rio de Ouro, the classical Lixus and the modern El-Kus, famed for the defeat and death of Dom Sebastiam. 2 1 See Chapter II. * I have noticed it in Camoens, his Life and his Liisiads, vol. ii. chapter iii. The identification with the Eio de Ouro is that of Bowdich (p. 505). Another Kio de Ouro was visited in 1860 by Captain George Peacock (before alluded to), ' having a French frigate APPENDIX I. 341 In 1470 Joao de Santarem and Pero d'Escobar, knights of the King, sailed past Cape Palmas, discovered the islands of Sao Thome and Annobom (January 1, 1471); and, on their return homewards, found a trade in gold-dust at the village of Sama (Chamah) and on the site which we miscall ' Elmina.' l During the same year Fernan' Gomez, a worthy of Lisbon, bought a five years' monopoly of the gold-trade from the King, paying 44J. 9s. per annum, and binding himself to explore, every year, 300 miles down coast from Sierra Leone. One of these expeditions landed at ' Elmina ' and discovered Cape Catherine in south latitude 1 50' and west longitude (Gr.) 9 2'. The rich mines opened at Little Kommenda, or Aprobi, led to the building of the Fort Sao Jorje da Mina, by Diego d'Azembuja, sent out (A.D. 1481) to superintend the construction. But about 1622 the falling in of some unbraced and untimbered shafts and the deaths of many miners induced Gweffa, the King, to ' put gold in Fetish,' making it an accursed thing ; and it has not been worked since that time. Thus Portugal secured to herself the treasures which made her the wealthiest of European kingdoms. But when she became a province of Spain, under D. Philip II., her Eastern conquests were systematically neglected in favour of the Castilian colonies that studded the New World. The weak Lusitanian garrisons were massacred on the Gold Coast, as in other parts of Africa ; and the Hollanders, the under his orders.' The ' Iliver of Gold ' of course would become a favourite and a banal name. 1 This form of the word, a masculine article with a feminine noun, cannot exist in any of the neo-Latin languages. In Italian and Spanish it would be La Mina, in Portuguese A Mina. The native name is Dina or Edina. 342 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. ' Water- beggars,' who had conquered their independence from. Spain, proceeded to absorb the richest possessions of their quondam rivals. ' Elmina,' the capital, fell into Dutch hands (1637), and till 1868 Holland retained her forts and factories on the Gold Coast. In their turn the English and the French, who had heard of the fabulous treasures of the Joliba valley and the Tinbukhtu mart, began to claim their share. As early as 1551 Captain Thomas Wyndham touched at the Gold Coast and brought home 150 Ibs. of the precious dust. The first English company for exploring the Gambia River sent out (1618) their agent, Richard Thompson. This brave and unfortunate explorer was rancorously opposed by the Portuguese and eventually murdered by his own men. He was followed (1620) by Richard Jobson, to whom we owe the first account of the Gambia River. He landed at various points, armed with mercury, aqua regia (nitric acid), large crucibles, and a ' dowsing ' or divining rod ; l washed the sands and examined the rocks even beyond the Falls of Barraconda. After having often been deceived, as has occurred to many prospectors since his day, he determined that gold never occurs in low fertile wooded lands, but in naked and barren hills, which embed it in their reddish ferruginous soil. Hence it was long and erroneously determined that bare rocks in the neighbourhood of shallow alluvia characterise rich placers, and that the wealthiest mining-regions are poor and stunted in vegetation. California and Australia, the Gold Coast and South Africa, are instances of the contrary. 1 A form of this old and almost universal magical instrument, worked by electricity, has, I am told, been lately invented and patented in the United States. APPENDIX 1. 343 Wasa, however, confirms the old opinion that the strata traversed by lodes determine the predominating metal ; as quartz produces gold; hard blue slate, lead; limestone, green-stone and porphyry, copper ; and granite, tin. 1 After twenty days' labour Jobson succeeded in extracting 12 Ibs. from a single site. He declares that at length he * arrived at the mouth of the mine itself, and found gold in such abundance as surprised him with joy and admiration.' Unfortunately he leaves us no notice of its position ; it is probably lost, like many of the old Brazilian diggings. The Gambia River still exports small quantities of dust sup- posed to have been washed in the Ghauts, or sea-subtending ridges, of the interior. Most of it, however, finds its way to the wealthier and more prosperous French colony. Whilst the English chose the Gambia the French pre- ferred Senegal, where they founded (1626) 'St. Louis,' called after Louis XIV. The Sieur Brue, Director- General of the Senegal Company, made a second journey of discovery in 1698, and reached with great difficulty the gold- mines of desert and dreary Bambuk. There he visited the principal districts, and secured specimens of what he calls the ghingan, or golden earth. He proposed a third in- cursion, but the absolute apathy of his countrymen proved an insuperable obstacle. M. Golberry describes Bambuk in gloomy and sombre colours. Its gold is distributed amongst low ranges of peeled and sterile hills. Probably this results from fires and dis- foresting. It occurs in the shape of spangles, grains, and 1 Page 17, A Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining, by D. C. Davies. London, Crosby and Co., 1881. The volume is handy and useful to explorers. 344 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. pepites (nuggets), whose size increases with the depth of the digging. In the Matakon mine the dust adhered to frag- ments of iron, emery, and lapis lazuli, from which it was easily detached and washed. The less valuable Semayla placer produced dust in a hard reddish loam, mixed with still more refractory materials ; it was crushed in mortars with rude wooden dollies or with grain-pestles. The pits, six feet in diameter, reached a depth of from ten to twelve yards, where they were stopped by a bed of hard reddish marie ; this the Frenchman held to be the hanging wall of a much richer lode. The people used ladders, but they neglected to collar or brace the mouth, and the untimbered pit-sides often fell in ; hence fatal accidents, attributed to the ' earth-spirits.' They held gold to be a capricious elf, and when a rich vein suddenly ran barren they cried out, ' There ! he is off ! ' In later days Mungo Park drew attention by his famous first journey (1795 -9 7) to the highlands of the Mandingoes (Mandenga-land), and revived interest in the provinces of Shronda, Konkodu, Dindiko, Bambuk, and Bambarra. Here the natives collect dust by laborious washings of detrital sand. His fatal second expedition (1805) produced an unfinished journal, which, however, gives the amplest and most interesting notices concerning the gold-production of the region he traversed. My space compels me to refer readers to the original. 1 The traveller Caillie (1827), after crossing the Niger en route to Tinbukhtu, passed south of the Boure province, in the valley of the Great River ; and here he reports an abundance of gold. A s in the districts visited by Park, it is all alluvial and washed out of the soil. The dust, 1 Murray's edition of 1816, vol. i. p. 40, and vol. ii. p. 751. APPENDIX I. 345 together with native cloth, wax, honey, cotton and cattle, finds its way to the coast, where it is bartered for beads, amber and coral, calicoes and firearms. The gold-mines of Boure were first visited and described by Winwood Reade. 1 The peninsula of Sierra Leone is not yet proved to be auriferous. Here stray Moslems, mostly Mandengas, occa- sionally bring down the Melakori River ring-gold and dust from the interior. The colonists of Liberia assert that at times they have come upon a pocket which produced fifty dollars ; the country-people also occasionally offer gold for sale. From the Bassam coast middle-men travel far inland and buy the metal from the bushmen. Near Grand Bassam free gold in quartz-reefs near the shore has been reported. We now reach the Gold Coast proper, which amply de- serves its glorious golden name. I have shown that the whole seaboard of West Africa, between it and Morocco, produces more or less gold ; here, however, the precious metal comes down to the very shore and is washed upon the sands. Its length from the Assini boundary-line to the Volta 2 has been laid down at 220 direct geographical miles by a depth of about 100. The area of the Protectorate, which has been a British colony since 1874, is assumed to be 16,620 instead of 24,500 square miles, and the population may exceed half a million. Its surface is divided into twelve petty king- doms ; and its strand is studded with forts and ruins of forts, a total of twenty-five, or one to every eight miles. This small section of West Africa poured a flood of gold 1 Covmassie, &c., p. 126. 2 Chapter XIV. I would not assert that gold is not found east of the Volta River. M. Colonna, of Lagos, told me that he had good reason to suspect its presence on the seaboard of Dahome, and promised me to make further enquiries. 346 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. into Europe; and, until the mineral discoveries of Cali- fornia and Australia, it continued to be the principal source of supply to the civilised world. The older writers give us ample details about gold- digging and trading two centuries ago. Bosman (Letter VI.) shows that the people prospected for the illustrious metal in three forms of ground. The first was in, or between, par- ticular hills, where they sank pits ; the second was about the rivers and waterfalls; and the third was on the seashore near the mouths of rivulets after violent night-rains. He ends his letter with these sensible words : ' I would refer to any intelligent metallist whether a vast deal of ore must not of necessity be lost here, from which a great deal of gold might be separated, from want of skill in the metallic art ; and not only so, but I firmly believe that vast quantities of pure gold are left behind; for the negroes only ignorantly dig at random, without the least knowledge of the veins of the mine. 1 And I doubt not that if the land belonged to Europeans they would soon find it to produce much richer treasures than the negroes obtain from it. But it is not 1 The origin of these mineral veins is still disputed, science being as yet too young for the task of solving the mystery. Pro- bably, as Mr. Davies remarks, ' the mode of the origin and means of the deposition are not one only but many,' and we have the Huttonian (igneous) and Wernerian (aqueous) theories, the sub- limation of Necker, the electricity of Mr. K. W. Fox, the infiltra- tion and gravitation of fluid metals towards cracks, vughs (cavities), and shrinkages, and the law of replacement. ' If a steel plate be removed atom by atom,' says Mr. R. Brough Smyth (Gold Fields of Victoria, Melbourne, 1869), 'and each atom be replaced by a corre- sponding atom of silver a fact established by direct experiment it will be readily seen that a mineral vein may be formed in the same way.' APPENDIX L 347 probable that we shall ever possess that liberty here, where- fore we must be content with being so far masters of it as we are at present, which, if well and prudently managed, would turn to a very great account.' Times, however, are changed. England is now mistress of the field, and it will be her fault if she leaves it untilled. The good old Hollander first mentions amongst his six gold-sites the kingdom of Denkira; it then included the conquests of Wasd (Wassaw), of Encasse, 1 and of Juffer or Quiforo. The gold of that region is good, but much alloyed for the trade with ' fetish '-figures. These are composed sometimes of pure mountain-gold ; more often the ore is mixed with one-third, or even a half, of silver and copper, and stuffed with half-weight of the black earth used for moulding. The second was Acanny (D'Anville's Akanni), with gold so pure and fine that ' Acanny sika ' meant the best ley. Then came the kingdom of Akim, which ' fur- nishes as large quantities of gold as any land that I know, and that also the most valuable and pure of any that is carried away from the coast.' It was easily distinguished by its deep colour. The fourth and fifth were Ashanti and Ananse, a small tract between the ex-great despotism and Denkira. The sixth and last was Awine, our Aowin, the region to the east of the Tando, then and now included in the British Protectorate. The Dutch 'traded here with a great deal of pleasure,' the people ' being the civilest and fairest dealers of all the negroes.' The Ashanti war of 1873-74 had the effect of opening to transit a large area of workable ground. English officers traversed the interior in all directions, and their reports 1 The Inkassa of D'Anville, 1729. 348 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. throw vivid light upon the position, the extent, and the value of the auriferous grounds which subtend the Gold Coast and which supply it with the precious metal. The gold-provinces best known to us are now three Wasa, of which these pages treat ; Akim, the hill-land, an easy journey of a week north with westing from Akra ; and Gyaman, the rival of Ashanti. Akim is divided into eastern and western. Mr. H. Ponsonby, when travelling through both regions, found the natives getting quantities of gold by digging holes eight to ten feet deep on either side of the forest-paths. He saw as much as three ounces taken up in less than half an hour. Around the capital of eastern Akim, Kyebi, or Chyebi, the land is also honeycombed with man-holes, making night- travel dangerous to the stranger. It requires a sharp eye to detect the deserted pits, two feet in diameter and ' sunk straight, as if they had been bored with huge augurs.' I have seen something of the kind in the water-meadows near Shoreham. The workman descends by foot-holes, and works with a hoe four to six inches long by two broad : when his calabash is filled it is drawn up by his companions. The earthquakes of April and July 1862 l so tossed and 1 I happened to be at Akra during the convulsion of July 10. The commandant, Major (now Colonel) de Ruvignes, and I set out for a stroll along the sands to the west. The morning was close and cloudy: what little breeze there was came from the south-west, under a leaden sky and over a leaden sea. At 8.10 A.a^,, as we were return- ing from the rocks about three-quarters of a mile off, there was a sudden rumbling like a distant thunder-clap ; the sands seemed to wave up and down as a shaken carpet, and we both staggered for- wards. Others described the movement as rising and falling like the waters of a lagoon. I looked with apprehension at the sea ; but the direction of the shock was apparently from west- north- APPENDIX I. 349 broke up the hill-strata of Akim that all the people flocked to the diggings and dispensed with the chimney-holes generally sunk. The frontier-village of Adadentum, on the Prah, was nearly buried by a landslip from a spur of the ' Queeshoh Range.' Huge nuggets were uncovered, and the people filled their calabashes daily, thankful to their great fetish, the Kataguri. 1 west ; and the line was too oblique to produce one of those awful earthquake-waves, seventy feet high, which have swept tall ships over the roofs of cities. We ran as fast as we could to the town, where everything was in the wildest confusion. The ' Big House ' and Mr. John Hansen's were mere ruins ; the Court-house had come to pieces, and the prison-cells yawned open. I distinctly saw that the rock-ledge under Akra, between Fort James and Crevecceur, had been upraised : canoes passed over what was now dry. A second shock at 8.20 A.M., and a third about 10.45, completed the destruc- tion, split every standing wall, and shook down the three forts into ruinous heaps. Nor did the seismic movements cease till July 15, when I made my escape. Men who remembered as far back as March 1858, when Colonel Bird ruled the land, declared that Akra had never felt an earthquake ; but on the morning of April 14, 1862, there had been a sharp shock followed by sundry lighter movements, and lastly by the most severe. The direction was said to be north south, and it was supposed to be the tail of a great earthquake, whose focus was behind Sierra Leone. A rumbling, like the rolling of guns, had been heard under the main square of Akra ; the shocks were felt by the ships in the roads, and the disturbance was reported to have been even more severe up-country. When the wave reached Agbome, Gelele, King of Dahome, with characteristic filial piety, exclaimed, ' Don't you see that my father is calling for blood, and is angry because we are not sending him more men ? ' Whereupon he at once ordered three prisoners from Ishagga to take the road to Ku-to-men, Hades or Dead-land. 1 This is a huge brass pan which fell from heaven : it is or was surrounded by drawn swords and gold-handled axes in its sanc- tuary, the fetish-house. 350 TO THE GOLD. COAST FOR GOLD. The provinces of Gyaman, especially Ponin, Safwi, and Showy, are famed for wealth of gold. In African phrase, while 'the metallic veins of Ashanti, Denkira, and Wasa lie twelve cubits deep, those of Gyaman are only five.' The ore dug from pits is of deep colour, and occurs mixed with red gravel and pieces of white granite (quartz V). It is held to be rock-gold (nuggets), and more valuable than that of Ashanti, although the latter, passing for current, is mostly pure. This pit-gold appears in lumps embedded in loam and rock, of which 14 to 15 Ibs. would yield 1 to 1 Ib. pure metal. Nuggets are also produced, and chiefs wear them slung to hair and wrists; some may weigh 4 Ibs. The dust washed from the torrent-beds is higher- coloured, cleaner, and better than what is produced else- where. It found its way to the Nigerian basin as well as to the Gold Coast, and was converted into ducats (miskals) and trinkets, chains, bracelets, anklets, and adornments for weapons. The King of Gyaman became immensely rich by the produce of his mines ; and, according to Bowdich, his bed had steps of solid gold. The reader will have gathered from the preceding pages that the negroes have worked their gold-fields for centuries but to very little purpose. Their want of pumps, of quartz- crushers, and of scientific appliances generally, has limited their labour to scratching the top-soil and nibbling at the reef-walls. A large proportion of the country is practically virgin-ground, and a rich harvest has been left for European science, energy, and enterprise. The Fantis have many curious usages and superstitions which limit production. As a rule nuggets are the royalty of kings and chiefs ; but in many places these ' mothers of APPENDIX L 351 gold' are re-buried, ia order that gold may grow from them. 1 I have noted that a smoke, or thin vapour, guides to the unknown placer, and that white gold causes a mine to be abandoned. Rich ground is denoted by a peculiar vegetation, especially of ferns. Gold is guarded here not by a dragon, but by a monstrous baboon ; and when golden dogs are found the finder dies. In 1862 I visited with Major de Ruvignes Great Sankanya, a village west of the Volta, where a large gold-field was reported. As we drew near the spot we were told that the precious metal appears during the ' yam-customs,' and that only prayers, sacrifices, and presents to the fetish will make it visible. Presently we saw a white rag on a pole, which the dark youth, our guide, called a ' sign,' and groaned out that it would surely slay us. A woman, whose white and black beads showed a ' religious,' pointed to a place where gold is ' common as ashes after a fire ' the priest being first paid. The report of this excursion spread to Akra; Major de Ruvignes had taken up in his arms a golden dog, and at once fell dead. I can hardly connect the superstition with old Anubis. Whenever the unshored pit caves in the accident has been caused by evil-minded ghosts, the kobolds of Germany, in which Cornwall till lately believed. Fetish then steps forward and forbids further search. Thus many of the richest placers have been closed. Such, for instance, is the 1 It was long supposed in Europe that alluvial gold grew by a succession of layers imposed upon a solid nucleus, and by the coales- cence of grains as a snow-ball is constructed. Mr. Sellwyn still holds that ' nuggets and particles of alluvial gold may gradually in- crease by the deposition of metallic gold (analogous to the electro- plating process), from the meteoric waters that circulate through the drifts. 1 Gold Fields of Victoria, p. 357. 352 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. Monte do Diabo (Devil's Hill), the native Mankwadi, 1 near Winnebah, fifteen leagues east from Elmina. The miners were killed by the heat of the shafts, and the mine was at once placed ' in fetish.' But ' fetish ' has now lost much of its authority ; the Satanic hill will soon be exploited, and its only difficulty is its disputed ownership by ' Ghartey, King of Winnebah,' and ' Okill Ensah, King of Ejemakun.' These dignitaries condescend to advertise against each other in the local papers. At Add (Addah), west of the Volta and in its neigh- bourhood, the Krobo Hills included, a beggar would be grossly insulted by the offer of a sovereign ; he dashes it to earth, spitting upon it with wrath. The Ashantis, as the story runs, once dug treasure near Sakanya; and, as the chiefs and people were becoming too independent of them, the high priests put the precious metal ' in fetish,' with the penalty of blindness to all who worked it. A Danish governor once filled his pockets, and recovered sight only by throwing away the plunder. A brother of the Ad& chief offered to show this magic- fenced placer to the late Mr. Nicol Irvine, moyennant the trifle of 50Z. The trans-action reminded me of the Hindu alchemist who asks you ten rupees to make a ton of gold. As regards the gold-supply of this El Dorado, the Gold Coast, it has been estimated that the total since A.D. 1471 amounted to six or seven hundred millions of pounds sterling. Elmina alone, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, annually exported, according to Bosman, 3,000,000. At a 1 Again, I cannot connect Mankwadi (or even Manquada) with ' Maquida or Azeb, Queen of Sheba ' the latter country probably lying in South Arabian Yemen. APPENDIX /. 353 later period Mr. M'Queen increased the figures to 3,400,000 J. Then came the abolition of slavery, which caused the decline and fall of mining-industry amongst the natives. In 1816 the export was reduced to 400,0002. (=100,000 ounces), a figure repeated in 1860 by Dr. Robert Clarke ; and in 1862 the amount was variously reported at 192,0002. (=48,000 ounces) and half a million of money. The following proportions were given to me by M. Dahse. Till 1870 the figures are computed by him ; after that date the value is declared : l 1866 1867 1868 1869 120,3332. 146,1822 118,8752. 100,2142. 1870 1871 1872 116,1422. 137,3282. 108,8692. Now began the notable falling-off, which reached its maximum next year : 1873 1874 1875 1876 77,5232. 136,2632. 117,3212. 145,5112. 1877 1878 1879 1880 120,542?. 122,4972. 115,1672. 125,9802. M. Dahse assumes the annual average to be in round numbers, 126,0002. The official returns of imported silver from the Coast show : 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 7,0742. 6,8412. 40,9642. 23,5872. 21,6672. 1877 1878 1879 1880 10 : 9052. 41,2542. 61,7552. 63,3372. 1 Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom. Eyre and Spottis- woode. London, 18.81. VOL. II. A A 354 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD, Totals of gold and silver : 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 115,9432. 84,3642. 177,2272. 140,9082. 167,1782. 1877 1878 1879 1880 131,4472. 163,7512. 176,9222. 189,3172. I was lately asked by an illustrious geologist and man of science, how it came to pass that the Gold Coast, if so rich, has not been worked before this time. These notes will afford a sufficient reply. b. The Kong Mountains. This range, which has almost disappeared from the maps, may have taken its name either from the town of Kong on the southern versant, or it may be a contraction of the Kongkodu, the mountain-land described by Mungo Park. Messieurs J. Zweifel and M. Moustier, 1 who did not reach the Niger sources in 1879, explain * Kong ' as the Kissi name of the line which trends from north-west to south- east, and which divides Koronko-land from Kono-land. When nearing their objective they sighted the Kong-apex, Mount Daro, measuring 1,240 metres. Older travellers make it a latitudinal chain running nearly east west, with its centre about the meridian of Cape Coast Castle, and extend- ing 500 to 600 miles on a parallel of north latitude 7 8. Westward it bends north behind Cape Palmas, and, like the Ghauts of Hindostan, follows the line of seaboard. I have before noticed the traditions of Mount Geddia, an occidental Kilima-njaro. About the parallel of Sierra Leone the feature splits into a network of ranges, curves, and zigzags, 1 Expedition, C. A. Vcrminck, Voyage aux Sources du Aiycr. Marseille, 1880. APPENDIX L 3!i5 which show no general trend. The eastern faces here shed to the Niger, the western to the various streams between the Rokel-Seli, the Gambia, and the Senegal ; and the last northern counterforts sink into the Sahara Desert. The western versant supplies the gold of Senegambia, the southern that of Ashanti and Wasa. The superficial dust is washed down by rains, floods, and rivers ; and the dykes and veins of quartz, mostly running north south, are ap- parently connected with those of the main range. That such a chain must exist is proved by the conduct of the Gold Coast streams. The Ancobra, for instance, which often rises and falls from twenty to forty feet in twenty-four hours, suggests that its sources spring from an elevated plane at no great distance from the sea. The lands south of the Kong Mountains are grassy and hilly with ex- tensive plains. This is known through the ' Donko slaves,' common on the coast. Many of them come from about Salagha, the newly-opened mart upon the Upper Volta ; they declare that the land breeds ostriches and elephants, cattle and camels, horses and asses. Moreover, it is visited by the northern peoples who cross the Sahara. I have already noticed the grass -lands of Gytiman. Captain Clapperton, 011 his second journey, getting out from Badagry to Busa (Boussa), crossed a hill-range which would correspond with the Kong. It is described as about eighty miles broad, and is said to extend from behind Ashanti to Benin. The traveller, who estimated the culminating point not to exceed 2,500 feet, found the rugged passes hemmed in by denticulated walls and tors of granite, 600 to 700 feet high, and sometimes overhanging the path. The valleys varied in breadth from a hundred yards to half a mile. A A 2 356 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. A comparatively large population occupied the mountain- recesses, where they planted fine crops of yams, millet, and cotton. The strangers were made welcome at every settle- ment. Ascending hill after hill, they came to Chaki, a large town on the very summit of the ridge. The caboceer had a house and a stock of provisions ready for his guests, put many questions, and earnestly pressed them to rest for two or three days. When the whole chain was crossed they fell into the plains of ' Yaruba ' ( Yoruba). The next eye-witness is Mr. John Duncan, who visited Dahome in 1845. King Gezo allowed him a guard of a hundred men, in order to explore with safety the ' Mahi, or Kong Mountains.' His son and successor was not so generous ; he systematically and churlishly refused all travellers, myself included, permission to pass northwards of his capital. The Lifeguardsman found the chain, which L> distant more than a hundred miles from Agbome, differing from his expectations in character, appearance, and even position. The grand, imposing line looked from afar like colossal piles of ruins ; a nearer view showed immense blocks, some of them 200 feet long, egg-shaped and lying upon their sides. Nearly all the settlements had chosen the summits, doubtless for defence. Mr. Duncan crossed the whole breadth of these 'Kong Mountains,' and pushed 180 miles beyond them over a level land which must shed to the Niger. These descriptions denote a range of granite, the rock which forms the ground-floor of the Sierra Leone peninsula and the Gold Coast, possibly varied by syenites and porphyries. It would probably contain, like the sea- subtending mountains of Midian, large veins of eminently APPENDIX I. 357 metalliferous quartz, outcropping from the surface and forming extensions of the reefs below. From the coast- line the land gradually npslopes towards the spurs of the great dividing ridge ; and thus we may fairly expect that the further north we go the richer will become the diggings. The Kong Mountains are apparently cut through by the Niger south of Icldah, where the true coast begins. Travellers describe the features almost in the words of Clapperton and Denham the towering masses of granite which contrast so strongly with the southern swamps ; upstanding outcrops resembling cathedrals and castellations in ruins ; boulders like footballs of enormous dimensions ; pyramids a thousand feet high ; and solitary cones which rise like giant ninepins. We know too little of the lands lying south-east of the confluence to determine the sequence of the chain, whose counterforts may give rise to the Eastern ' Oil Rivers.' It is not connected with the Peak of Camarones, round which Mr. Cumber, of the Baptist Mission, travelled, and which he determined to be an isolated block. Further south the Ghauts of Western Africa reappeared as the Serra r'o Crystal, and fringe the mighty triangle below the Equator. They are suspected to be auriferous in places. An American merchant on the Gaboon River, Captain Lawlin, carried home in 1843-44 a quantity of granular gold brought to him by the country-traders. He returned to his station, pre- pared to work the metals of the interior ; but the people took the alarm, and he failed to find the spot. Cameron and I, prevented by the late season of our landing from attempting this interesting exploration, were careful to make all manner of enquiries concerning the best 358 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. point de depart, and if fate prevent our attempting it we shall be happy to see some more favoured traveller succeed. The easiest way would be to march upon Crockerville, two days by the A ncobra River and three by land. The bush- paths, which would 1'equire widening for hammocks, lead north through Wasa. There are many villages on the way, and in places provisions can be procured ; the people are peaceful and willing to show or to make the path. At Axim I consulted a native guide who knew the Kong village, but not the Kong Mountains. He made the distance six marches to Snfwi, where the grass-lands begin ; and here he ascended a hillock, seeing nothing but prairies to the north. Eight more stages, a total of fourteen, led him to Gyaman, where he found horses and horsemen. He also knew by hearsay the western route, vid Apollonian Bein. c. Native Modes of Working Gold. In all places, and at all times, gold, probably the metal first used by man, has been worked in the same way. This is a fair evidence of that instinctive faculty which produces a general resemblance of rude stone-implements from England to Australia. There are six methods for 'getting' the precious metal surfacing or washing ; shallow-sinking ; sluicing, or removing the earth through natural and artificial channels; deep sinking; tunnelling, and quartz-mining. The preceding notes show that the natives of the Gold Coast, and of West Africa generally, are adepts at procuring their gold by 'surfacing,' washing with the calabash or wooden bowl the rich alluvial formations that underlie the top soil. This is the rudest form of machinery, preceding in APPENDIX L 359 California the cradle, the torn, and the sluice. Westerns made their pans of brass or copper, about sixteen inches in diameter, and nearly two inches deep in the middle where the gold gravitates. Panning in Africa is women's work, and the process has been described in the preceding pages. But the natives, as has been shown, can also work quartz, an art well known to the Ancient Egyptians. They either pick up detached pieces showing visible gold, or they sink pits and nibble at the walls of the reefs. But whereas the Nile-peoples pounded the stone in mortars and washed the dust on sloping boards, here the matrix must be laboriously levigated. A handful of broken quartz is placed upon the ' cankey-storie,' with which the gudewife grinds her ' mealies.' It is a slightly hollowed slab of granite or hard conglomerate, some two feet square, sloping away from the worker, and standing upon a rude tripod of tree-branches secured by a lashing of ' tie- tie.' The stuff is then rubbed with a hand stone not unlike a baker's roll, and a slight deviation is given to it as it moves ' fore and aft.' The reduced stone is caught in a calabash placed at the lower end of the slab. This is usually night- work, and all the dark hours will be wasted in grinding down a cubic foot of stone. The late M. Bonnat had probably read Mr. Andrew Swanzy's evidence before the House of Commons in 1816 : ' Gold is procured in every part of the country ; it appears more like an impregnation of the soil than a mine.' His long captivity at Kuma^i, where to a certain extent be learned the Oji speech, familiarised him with the native processes ; and thus a Frenchman taught Englishmen to work gold in a golden land where they have been domiciled true faineants for nearly three centuries. He came out in 360 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. the Dries of 1877 with the intention of dredging the Ancobra River where the natives dive for the precious metal. He was working in western Apinto, a province of Wasa, under Kofi Blay, a vassal of King Kwdbina Angu, when he was visited (January 1878) by Major-General Wray, R.A., Colonel Lightfoot, and Mr. Hervey, who were curious to see the work. They remained only till the return of the mail- steamer, or about five weeks. The General left with some first-rate sketches ; the Colonel caught a fever, which killed him at Madeira ; and the Esquire, who bears a name well known in Australia, returned to the Gold Coast for the purpose of writing not unprofitable reports. M. Bonnat was presently informed of the Takwd Ridge, mines well known for a century at least to Cape Coast Castle, and ever the principal source of the Axim currency. They were still worked in 1875 by the people who drew their stores from Axim. A five-weeks' residence convinced him that they were rich enough to attract capital ; he went to Europe, and was successful in raising it. Thus began the Tdkwd mines, where, by a kind of irony of Fate, the beginner was buried. M. Bonnat wisely intended to open operations with wet- working. At Axim I was shown a model flume, made to order after the plans of a M. Boisonnet, or, as he signs him- self, ' boisonnet.' He was reported to be a large landed- proprietor who had made a fortune by mining in French Guiana. He proposed for M. Bonnat and himself to secure the monopoly of washing the Protectorate with this flume a veritable French toy, uselessly complicated, and yet to be used only upon the smallest scale. We must go for our models to California and Australia, not to French Guiana. The following will be the implements with which APPENDIX I. 361 the natives of the future must do their work on the Gold Coast : The pan begat the cradle, a wooden box on rockers, shaped like the article which gave its name. It measures three feet and a half by eighteen inches, and is provided with a movable hopper and slides. Placed in a sloping position, it is worked to and fro by a perpendicular staff acting as handle, and the grain-gold, a metal seven times heavier than granite, collects where the baby should be. As some flour-gold is here found, the cradle-bottom should be cut with cross-grooves to hold mercury ; and the latter must be tempered with sodium or other amalgam. The cradle begat Long Tom and Broad Tom, the ' torn ' proper being the upper box with a grating to keep out the pebbles. ' Long Tom's ' body is a wooden trough, from twelve to fourteen feet long by a foot or a foot and a half broad, with ripples, riffles, or cross-bars. There is usually another grating at the lower end to intercept the smaller stones. The machine is fixed in a gently sloping position, at an angle determined by circumstances ; the wash-dirt is lifted into the upper end by manual labour ; when stiff it must be stirred or shovelled, and a stream of water does the rest. The greater gravity of the gold causes it to be arrested by the riffles. Instead of the bars grooves may be cut and filled with quicksilver. When the sludge is very rich, rough cloths rubbed with mercury, or even sheepskins, the lineal descendants of the Golden Fleece, may be used. * Broad Tom,' alias the ' Victoria Jenny Lind,' is made about half the length of its long brother : the upper end is only a foot wide, broadening out to three below. ' Tom ' begat the sluice, which is of two kinds, natural 352 TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD. and artificial. The former is a ditch cut in the floor, with a taliis of one to forty or fifty. The bottom, which would soon wear away, is revetted with rough planks and paved with hard stones, weighing ten to twenty pounds, the grain being placed vertically. With a full head of water 400 cubic yards a day can easily be washed. The gold, as usual, gravitates through the chinks to the bottom, and finally is cradled or panned out. It is most efficiently treated when the sluice is long ; it demands six times more water than the artificial article, but it wants less manual labour. This last property should recommend it to the Gold Coast. Here, I repeat, machinery must be used as much and manual labour as little as possible. The artificial or portable box-sluice is a series of troughs each about twelve feet long, like the upper compartment of ' Long Tom.' They are made of half-inch boards, rough from the saw, the lower end being smaller to fit into its prolongation. Each compartment is provided with a loose metal bottom pierced with holes to admit the dust; the true bottom below it has cross- riffles, and above it are bars or gratings to catch the coarser stones. These sluices are mounted on trestles, and the latter are disposed upon a slope determined by the quantity of water : the average fall or grade may be 1 to 50. In Australia four men filling a ' Long Tom,' or raised box-sluice, will remove and wash twenty-four cubic yards of ground per day. When the ore is fine, mercury may be dropped into the upper end of the sluice ; and it picks up the particles, ' tailing,' as it goes, before the two metals have run far down. Both stop at the first riffle or resting-place. The auriferous clays of the Gold Coast are thinly covered APPENDIX I. 363 with humus, and are not buried, as in Australia, by ten to thirty feet of unproductive top-drift. The whole, therefore, can be run through the sluices before we begin mining the underlying strata. Washing will be easier during the Rains, when the dirt is looser ; in the Dries hard and com- pact stuff must be loosened by the pick and spade or by blasting. There will not be much loss by float-gold, flour- gold, or paint-gold, the latter thus called because it is so fine as to resemble gilding. Spangles and specks are found ; but the greater part of the dust is gramilar, increasing to ' shotty gold.' The natives divide the noble ore into ' dust- gold ' and ' mountain-gold.' The latter would consist of nuggets, ' lobs,' or pepites, and of crystals varying in size from a pin's head to a pea. The form is a cube modified to an octahedron and a rhombic dodecahedron. These rich finds are usually the produce of pockets or 'jewellers' shops.' I am not aware if there be any truth in the rule generally accepted : ' The forms of gold are found to differ according to the nature of the underlying rock : if it is slate the grains are cubical ; if granite they are flat plates and scales.' And, lastly, the sluice begat the jet, or hydraulicking proper, which is at present the highest effort of placer- mining. We thus reverse the primitive process which carried the wash-dirt to the water ; we now carry the water to the wash-dirt. In California I found the miners wash- ing down loose sandstones and hillocks of clay, passing the stuff through sluices, and making money when the gold averaged only 9 TT^IKAM, ii. 173 JV Kingfisher (alcedo), the, ii. 181 King's Groom (mining village), ii. 206 Kokobene-Akitaki (mine), ii. 195 Kola-nuts (Sternilia acuminaia), i. 318 Kong Mountains, ii. 354-358 Kruineu, characteristics of the, ii. 54, 66-68, 71, 224, 268 Kumasi, origin of name, ii. 188 Kum-Brenni, origin of name, ii. 179 Kumprasi, ii. 134 Kwabina Bosom (fetish rocks), ii. 202, 203 Kwabina Sensense (African chief), ii. 123, 124, 223 Kwansakru, a women's gold- mining village, ii. 260 LABOUR, in West Africa, ii. 326 ; disinclination of na- tives to work, 328 ; influence of 378 INDEX, LAG the decline of population on, 329 ; dearth of, 330 ; Stanley's observations, 331 ; superiority of native women to men as labourers, 332 ; estimate of the respective value of the various tribes as labourers, 333-336; wages paid to natives, 334- 386 ; coolie immigration advo- cated, 337 Lagoon-land, ii. 139 Lake village, a, ii. 151 Las Palmas, i. 218, 223, 227, 258 Liberia, colonisation of, ii. '50 ; india-rubber and coffee pro- duce, 52, 53 ; the Black Devil Society,' 53 ; progress of Is- lamism, 54 ; disinclination of natives to agriculture, 331 ; gold at, 345 Lightning- stones, ii. 107 Lisbon, material progress of, i. 20,21 Logan, Sir William, on 'hy- draulicking,' ii. 195-198 Lugar do Baixo, i. 75 MACHICO, i. 77-81 Machim's Cross, i. 81 Madeira, first sight of, i. 23 ; conflicting claims of discover- ers, 24-31 ; early accounts of, 24-32 ; physical contrasts with Porto Santo, 35, 36 ; views of geologists on, 36 ; climate, 52, 56, 61, 90, 91 ; excursions, 55, 56, 58 ; contrasts of southern and northern coasts, 59 ; pea- santry, 59, 60, 84; dress of peasants, 61 ; domestic life, 62, 63 ; religious superstitions and morality, 64 ; emigration from, 65 ; geographical and geolo- gical characteristics, 65-82 ; Christmas at, 83 ; demeanour of priests at service, 85 ; amuse- ments, 87-89 ; considered as a NIC sanatorium, 90-93 ; sugar cul- tivation, 93, 94 ; 'la petite in- dustrie,' 95 ; tobacco, 96-98 ; pine-apples, 99 ; wines, 99- 105 ; governmental shortcom- ings, 106 ; commerce, 108 Madeiran archipelago, the, geo- graphical distribution of, i. 49, 50 ; climate, 51 ; cedar-tree (Juniperus Oxycedrus), the, 58 Mahogany (Oldjieldia africana), ii. 159 Mandenga (snake), the, i. 337 Mandengas (tribe), i. 277, 279, 281, 301; ii. 47 McCarthy, Mr. E. L., his visit to Essua-ti, ii. 148 -153 Messina, i. 13 Money, A'rican, ii. 155 Monrovia, ii. 52 Mo-leoa Kramhos (talisman and charm writers), ii. 238 Mount Atlas, height of, i. Ill; routine ascent of, 145-172; flora, 147-153; geology, 14S_ 171; zones of vegetation, 153 note ; characteristics of snow, 157; extinct volcanoes, 165- 171 ; height of the Pike, 166 Mount Geddia, ii. 66 Mount Mesurado, the ' cradle of Liberia,' ii. 50, 51 Muka concession, the, ii. 188 Mummies, i. 121-124, 130-132 NAHALO (a women's vilhurr), ii. 261 Negro passengers on board the ' Senegal,' idiosyncrasies of, i. 293-300 ; their ' pidgin En- glish,' 299, 300 ; school, ii. 65 Nelson, Admiral, his repulse in an attack on Tenerife, i. 177- 212 Newtown, ii. 307 Niba, ii. 152 Nicknames, ii. 97 IXDEX. 379 NKR SIE Nkran (formica), ii. 220 Nopal or Tunal plant (Opuntia Tuna or Cactu* cochinellifer), i. 239 Numidic inscriptions, i. 128 OCCROS (Hibiscus), the, ii, 237 Oil-palm (Elais gmneensis), ii. 157 Oji, etymology of, ii. 94 Ore, cost of reducing, ii. 127 Orotava, i. 138-143, 146, 250, 256 Osprey (HalicRtm), the, ii. 181 Osramanbo (lightning-stones), ii. 107 PALM-BIRDS (Orioles), u. 133 JL Palm-wine, ii. 157 Palmyra (Borassuxjlabelliformis) , the, ii. 139 Papaw, the, i. 334 Patras, i. 5-7 Payne, Bishop, ii. 64, 70 Pearl-culture, ii. 367 Pico del Pilon, the, i. 165 Pico Ruivo, i. 58 Pile-dwellings, ii. 150 Pino del Dornajito, the, i. 147 Plants, list of, collected by Capt. Burton and Commander Came- ron, ii. 369-371 Poke Islet, ii. 106 Polyandry, i. 134 Ponta do Sol, i. 76 Porto Loko, i. 326 Porto Santo, i. 23-39 Prince's river, geographical as- pect, ii. 178; gold signs, 179; a true lagoon-stream, 180 ; animal life, 181; fish, 182; luxuriance of vegetation, 1 82- ] 84 ; shifting aspects and bends of the river, 1 84 ; mining grounds, 187 ; idiosyncrasies of native travelling, 190; col- lecting plants, 191 ; insect pests, 192 ; Prince's fort, 193 ; local fetish, 193 Puerto de la Luz, i. 217, 219 "OBTAMA (Cytisw fragrant, It Lam.), the, i. 152 SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LA- GUNA, i. 117 Sanguis Draconis, i. 33 Sanma, ii. 134, 135 Santa Cruz (Madeira), i. 79 Santa Cruz (Tenerife), i. 173, 1 75, 184, 227, 258 Sao Joao do Principe, ii. 187 Senegambia, French colonisation in, i. 264 Sickness on the West Coast of Africa, its remedies, ii. 22'.i- 232 ; Tinctura Warburgii, 23 1 , 239 Sierra Leone, situation and as- pect of, i. 311-328 ; geological formation, 316, 340; its only antiquity Drake 's inscription , 325; washerwomen, 329; St. George's Cathedral, 331 ; the market, 332-335; fruits, 333, 334 ; vegetables, 334, 335 ; meat, 335, 336 ; leather, 336 ; snakes, 337 ; plan of the ' city,' 341 ; climate, 344-346 ; cloth- ing and diet suitable for, 347 ; rainy season, 348 ; the ' Kissy ' road, 351 ; history of, ii. 2-13; abolition of slavery, 9 ; its four colonies, 10; the Sierra Leom; Company, 10 ; rival ra^es of the Aku and Ibo, 13, 14 : trial by jury, 15 ; religious esta- blishments, 19, 23 ; negro psalmody, 21, 22; negro edu- cation, 22-25 ; influence of the Moslem faith on the negro character, 25 ; journalism, 26, 27 ; population, 28 ; native 380 INDEX. sis character, 29-34 ; bad in- fluence of the colony, 30 ; a ' peddling ' people, 37 ; agri- culture, 40, 41 ; the true sys- tem of negro education, 42 ; Chinese coolie labour advo- cated, 43 ; Stanley's observa- tions on the natives' disinclina- tion to agriculture, 331 Sisaman (the African Hades), ii. 212 Slavery, notes on, ii. 35 Snakes, i. 337 Spanish account of the repulse of Nelson from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, i. 177-213 Spiders, native beliefs concern- ing, ii. 209 Spur-plover (Lribivanellus albi- ceps), the, ii. 303 Stanley's, Mr., observations on the African labour question, ii. 331 St. John concession, the, ii. 187, 189 St. Mary Eathurst, i. 269 Stone implements, ii. 306, 307 Su, the African radical of water, ii. 184 Sulayma river, the, ii. 45 Sulphur, on Mount Atlas, analysis of, 168 note Susus (tribe), the, i. 307 S wallow ( TTmfeMia mgrita), the, ii. 181 Swanzy establishment, the, ii. 277 Swords, ii. 147 fTABAYBA (Eiiphorlia canari- JL e/isis), the, i. 116 Tagus, the, i. 19, 20 Ti'ikwa, ii. 264, 265, 272 ; charac- ter of its inhabitants, 292, 293 ; geology, 294-297 Tamsoo-Mewoosoo mine, the, ii. 271 Tartessus, i. '17 TSI Tasso Island, i. 352 Tebribi Hill (mine), ii. 261, '262 Telde (Grand Canary), i. 231 Tenerife, material progress of, i. 112, 113 ; aridity, 116; re- ligious establishments, 118 ; general aspect of streeis, 120 ; Guanche mummies, 121-124, 130-132 ; ancient implements and dress, 125 ; range of civili- sation of the Guanches, 126 ; ancient inscriptions, 128, 129 ; Guanche skulls, 129, 131, 132 ; catacombs, 132 ; dwellings of the Guanches, 133; powers of the Guanches as swimmers, 133; polyandry, 134; deriva- tion of the name Guanche, 1 34 ; derivation of the name Tenerife, 135 ; language, 135, 136 ; dress and personal ap- pearance of inhabitants, 137, 1 38 ; Irish immigration to, 138 ; hotel diet, 141 ; Jardin de Aclimatacion, 144 ; routine ascent of Mount Atlas, 145- 172; geological formation ,148- 171; volcanic type, 149; flora, 151-153 ; snow, 157 ; volca- noes, 165 ; height of Mount Atlas, 166; Admirals Blake, Jennings, and Jervis's defeats, 174-176 ; Nelson's repulse, 177-212; tobacco culture, 248; fighting-cocks, 248-252 ; wine, 256 Teyde, i. 167, 168 Til-trees (Oreodaphne fattens'), i. 45 Timnis (tribe), the, i. 31 5, 350 ; ii. 4, 8, 9 Tinctura Warburgii, ii. 231, 239 Tiya (P. canarie-ntfii), the, i. 152 Trade-gin, ii. 76, 102, 223, 224 Troglodytic populations, i. 235 Tsetze-tiy (Glossinia mondtans), the, ii. 304 Tsil-fui-fui-fui (bird), the, ii. 164 INDEX. TUM Tumento, meaning of name, ii. 23(5 ; the ' grand central depot,' 237 ; Cameron's illness at, 239 ; geographical position of, 246 T7AI (tribe), ii. 47-49 V Venice, i. 3 Vulture ((rypohwrax anqoleiisis), the, ii. 181 WAGES, scale of, on Gold Coast, ii. 334-336 Warry (a native game), ii. 192 Wasawahfli (tribe), the, ii. 69 ZOD Wilberforce memorial, the, at Sierra Leone, i. 338 ' Willyfoss' (Wilberforce) nigger, a, ii. 13 Winwood Reade, cited, ii. 49, 106 Wolof, the, tongue spoken by Europeans, i. 280 Wolofs (tribe), the, i. 280 Wolseley, Sir Garnet, at Ashanti, ii.313 Women's gold-mining village, a, ii. 260, 261 7ANTE, i. 7-12 U Zodiacal light, the, i. 112 THE END. 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