sang the silly sage, who evidently had never seen a region untouched by the human hand. Finally, this 'Fía 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 Pápá lagoon bounding Ezrimenu village on the landward 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 convertible into a cart-road, they reached the Inyoko Concession. It measures 2,400 yards square, beginning 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 River. The ground has not been much worked of late years, but formerly Kwáko 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 22º east (true); [Footnote: In laying down limits great attention must be paid to variation. As a rule 19º 45' west has been assumed from the Admiralty charts—good news for the London attorney. At Tumento this figure rises to 20º; upon the coast it must be changed to 19º 15' (W.), and in other places to 16º 40'.] the dip appears to be easterly, and the natives have worked the Abbruch or débris 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, apparently the best colour throughout the Gold Region. 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 colour is found. Such at least is Cameron's experience.
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 observed 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 interpreter to show us the Yirima or 'Choke-full' reef; and the man, doubtless influenced by some intrigue, gave us wrong information. Moreover the safahin Etié, 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 boma, 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 fortnight got through the 50l. of silver sent from England; and this, too, without including the expenses of bed and board.
We came home with the conviction that the Inyoko 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.' [Footnote: Blackwoods, Edinburgh and London, 1874. Vol. ii. pp. 351, 352.] 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 fetishism 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 Captain Thompson visited the Wassaw (Wásá) country, he 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 valuable 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 obtained. 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 injustice to allow others to do so. If the true value of these services were ascertained by Government mining engineers, if the Government would guarantee protection 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 imported, 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 fell 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 'jumping.' In the spring of 1862 he wished to keep half the ground for his own use.
On February 15 we proceeded down coast to inspect the mining-lands of Prince's River 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 they 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 Prépré, or Inkubun, and the red projection, Ponta Terceira, we sighted the important Ajámera village, so called from a tree whose young leaves show a tender pinkish-red. On the Awazán Boppo Hill, about two miles from the trial-shaft of his concession, Dr. Ross 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. Ajámera lies a little west of the peninsula, Africanicè Madrektánah, 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 Tákwá ridge is nearer Axim than Dixcove is, and that the line would pass within easy distance of Kinyanko, one of its raisons d'être.
This wild plan has been supported by sundry concessionists whose interests lie behind Dixcove and at 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 [Footnote: In the Oji or Ashanti-Fanti tongue bro or bronni (the Ga 'blofo') means somebody or something European. It is derived from abro (blo), 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.' 'Abrokirri' (Europe) is, however, explained by the Rev. Mr. Riis as perhaps a corruption of Puto, Porto, Portugal.] ('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 Rev. 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 inexpensive, 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 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, Eshánchi, alias 'Septimulus,' 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, Wafápa, 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 abundant 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 11-1/2 lbs., and it was excellent eating seasoned with 'poor man's quinine,' alias garlic. Natives and strangers speak of the jungle-cow, probably the Nyaré antelope (Bos brachyceros) 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, cynocephalus 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 (hali[oe]tus), which even in the 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 two 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. R. 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 (siluri) weigh 10 lbs. 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 downwards 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 pendent 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 leguminosæ, 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. 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 lowland 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 170º. 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;' [Footnote: The radical of water is 'su,' curiously corresponding with Turkish and with that oldest of the Turkish tongues, Chinese.] and my 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 'Romanshorn' from the Swiss farm, an admirable preparation which also yields fresh butter. The price is high, 1s. 6d. 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 gallantly 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 Bekaí (a village in general), the usual hole in the bush. Here navigation ends in the dry season. We walked to and through the mean little settlement, and established ourselves at Anima-kru, [Footnote: The English 'croom' is a corruption of kru-mu or krum, '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 and familiæ.] a mile from the landing-place on the Yenna, or Prince's River. It faces a splendidly wooded mound upon the right or opposite bank. Mrá Kwámi, 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, crépi 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 ornamental 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 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 hillocks 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 rolled 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 fragments not a little resembled the clay-slates of the Brazilian gold-mines. Such was the concession which we named São João do Principe.
Presently the chief, Mrá Kwámi, 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, however, 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; 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 [Footnote: The Ashantis translate the word 'under the Kum-tree;' the Fantis make it mean 'slay all.'] village. It had been lately deserted; but we found there Kwáko Benta, headman of Ajámera, 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 20º and 25º east, and the dip 40º-45º 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' [Footnote: 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 polissoirs of ancient date.] 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 River. This might also be done by damming up and tapping the adjacent bottom. And, if routine 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. 4º 49' 44", and in west long. (G.) 2º 6' 44". While the owners would place it seven miles from the sea, it is distant only 2.2 from 'old Fort Brandenburg.' Early next morning we packed and prepared for return, the chief Mrá Kwámi 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 heirlooms interesting to the negro anthropologist. Fancy also their bidding him to be ready next morning for sporting and collecting purposes, with all his pet servants, 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 treatment, 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 Guinea-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 lantanas, 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 with rose-water; and the caverns, formed by the arching roots of the muddy mangrove, looked haunts fit for crocodile and behemoth 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 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 stone 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 Sá Leone calls 'warry.' [Footnote: A game with counters and holes in the ground or a board hollowed with cups. The same, called báo, or tables, is found in East Africa (Zanzibar) and Cameron traced it extending clear across the Dark Continent.] The bell and 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 Bosman 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 G 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 substantial 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 Bosman ('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 stories 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 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 Kokobené. It lies close behind the village Akitáki, which we had seen during our morning's walk along the beach leading to Cape Threepoints. The chief, Eshánchi, promised to forward specimens of the reefs, and did not forget to keep his promise. The quartz-specimens which were brought to us at Akankon by Wafápa, or Barnabas, promised excellently, and I authorised Mr. Grant to buy an exploring right of the Kokobené-Akitáki diggings. Their position as well as their quality will render them valuable: 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 2l. 8s.
I have spoken much about 'hydraulicking' in this chapter, and I shall now borrow a few details concerning 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 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 excavated 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. 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 by 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 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 profit 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 distance 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 considerable 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.
After a long palaver with the three claimants to the Akankon mining-ground, Kofi Blaychi (Little Blay), Kwáko Jum, and Safahin Sensensé (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 Tákwá, a fine-looking man of fifteen stone, pulled down to twelve by dysentery. He was speedily followed to England by his remplaçant, Dr. Duke.
Next morning, when the thick white fog, which made the smoking river resemble Father Rhine in autumn, had been licked up by fiery rays, we embarked, together with Chief Apó, of Asánta, the honest old owner of the 'Ingotro concession.' Our conveyance 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 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 working 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 breakdown, we saw steam-launch Effuenta lying high and dry upon the beach at Sánmá.
We had nothing to complain of the engineer, Mr. William George, a Sá Leonite, and of the helmsman, Kwámina Ekum, a Gold Coast man. Both did their best with the heavily laden trio of boats. Cameron established 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
Now he has another opportunity of doing valuable service, 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 'River Ankobra and Tarquah(!) 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. [Footnote: Carte des Concessions de 'The African Gold Coast Company,' par M. J. Bonnat. Paris, August 1879. Beginning south at Tumento, it does not show the southern fork of the Bonsá or Abonsá River, which falls into the Ancobra'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.']
The Ancobra is an enlarged copy of the Yenna or Prince's River. There are the same swampy borders and 'impenetrable forests,' as Captain Wyatt entitles 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 I 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 Kwábina Bosom, or Fetish-Rocks, 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-Rocks the right bank shows a cleared mound ready for immediate planting: this concession once belonged to Dr. Ross, of Axim. Opposite it the mining-ground has been leased for prospecting 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 '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 thunderstorm 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 Apó gravely ascribed it to our taking the wrong side of the Fetish-Rocks. I have heard, even in civilised lands, sillier post-hoc-ergò-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 Nánwá 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 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 Nánwá stream. A quarter of an hour's walk from the landing-place placed us in the Nánwá village, now popularly known as Walker-Kru. It consists of a few mean little hovels, the usual cage-work, huddled together in most unpicturesque confusion. 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, Kwáko Juma, like most of his brethren, a civil man and a greedy. But the Krumen, boatmen and carriers, were also lodged in the little settlement, and these people always make night hideous with their songs and squabbles, their howling voices, and hyæna-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 villagers, who enjoy long talks by night and deep slumbers in early day. They appear much inclined to slumber again. But both Apó of Asánta and Juma of Nánwá 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 measurements being taken from the central shaft. Assuming every thousand fathoms roughly to represent a geographical 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 concealing 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 in Africa no other effect. Free men will not work, and 'bush,' unless kept down, will grow with terrible ferocity.
When Indian file was duly formed, we descended the Nánwá 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 Nánwá 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 Croom,' 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 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 Tuáko Hill, at whose southern base lies the Nánwá 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 Nánwá, here flowing south. It is bounded by two rises, tree-grown from foot to head. That on the left bank is the Tuáko, the husband, 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 digging 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 wura-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 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-buká and the Nánwá-buká, which define the course of the rivulet. The distance from Nánwá 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 transverse 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 Empress Eugénie 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 moonbeams. [Footnote: The Ananse or Agya ananse (father spider), as the Oji-speaking 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. Bosman (Letter xvii.), describing 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 yet 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 Anansesem, such as Spider and Spiderson and the Three Ghosts; in these spider-stories the insect, like the fox with us, is the most intelligent of animals (the late Rev. J. Zimmermann's Akra or Gã Grammar, 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 Anánu (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 blatta, a couple of these insects would effectually clear chests and drawers in a few days. There are other species, Entekuma, &c.]
The upper shaft had been sunk, as it should be, in the eastern flank of the hill, which faces north 71º east, and which runs north 3º 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 Nánwá village 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 detached 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' without 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 Nánwá and took leave of Chief Apó; 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 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 amelioration 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 tunnelling.
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. O. 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 diamantiferous; and it is reported that an experienced French mineralogist, who has visited the South African diggings, landed at Assini and proposed to canoe up the Tando River to the Tákwá 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, [Footnote: The Akra-men make Sisaman, their Kutomen, Scheol or Hades, a town on one of the Volta holms or somewhere beyond. The Gold Coast has three species of departed 'spirits' (asamanfo)—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 accident 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, drinking, and playing.' Yet these 'spiritualists' (with 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 Rev. J. G. Christaller.] in Fanti-land 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 Tákwá mine; the four stages can be covered in twenty hours. [Footnote: 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 Dompé (nine hours slow); No. 3 to Abrafu, on the Abonsá River, one march south of the Abonsá station (three hours); No. 4 to the Effuenta mine (five hours).]
At 6.30 P.M. we saw, a little above Aka-kru, and also on the left bank, Jyachabo, or 'Silver-' (Jyácho) '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 'Senchorsu;' the people, however, did not seem to know their whereabouts. 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 outhouses. 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 employés will find the place healthy. The up-sloping ground behind the house could be laid out in a pottage-garden; and, as 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 Sensensé's village, a cluster of huts surrounded 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 ourselves at 'Granton.'
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 92º (F.), and often rose to 96º; in the Rains it falls to 72º, 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 bulkheads 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. Immediately behind the huts we came upon a broad streak cochineal-red, except where tarnished by oxygen, where it looked superficially like ochre. The strike ran parallel with the quartz-reef, north 5º 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 employés. He has, however, I am told, changed his mind and built upon 'Plantation Hillock.' On the left or western side of the road the Akankon 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 washing. 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. Ross, 'practical miner, working manager, and mine-owner for the last twenty years in Queensland, Australia.' He thus describes himself in 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, manganese, 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 descent into the shaft by bucket and windlass. I declined, 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 40º. 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. Ross 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 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 22º east, the western 355º, and the eastern north 37º 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, tradition 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-kumá(?), 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, [Footnote: Anglicè 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 prevented 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.] which marched in detached but parallel lines. It rises gently in slopes of yellow clay towards the west, and doubtless 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 precious 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.