In their present condition our African colonies are colonies only because they are administered by the Colonial Office.
Most of these stations—for such they should be termed—were established, for slaving purposes, by the Portuguese, and were conquered by the Dutch. Thence they passed into the hands of England, who vigorously worked the black traite for the benefit of her West Indian possessions.
The 'colonies' in question, however, saw their occupation gone with negro emancipation, and they became mere trading-ports and posts for collecting ground-nuts, palm-oil, and gold-dust. Philanthropy and freedom expected from them great things; but instead of progressing they have gradually and surely declined. The public calls them 'pest-houses,' and the Government pronounces them a 'bore.' Travellers propose to make them over to Liberia or to any Power that will accept such white elephants.
Remains now the task of placing upon the path of progress these wretched West African 'colonies,' and of making them a credit and a profit to England, instead of a burden and an opprobrium.
Immigration, I find, is le mot de l'énigme.
Between 1860 and 1865 I studied the labour-question in West Africa, and my short visit in 1882 has convinced me that it is becoming a vital matter for our four unfortunate establishments, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos.
A score of years ago many agreed with me that there was only one solution for our difficulties, a system of extensive coolie-importation. But in those days of excited passions and divided interests, when the export slave-trade and the émigration libre were still rampant on either coast, it was by no means easy to secure a fair hearing from the public. Not a small nor an uninfluential section, the philanthropic and the missionary, raised and maintained the cuckoo-cry, 'Africa for the Africans!'—worthy of its successor, 'Ireland for the Irish!' Others believed in imported labour, which has raised so many regions to the height of prosperity; but they did not see how to import it. And the general vis inertiæ, peculiar to hepatic tropical settlements, together with the unwillingness, or rather the inability, to undertake anything not absolutely necessary, made many of the colonists look upon the proposal rather as a weariness to the flesh than a benefit. A chosen few steadily looked forward to it; but they contented themselves with a theoretical prospect, and, perhaps wisely, did not attempt action.
The condition of the Coast, however, has radically changed during the last two decades. The export slave-trade has died the death, never to 'resurrect.' The immense benefits of immigration are known to all men, theoretically and practically. India and China have thrown open their labour-markets. And, finally, the difficulty of finding hands, for agriculture especially, in Western Africa has now come to a crisis.
Here I must be allowed a few words of preliminary explanation. In this matter, the reverse of Europe, Africa, whose social system is built upon slavery, holds field-work, and indeed all manual labour, degrading to the free man. The idea of a 'bold peasantry, its country's pride,' is utterly alien to Nigritia. The husband hunts, fights, and trades—that is to say, peddles—he leaves sowing and reaping to his wives and his chattels. Even a slave will rather buy him a slave than buy his own liberty. 'I am free enough,' he says; 'all I want is a fellow to serve me.' The natives of the Dark Continent are perfectly prepared to acknowledge that work is a curse; and, so far scripturally, they deem
No Spaniard of the old school would despise more than a negro those new-fangled notions glorifying work now familiar to stirring and bustling North Europe. Nor will these people exert themselves until, like the Barbadians, they must either sweat or starve. Example may do something to stir them, but the mere preaching of industry is hopeless. I repeat: their beau idéal of life is to do nothing for six days in the week and to rest on the seventh. They are quite prepared to keep, after their fashion, 365 sabbaths per annum.
In the depths of Central Africa, where a European shows a white face for the first time, the wildest tribes hold markets once or twice a week; these meetings on the hillside or the lake-bank are crowded, and the din and excitement are extreme. Armed men, women, and children may be seen dragging sheep and goats, or sitting under a mat-shade through the livelong days before their baskets and bits of native home-spun, the whole stock in trade consisting perhaps of a few peppers, a heap of palm-nuts, or strips of manioc, like pipe-clay. This savage scene is reflected in the comparatively civilised stations all down the West African coast, where the inexperienced and ardent philanthrope is apt to suppose that the lazy, feckless habits are not nature-implanted but contracted by contact with a more advanced stage of society.
Again, in many parts of Africa the richest lands, and those most favourably situated, are either uninhabited or thinly peopled, the result of intestine wars or of the export slave-trade. Mr. Administrator Goulsbury, of Bathurst, during his adventurous march from the Gambia to the Sierra Leone River, crossed league after league of luxuriant ground and found it all desert. He says, [Footnote: Blue Book of 1882, quoted in Chap. X.] 'I think the fact has never been sufficiently recognised that Africa, and especially the west coast of the continent, is but very sparsely populated.... It is not only very limited, but is, I believe, if not stationary, actually decreasing in numbers.... I commend this fact to the consideration of those who indulge in day-dreams as to the almost unlimited increase of commerce which they fondly imagine is to be the result and reward of opening up the interior of the country.'
In regions richer than the Upper Gambia the disappearance of man is ever followed by a springing of bush and forest so portentous that a few hands are helpless and hopeless. Such is the case with the great wooded belt north of the Gold Coast, where even the second-growth becomes impenetrable without the matchet, and where the swamps and muds, bred and fed by torrential rains, bar the transit of travellers. The Whydah and Gaboon countries are notable specimens of once populous regions now all but deserted.
Nothing more surprising, to men who visit Africa for the first time, than the over-wealth of labour in Madeira and its penury on the Western Coast. At Bathurst they find ships loading or unloading by the work of the Golah women, whose lazy husbands live upon the hardly-earned wage. They see the mail-steamers landing ton after ton of Chinese rice shipped viâ England. The whole country with its humid surface and its reeking, damp-hot climate is a natural rice-bed. The little grain produced by it is far better than the imported, but there are no hands to work the ground. It is the same with salt, which is cheaper when brought from England: no man has the energy to lay out a salina; and, if he did, its outlay, under 'Free Trade,' would be greater than its income.
Steaming along the picturesque face of the Sierra Leone peninsula, the stranger remarks with surprise that its most fertile ridges and slopes hardly show a field, much less a farm, and that agriculture is confined to raising a little garden-stuff for the town-market. The peasant, the hand, is at a discount. The Sierra Leonite is a peddler-born who aspires to be a trader, a merchant; or he looks to a learned profession, especially the law. The term 'gentleman-farmer' has no meaning for him. Of late years a forcing process has been tried, and a few plantations have been laid out, chiefly for the purpose, it would appear, of boasting and of vaunting the new-grown industry at home. Mr. Henry M. Stanley remarks [Footnote: Coomassie and Magdala, p. 8], 'In almost every street in Sierra Leone I heard the voice of praise and local prayer from the numerous aspirants to clerkships and civil service employ; but I am compelled to deny that I ever heard the sound of mallet and chisel, of mortar, pestle, and trowel, the ringing sound of hammer on anvil, or roar of forge, which, to my practical mind, would have had a far sweeter sound. There is virgin land in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone yet untilled; there are buildings in the town yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce yet to be made; the trade of the African interior yet waits to be admitted into the capacious harbour of Sierra Leone for the enrichment of the fond nursing-mother of races who sits dreamily teaching her children how to cackle instead of how to work.'
The same apathy to agriculture prevails in Liberia. For the last forty years large plantations have been laid out on the noble St. Paul River between Cape Mount and Mount Mesurado. The coffee-shrub, like the copal-tree, belts Africa from east to west—from Harar, where I saw it, through Karagué, where it grows wild, the bean not being larger than a pin's head, to Manywema, in the Congo valley, and to the West Coast, especially about the Rio Nunez, north of Sierra Leone. It is of the finest quality, second only to the Mocha; but what hope is there of its development? The Váy tribe, which holds the land, is useless; the rare new comers from America will work, but the older settlers will not; and there is hardly money enough to pay Krumen.
On the Gold Coast there is no exceptional scarcity of population: under normal circumstances, the labour-market is sufficiently supplied, but a strain soon exhausts it. Sir Garnet Wolseley found his greatest difficulty in the want of workmen: he was obliged to apply for 500 British navvies; and, at one time, he thought of converting the first and second West India Regiments, with Wood's and Russell's men, into carriers. On the other hand, the conduct of the women was admirable; as the conqueror said in the Mansion House, he hardly wondered at the King of Dahome keeping up a corps of 'Amazons.' I shall presently return to the gold-mines.
At Lagos M. Colonna, Consular Agent for France, informs me that by his firm alone 600 hands are wanted for field-service, and that the number might rise to a thousand. He would also be glad to hire artisans, blacksmiths and carpenters, masons and market-gardeners. The Yorubas from the upper country, who will engage for three years, demand from a franc to a shilling per diem, rations not given. Labour ranges from sixteen to twenty-four francs per mensem; and coolies could not command more than twenty-five francs, including 'subsistence.' Here Kruboys are much used. M. Colonna pays his first-class per mensem $5 (each =5 francs 20 centimes), his second class $4, and his third $3. Returning to the Gold Coast, I find two classes of working men, the country-people and the Kruboys: the Sierra Leonites are too few to be taken into consideration. At present, when there are only five working mines, none of which are properly manned, labour is plentiful and cheap. It will be otherwise when the number increases, as it will soon do, to fifty and a hundred. Upwards of seventy concessions have already been granted, and I know one house which has, or soon will have, half a dozen ready for market. Then natives and Kruboys will strike for increased wages till even diamond-mines would not pay. The Gold Coast contains rich placers in abundance: if they fail it will be for want of hands, or because the cost of labour will swallow up profits.
The country-people, Fantis, Accra-men, Apollonians of Béin, and others, will work, and are well acquainted with gold-working. But they work in their own way; and, save under exceptional conditions, they are incapable of regular and continuous labour. It gives one the heart-ache to see their dawdling, idling, shuffling, shiftless style of spoiling time. They are now taking to tribute, piece and contract work. The French mines supply them with tools and powder, and, by way of pay and provisions, allow them to keep two-thirds of the produce. It is evident that such an arrangement will be highly profitable to the hands who will 'pick the eyes out of the mine,' and who will secrete all the richest stuff, leaving the poorest to their employers. No amount of European surveillance will suffice to prevent free gold in stone being stolen. Hence the question will arise whether, despite the price of transport, reduction in England will not pay better.
The Kruboys in the north and the Kabinda boys in the south have been described as the Irishmen of West Africa: they certainly do the most work; and trading-ships would find it almost impossible to trade without them. During the last twenty years they have not improved in efficiency even on board men-of-war. In 1861-65 the gangs with their headmen willingly engaged for three years. Now they enlist only for a year; they carefully keep tallies, and after the tenth monthly cut they begin to apply for leave. Thus the men's services are lost just as they are becoming valuable. It is the same with the Accra-men. When the mines learn the simple lesson l'union fait la force they will combine not to engage Krumen for less than two years.
There are two great centres at which Kruboys are hired. The first is Sierra Leone, where they demand from all employers what the mail-steamers pay—the headmen half-a-crown and the hands a shilling a day besides rations. The second is the Kru coast. In 1850 the 'boys' received 5s. per mensem in goods, which reduced it to 3s. They had also daily rice-rations, 'Sunday beef,' and, at times, a dash of tobacco, a cap, a blanket or a waist-cloth. In 1860 the hire rose to 9s. in kind, or 4s. 6d. in coin. About this time cruisers began to pay them the monthly wages of ordinary seamen, 1l. 10s., with white man's rations or compensation-money, amounting to another 12l. a year. In 1882 headmen engage for the Oil Rivers at 1l., and 'boys' for 10s. to 12s. For the gold-mines of Wásá they have learned to demand 1s. 3d. per diem, and at the cheapest 1l. a month, the headmen receiving double.
The Kru-market does not supply more than 4,000 hands, and yet it is already becoming 'tight.' In a few years demand will be excessive.
The following notes were given to me by the managers of mines, whom I consulted upon the subject.
Mr. Crocker prefers Fantis, Elminas, and others; and he can hire as many as he wants; at Cape Coast Castle alone there are some eighty hands now unemployed. He pays 36s., without rations, per month of four weeks. He has about a score of Kruboys, picked up 'on the beach;' these are fellows who have lost all their money, and who dare not go home penniless. Their headman receives per mens. $3.50, and in exceptional cases $4. The better class of 'boys' get from $2.50 to $3; and lesser sums are given to the 'small boys,' whose principal work is stealing, skulking.
Mr. Creswick has a high opinion of Krumen working in the mines, and has found sundry of them to develop into excellent mechanics. The men want only good management. Under six Europeans, himself included, he employs a hundred hands, and from eight to ten mechanics. The first headman draws 37s. 6d., the second 22s., full-grown labourers 18s., and 'small boys' from 4s. to 6s. and 9s.
Mechanics' wages range between 1l. 5s. and 4l. All have rations or 'subsistence,' which here means 3d. a day.
Mr. MacLennan has a few Fanti miners, whom he pays at the rate of 6d. per half-day. His full muster of Krumen is 120; the headmen receive 27s. 6d., rising, after six months, to 35s. The first class of common boys get 20s.; the second from 13s. 6d. to 15s.; and the third, mostly 'small boys,' between 5s. and 10s. His carpenters and blacksmiths, who are Gold Coasters and Sierra Leonites, draw from 2l. 10s. to 3l. The rations are, as usual, 1-1/2 lb. of rice per day, with 1 lb. of 'Sunday beef,' whose brine is converted into salt.
Mr. A. Bowden, manager of the Tákwá and Abosu Mines, also employs a 'mixed multitude.' His Sierra Leone carpenters and blacksmiths draw 3l. 10s. to 4l. 10s. per month without rations, and his native mechanics 3l. to 3l. 10s. The Fanti labourers are paid, as usual, a shilling per diem and find themselves. The Kruboys, besides being lodged and fed (1-1/2 lb. rice per day and 1 lb. beef or fish per week), draw in money as follows: headman, 2l.; second ditto, 1l. 7s. to 1l. 12s.; miners, 18s. to 20s. and labourers 9s. to 16s.
This state of the labour-market is, I have said, purely provisional. It will not outlast the time when the present concessions are in full exploitation; and this condition of things I hope soon to see. We can then draw from the neighbouring countries, from Yoruba to the north-east, and perhaps, but this is doubtful, from the Baasás [Footnote: A manly and powerful race, who call themselves Americans and will have nothing to do with the English.] and the Drewins to the west. But we must come, sooner or later, and the sooner the better, to a regular coolie-immigration, East African, Indian, and Chinese.
The benefit of such an influx must not be measured merely by the additional work of a few thousand hands. It will at once create jealousy, competition, rivalry. It will teach by example—the only way of teaching Africans—that work is not ignoble, but that it is ignoble to earn a shilling and to live idle on three-pence a day till the pence are exhausted. Its advantages will presently be felt along the whole western coast, and men will wonder why it was not thought of before. The French, as they are wont to do in these days, have set us an example. Already in early 1882 the papers announced that a first cargo of 178 Chinese—probably from Cochin-China—had been landed at Saint-Louis de Senegal for the proposed Senegambian railway.
The details of such an immigration and the measures which it will require do not belong to this place. Suffice it to say that we can draw freely upon the labour-banks of Macáo, Bombay, and Zanzibar. The intelligent, thrifty, and industrious Chinese will learn mining here, as they have learnt it elsewhere, with the utmost readiness. The 'East Indian' will be well adapted for lighter work of the garden and the mines. Finally, the sturdy Wásawahili of the East African coast will do, as carriers and labourers, three times the work of Pantis and Apollonians.
I need hardly say that Captain Cameron and I would like nothing better than to organise a movement of this kind; we would willingly do more good to the West African coast than the whole tribe of its so-called benefactors.
The mineral wealth of Central Africa has still to be studied; at present we are almost wholly ignorant of it. We know, however, that the outlying portions of the Continent contain three distinct and grand centres of mining-industry. The first worked is the north-eastern corner—in fact, the Nile-valley and its adjacencies, where Fayzoghlú still supplies the noble metal. The second, also dating from immense antiquity, is the whole West African coast from Morocco to the Guinea Gulf, both included. The third and last, the south-eastern gold-fields, have been discovered by the Portuguese in comparatively modern days.
In this paper I propose to treat only of the western field. Its exploitation began early enough to be noticed by Herodotus, the oldest of Greek prose-writers. He tells us (lib. iv. 196, &c.) that the Carthaginians received gold from a black people, whose caravans crossed the Sahará, or Great Desert, and that they traded for it with the wild tribes of the West Coast. His words are as follows:—'There is a land in Libya, and a nation beyond the Pillars of Hercules [the Straits of 'Gib.'], which they [the Carthaginians] are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith they break cargo; and, having disposed their wares in an orderly way along the beach, leave them, and, returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke.
'The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the shore, and, laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw themselves afar. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If they deem the gold sufficient they take it and wend their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard once more and wait patiently. Then the others draw near and add to their gold till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly by the other; for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away.'
Plato ('Critias' [Footnote: The celebrated Dialogue which treats of Altantis and describes cocoas as the 'fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments.']) may refer to this dumb trade when he tells us, 'Never was prince more wealthy than Atlas [eldest son of Poseidon by Cleito]. His land was fertile, healthy, beautiful, marvellous; it was terminated by a range of gold-yielding mountains.' Lyon, speaking of the western Sudán, uses almost the very words of Herodotus. 'An invisible nation, according to our informant, inhabit near this place, and are said to trade by night. Those who come to traffic for their gold lay their merchandise in heaps and retire. In the morning they find a certain quantity of gold-dust placed against every heap, which if they think sufficient they leave the goods; if not, they let both remain till more of the precious ore is added' (p. 149). [Footnote: Shaw gives a similar account (Travels, p. 302).]
The classical trade in gold and slaves was diligently prosecuted by the Arabs or Saracens after Mohammed's day. Their caravans traversed the great wilderness which lies behind the fertile Mediterranean shore, and founded negroid empires in the western Sudán, or Blackland. Gháná, whence, perhaps, the Portuguese Guiné and our Guinea of 'the dreadful mortal name,' became the great gold-mart of the day. Famous in history is its throne, a worked nugget of solid gold, weighing 30 lbs. It has been rivalled in modern times by the 'stool' of Bontuko (Gyáman), and by the 'Hundredweight of gold' produced by New South Wales. Most of the wealth came from a district to the south-west, Wangara, Ungura, or Unguru, bordering on the Niger, and supposed to correspond with modern Mandenga-land. In the lowlands, after the annual floods, the natives dug and washed the diluvial deposits for the precious metal exactly as is now done upon the Gold Coast; and they burrowed into the highlands which surround in crescent-form the head-waters of the great River Joliba. Presently Tinbukhtu succeeded, according to Leo Africanus (1500), Gháná as the converging point of the trade, and made the name for wealth which endures even to the present day. Its princes and nobles lavishly employed the precious ore in ornaments, some weighing 1,300 ounces.
In due time the Moroccan Arabs were succeeded by their doughty rivals, the Portuguese of the heroic ages of D. D. João 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. [Footnote: See Chapter II.] The first gold was discovered on his second voyage by Gonçalo Baldeza (1442) at the Rio de Ouro, the classical Lixus and the modern El-Kus, famed for the defeat and death of Dom Sebastiam. [Footnote: I have noticed it in Camoens, his Life and his Lusiads, vol ii. chapter iii. The identification with the Rio de Onro is that of Bowdich (p. 505). Another Rio de Ouro was visited in 1860 by Captain George Peacock (before alluded to), 'having a French frigate under his orders.' The 'River of Gold' of course would become a favourite and a banal name.]
In 1470 João de Santarem and Pero d'Escobar, knights of the King, sailed past Cape Falmas, discovered the islands of São Thomé 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.' [Footnote: 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.] During the same year Fernan' Gomez, a worthy of Lisbon, bought a five years' monopoly of the gold-trade from the King, paying 44l. 9s. par 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 1º 50' and west longitude (Gr.) 9º 2'. The rich mines opened at Little Kommenda, or Aprobi, led to the building of the Fort São 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 '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 lbs. 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; [Footnote: 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.] 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. Wásá, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
After twenty days' labour Jobson succeeded in extracting 12 lbs. 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 supposed 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 preferred 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 Bambúk. There he visited the principal districts, and secured specimens of what he calls the ghingan, or golden earth. He proposed a third incursion, but the absolute apathy of his countrymen proved an insuperable obstacle.
M. Golberry describes Bambúk in gloomy and sombre colours. Its gold is distributed amongst low ranges of peeled and sterile hills. Probably this results from fires and disforesting. It occurs in the shape of spangles, grains, and pépites (nuggets), whose size increases with the depth of the digging. In the Matakon mine the dust adhered to fragments 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 marle; 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 (1795-97) to the highlands of the Mandingoes (Mandenga-land), and revived interest in the provinces of Shronda, Konkodu, Dindiko, Bambúk, 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. [Footnote: Murray's edition of 1816, vol. i, p. 40, and vol. ii. p. 751.]
The traveller Caillié (1827), after crossing the Niger en route to Tinbukhtu, passed south of the Bouré province, in the valley of the Great River; and here he reports an abundance of gold. As in the districts visited by Park, it is all alluvial and washed out of the soil. The dust, 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 Bouré were first visited and described by Winwood Reade. [Footnote: Coomassie, &c., p. 126.]
The peninsula of Sierra Leone is not yet proved to be auriferous. Here stray Moslems, mostly Mandengas, occasionally 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 deserves 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 [Footnote: 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.] 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 kingdoms; 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 into Europe; and, until the mineral discoveries of California 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. Bosnian (Letter VI.) shows that the people prospected for the illustrious metal in three forms of ground. The first was in, or between, particular 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. [Footnote: The origin of these mineral veins is still disputed, science being as yet too young for the task of solving the mystery. Probably, 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 sublimation of Necker, the electricity of Mr. R. W. Fox, the infiltration 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 corresponding 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.'] 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 probable that we shall ever possess that liberty here, wherefore 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 Wásá (Wassaw), of Encasse, [Footnote: The Inkassa of D'Anville, 1729.] 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 'furnishes 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 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—Wásá, of which these pages treat; Akim, the hill-land, an easy journey of a week north with westing from Akra; and Gyáman, 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 [Footnote: I happened to be at Akra during the convulsion of July 10. The commandant, Major (now Colonel) de Buvignes, 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.M., as we were returning from the rocks about three-quarters of a mile off, there was a sudden rambling like a distant thunder-clap; the sands seemed to wave up and down as a shaken carpet, and we both staggered forwards. 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-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 Crèvecoeur, 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 destruction, 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 Agbóme, Gelelé, 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.] so tossed and 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. [Footnote: This is a huge brass pan which fell from heaven: it is or was surrounded by drawn swords and gold-handled axes in its sanctuary, the fetish-house.] The provinces of Gyáman, especially Ponin, Safwi, and Showy, are famed for wealth of gold. In African phrase, while 'the metallic veins of Ashanti, Denkira, and Wásá lie twelve cubits deep, those of Gyáman are only five.' The ore dug from pits is of deep colour, and occurs mixed with red gravel and pieces of white granite (quartz). 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 lbs. would yield 1 to 1 1/2 lb. pure metal. Nuggets are also produced, and chiefs wear them slung to hair and wrists; some may weigh 4 lbs. The dust washed from the torrent-beds is higher-coloured, cleaner, and better than what is produced elsewhere. 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 Gyáman 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 gold' are re-buried, in order that gold may grow from them. [Footnote: It was long supposed in Europe that alluvial gold grew by a succession of layers imposed upon a solid nucleus, and by the coalescence of grains as a snow-ball is constructed. Mr. Sellwyn still holds that 'nuggets and particles of alluvial gold may gradually increase by the deposition of metallic gold (analogous to the electroplating process), from the meteoric waters that circulate through the drifts.'—Gold Fields of Victoria, p. 357.] 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 Sankánya, 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 Monte do Diabo (Devil's Hill), the native Mankwadi, [Footnote: Again, I cannot connect Mankwadi (or even Manquada) with 'Maquida or Azeb, Queen of Sheba'—the latter country probably lying in South Arabian Yemen.] 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 Adá (Addah), west of the Volta and in its neighbourhood, 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 Sakánya; 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 Adá chief offered to show this magic-fenced placer to the late Mr. Nicol Irvine, moyennant the trifle of 50l. The transaction 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, 3,000,000l. At a later period Mr. McQueen increased the figures to 3,400,000l. 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 400,000l. (=100,000 ounces), a figure repeated in 1860 by Dr. Eobert Olarke; and in 1862 the amount was variously reported at 192,000l. (= 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;—[Footnote: Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom. Eyre and Spottiswoode. London, 1881.]