To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 4

Men and women are vastly given to 'chaffing' and to nicknaming. Every child, even in the royal houses, takes a first name after the week-day [Footnote: Men. Women.

Adwo (Monday-born) ... Kajo (Cuddjo) ... Adwoa.

Bena (Tuesday-born) ... Kwabina ... Abiena.

Wuku (Wednesday-born) ... Kwako ... Akudea.

Tan (Thursday-born) ... Kwao ... Ya (Yawa).

Afio (Friday-born) ... Kofi (Coffee) ... Afua.

Amu (Sat.u.r.day-born) ... Kwamina ... Amma.

Ayisi (Sunday-born) ... Kwasi ... Akosua (Akwasiba).

Monday is the first day of the Oji week. The Sunday-born is corrupted to 'Quashy,' well known in the United States; hence also the 'bitter cup' of _gua.s.sia_-wood. The names of the days are taken from the seven Powers which rule them. Kwa-Si would be Kwa (=_akoa_, man, slave), and Ayisi (a man) belonging to Ayisi. Amongst the Accra people the first-born are called Tete (masc.) and Dede (fem.), the second Tete and Koko, and the rest take the names of the numerals. So we have Septimus, Decimus, &c.] of its birth, and strangers after that on which they land. Cameron, who shaved his hair, was ent.i.tled 'Kwabina Echipu'--Tuesday Baldhead. I became Sasa Kwesi (Fetish Sunday), from a fancied clerical appearance, Sasa being probably connected with Sasabonsam, 'a huge earth-demon of human shape and fiery hue.' He derives from _asase_ ('earth'), and _abonsam_, some evil ghost who has obtained a permanent bad name. Missionaries translate the latter word 'devil,' and make it signify an evil spirit living in the upper regions, or our popular heaven, and reigning over Abonsamkru, the last home of souls, or rather shades of the wicked. Thus _sasabonsam_ would be equivalent to _Erdgeist_, _Waldteufel_, or _Kobold_, no bad nickname for a miner. The people have a wealth of legend, and some queer tale attached to every wild beast and bird. In days to come this folk-lore will be collected.

The gorbellied children are the pests of the settlement. At early dawn they roar because they awake hungry and thirsty; they roar during the day when washed with cold water, and in the evening they roar because they are tired and sleepy. They are utterly spoiled. They fight like little Britons; they punch their mothers at three years of age; and, when strong enough, they 'square up' to their fathers.

The first mining business we had to transact was with Kwamina Blay, of Attabo, Ahin (Ahene) or King of Amrehia, Western Apollonia. He came to visit us in state on January 28. The vehicle, a long basket, big enough to lodge a Falstaff, open like a coffin, and lined with red cloth to receive the royal person and gold-hilted swords, was carried stretcher-fas.h.i.+on by four st.u.r.dy knaves. King Blay is an excellent man, true and 'loyal to the backbone;' but his Anglo-African garb was, to say the least, peculiar. A tall c.o.c.ked hat, with huge red and white plume, contrasted with the dwarf pigtail bearing a Popo-bead, by way of fetish, at the occiput. His body-dress was a sky-blue silk, his waist-cloth marigold-yellow, and he held in hand the usual useless sword of honour, a Wilkinson presented to him for his courage and conduct in 1873-1874. The Ashanti medal hung from his neck by a plaited gold chain of native Trichinopoly-work, with a neat sliding clasp of two cannons and an empty _asumamma_, or talisman-case.

The bracelets were of Popo-beads and thick gold-wire curiously twisted into wreath-knots. Each finger bore a ring resembling a knuckle-duster, three mushroom-like projections springing from each oval s.h.i.+eld.

Ahin Blay dismounted with ceremony, and was as ceremoniously received. His features are those of the Fanti, somewhat darker than usual, and his expression is kindly and intelligent: though barely fifty-five his head is frosty and his goatee is snowy. The visit was a state affair, a copy in small of Ashanti and Dahome.

On the left, the place of honour, sat the 'King's father,' that is, eldest uncle on the female side, evidently younger than his nephew: the language makes scanty difference between the relations.h.i.+ps, and here, as in other parts of Africa, the ruler adopts a paternity. Six elders, _safahins_ and _panins_, [Footnotes: The 'Opanyini' (plur. of 'Opanyin') are the town-elders forming the council of the Ahin (king) or Caboceer, each with his own especial charge. The Safahin (Safohine or Osafohene) is the captain of war; the Ofotosanfo is the treasurer; the Okyame is spy and speaker, alias 'King's Mouf;' and the Obofo is the messenger, envoy, or amba.s.sador. The system much resembles that of the village-republics in Maratha-land.] sat down, in caps and billyc.o.c.ks; the other fifteen stood up bareheaded, including the 'King's Stick,' called further south 'King's Mouf.' This spokesman, like the 'Meu-'minister of Dahome, repeated to his master our interpreter's words; and his long wand of office was capped with a silver elephant--King Blay's 'totem,' equivalent to our heraldic signs. So in Ashanti-land some _caboceers_ cap their huge umbrellas with the _twidam_, or leopard, the _Etchwee_, or panther, of Bowdich, [Footnote: _Mission_, &c., p. 230 (orig. fol.). The other two patriarchal families which preside over the eight younger branches, making a total of twelve tribes, are the Ekoana (_Quonna_), from _eko_ (a buffalo), and the Essona, from _esso_ (a bush-cat).] and others are members of the _Intchwa_, or dog-division. These emblems denote consanguineous descent, and the brotherhood (_ntwa_) of the 'totems' is uniformly recognised. Our guest's particular ambition is a large state-umbrella, capped with a silver elephant carrying in trunk a sword. He presently received one sent, at my request, by Mr. Irvine.

Amongst the elders were scattered small boys, relations of the headmen.

They were all eyes and ears, and in Fanti-land they are formally trained to make the best of spies. When you see a lad lounging about or quietly dozing within ear-shot you know at once his mission.

The notable parts of the suite were the swordbearers and the band. The former carried five _afa_, peculiar weapons, emblems of royalty. The blades are licked when swearing; they are despatched with messengers as a hint to enforce obedience; and they are held, after a fas.h.i.+on, to be holy.

I have never seen more conventional, distorted, and useless weapons. Three blades showed the usual chopping-bill shape, pierced, like fish-slicers, with round, semicircular, and angular holes. One, measuring twenty-three inches and three-quarters, was leaf-formed, dotted with a lozenge-pattern and set with copper studs. Another was partially saw-toothed. All were of iron, rusty with the rust of years and hardly sharp enough to cut a pat of b.u.t.ter. The impossible handles were worthy of the blades, bulging grips between two huge b.a.l.l.s utterly unfitted for handling; four were covered with thin gold-plate in _repousse_ work, and one with silver. The metal was sewn together with thin wire, and the joints had been hammered to hide them. Cameron sketched them for my coming 'Book of the Sword;' and Ahin Blay kept his promise by sending me a specimen of the weapon with two divergent blades used to cut off noses and ears. Bowdich [Footnote: _Mission_, &c., p. 312] mentions finely-worked double blades springing parallel from a single handle; here nothing was known about them.

The band consisted of two horns and three drums. Of the latter one was sheathed in leopard-skin and rubbed, not struck, with two curved sticks. A second was hourgla.s.s-shaped; the sticks were bent to right angles, and the drummer carried, by way of cymbal, a small round iron plate adjusted to the fingers with little rings loosely set in the edge. The horns were scrivelloes, elephant-tusks of small size. At times a horrid braying denoted the royal t.i.tles, and after every blast the liege lord responded mechanically, 'Kwamina Blay! atinasu marrah' (Monday Blay! here am I).

Interviews with African 'kings' consist mainly of compliments, 'dashes'

(presents or heave-offerings), and what is popularly called 'liquoring up.' Gifts are a sign of affection; hence the proverb, 'If anyone loves you he will beg of you.' Money, however, is considered pay; curiosities are presents, and drink is 'dash.' The 'drinkit.i.te' these men develope is surprising; they swallow almost without interval beer and claret, champagne and shandigaff, cognac, whisky, and _liqueurs_. Trade-gin, [Footnote: This article is made at Hamburg by many houses; the best brand is held to be that of Van Heyten, and the natives are particular about it.

The prime cost of a dozen-case, each bottle containing about a quart, fitted with wooden divisions and packed with husks, chaff, or sawdust, is 3_s_. 6_d_.; in retail it is sold for 6_s_., or 6_d_. per bottle. Strange to say, it has the flavour of good hollands. The latter, however, in small bottles is always to be bought on the Gold Coast, and can be drunk with safety.] being despised, is turned over to the followers. Before entering upon this time-wasting process I persuaded the Ahin and _panins_ to sign the doc.u.ment enabling me formally to take possession of the 'Izrah Mine.'

The paper was duly attested and witnessed; and the visit ended with a royal 'progress' to the fort, where the District-commissioner did the rest of the needful.

Next day the King made a friendly call without basket or band. His c.o.c.ked hat was exchanged for a chimney-pot so 'shocking bad' that no coster would dare to don it. Such is the custom of the chiefs, and if you give them a good tile it goes at once into store. He made us promise a return-visit and set out to collect bearers.

Hereabouts a week is as a day. Whilst carriage was collecting we inspected the neighbourhood of Axim. Our first visit was to Bobowusua island, a 'fetish place for palavers,' where the natives object to guns being fired.

Here it was that Admiral van Ruyter built his battery of twelve cannons and forced Fort Santo Antonio to surrender on January 19, 1642. The rock is of trap, greenstone, or whinstone, which miners call iron-stone and Cornishmen 'blue elvan:' this diorite, composed of felspar and the hardest hornblende, contains granular iron and pyrites like silver. Some specimens are beautifully banded in onyx-fas.h.i.+on and revetted with 'spar' (quartz) of many colours, dead-white and crystalline, red and yellow. We find the same trap on the mainland. Near the smaller Akinim or Salt-pond village there is a ma.s.s threaded with quartz-veins from north to south (1 30'), bossed by granite d.y.k.es [Footnote: It is generally believed that these granite injections have been cooled and consolidated deep below earth's surface.] trending east-west (96 50'), and traversed by a burnt vein striking 67. From the surf-boat we remarked that there were no sharks; apparently they shun coming within the reefs. Our landing was not pleasant for the Krumen; the shallow bottom was strewed with rounded pebbles, and the latter are studded with sharp limpets and corallines. We climbed round the seaward bluff, fissured with deep narrow clefts, up which the tide-waves race and roar. Here the trap has a ruddy hue, the salt water bringing out the iron. Corallines, now several feet above water, clothed the boulders. This, corroborated by a host of other phenomena, argues a secular upheaval of the island, and we find the same on the mainland.

There were fragments of grey granite, but not _in situ_; all had been washed from the continent, where it outlies all other formations.

Water-rolled bits of brickstone also appeared; and hence, probably, Dr.

Oscar Lenz [Footnote: _Geolog. Karte von West-Africa_. Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1882.] makes Axim and the neighbourhood consist of _rother Sandstein_ upon laterite.

Bobowusua is a cabinet of natural history. The northern flank is ever wet with dew and spray; the southern shows a little dry earth and sand. The latter in this and in other parts of the islet is a medley of comminuted sh.e.l.ls. We collected cowries of four kinds, large and small, crabs and balani, lobsters and sea-urchins (_erinacei_) with short spines; diminutive rock-oysters and a large variety with iridescent mother-o'-pearl, pink, red and yellow. The latter yields a white seed-pearl, and here, perhaps, we might attempt to develope it into

That great round glory of pellucid stuff, A fish secreted round a grain of grit.

A single snake-slough and an eight-ribbed turtle were found. The short, sandy neck of the eastern k.n.o.b is a playground for 'parson-crows' and scavengers (turkey-buzzards); hawks, kites, and fish-eagles, white and black, while the adjacent reefs are frequented by gulls, terns, and small cranes.

Above the rock-line is a selvage of low vegetation--ipom[oe]a, white and mauve-flowered; rushes and tangle-gra.s.s, a variety of salsolaceae, and the cyperus, whose stalk is used like the _kalam_, or reed-pen, further east.

These growths are filmed with spiders' webs, whose central shafts lead to their nests. The highest levels, only a few feet above water, are grown with a dense bush that wants the matchet. Here are remains of plantations, a little knot of bananas, a single tall cocoanut, many young palms, and a few felled trunks overgrown with oysters. Europeans have proposed to build bungalows on Bobowusua, where they find fresh sea-air, and a little shooting among the red-breasted ring-doves, rails, and green pigeons affecting the vegetation. It appears to us a good place for mooring hulks.

The steamers could then run alongside of them and discharge cargo for the coming tramway, while surf-boats carrying two or three tons could load for the Ancobra River.

The eastern or inner continuation of Bobowusua is Poke islet, a similar but smaller block. During spring-tides they are linked together and to the sh.o.r.e by reefs that stand up high and dry. Poke is the rock where, according to Barbot, 'the negroes put their wives and children when they go to war.' The tradition is that the Dutch mined it for silver. The metal is known to exist in several places on and behind the coast, at Bosumato, upon the Ancobra River south of 'Akankon,' and even at k.u.masi. Besides, gold has not yet been found here unalloyed with silver.

I was fortunate in collecting from this part of Africa stone-implements before unknown to Europe. My lamented friend Winwood Reade, [Footnote: _The Story of the Ashantee Campaign_ (pp. 2-4 and 314). London, Smith and Elder, 1874.] one of those

Peculiar people whom death _has_ made dear,

was the first to bring them home from the eastern regions, Akwapim (Aquapim), Prahsu, and the Volta River. Arrived at Axim, I nailed to the walls of our sitting-room a rough print showing the faces and profiles of worked stones. The result was a fair supply from the coast both up and down till I had secured thirteen. [Footnote: I read a paper upon these stone-implements (July 11, 1882) before the Anthropological Society at the house of my friend, the President, General A. Pitt-Rivers; and made over to him my small stock. It will find a home at Oxford, with the rest of his n.o.ble anthropological collection, lately presented to the University.] All were of the neolithic or ground type; the palaeolithic or chipped was wholly absent, and so were weapons proper, arrowpiles and spear-points.

Mr. Carr, the able and intelligent agent of Messieurs Swanzy, brought me sundry pieces and furnished me with the following notes. The 'belemnites'

are picked up at the stream-mouths after freshets; but the people, like all others, call them 'lightning-stones' (_osraman-bo_) or _abonua_, simply axe. They suppose the _ceraunius_ to fall with the bolt, to sink deep in the earth, and to rise to the surface in process of time. The idea is easily explained. All are comparatively modern, and consequently thinly covered with earth's upper crust; this is easily washed away by heavy rains; and, as thunder and lightning accompany the downfalls, the stones are supposed to be the result.

The _osraman-bo_ are used in medicine; they 'cool the heart;' and water in which they are steeped, when given to children, mitigates juvenile complaints. One of my collections owes its black colour to having been boiled in palm-oil by way of preserving its virtues; it resembles the _basanos_ of Lydian Tmolus; but the Gold Coast touchstone is mostly a dark jasper imported from Europe. The substance of the thunder-stone is the greenstone-trap everywhere abundant, and taking with age a creamy patina like the basalt of the Hauran. I heard, however, that at Abusi, beyond Anamabo (Bird-rock), and other places further east worked stones of a lightish slaty hue are common. About New Town and a.s.sini these implements become very plentiful. Mr. S. Cheetham informs me that the thinner hatchets, somewhat finger-shaped, are copied in iron by the peoples of the Benin River. These expert smiths buy poor European metal and, like other West Africans, turn out a first-rate tool.

Axim seems to have been a great centre of stone-manufacture. Mr. Carr showed us a dozen huge boulders of greenstone, chiefly at the eastern angle of the wart that bears, in dangerous proximity to his stores, his powder-magazine. The upper surfaces are scored and striped with leaf-shaped grooves, formed like old Greek swords; some of them are three feet long by three inches wide and three deep. I made a sketch of the place; Cameron photographed it, and on return carried off a huge slice of the block, which is now in the British Museum. We afterwards found these striated stones on the sea-ward face of St. Anthony Fort, in northern Axim, and on other parts of the seaboard.

Axim, the gate of this El Dorado, has not yet much reason to thank England for ruling her. A mean economy annually h.o.a.rds from 20,000_l_. to 30,000_l_, [Footnote: In 1878 the revenue was 105,091_l_. and the expenditure 68,410_l_., and in other years the contrast was even greater.

The omniscient 'Whittaker' tells us that in 1879 the figures stood at 54,908_l_. income versus an outlay of 46,281_l_.; and there was no debt.]

forwarded to the colonial _caisse_, to be wasted upon 'little wars,' and similar miseries, instead of being spent upon local improvements. The unwholesome bush (the Dutch 'bosch') or wood, backed by the primaeval forest, surges up to the very doors. The little plank-bridges are out of repair, and the merchants will not supply the Government with new boards, save for ready money; otherwise payment may be delayed for a year. The highway to head-quarters, Cape Coast Castle, is a yellow thread streaking the green, a hunter's path trodden in the jungle. For 16_s_. 6_d_. a private messenger goes to and returns from the capital, a distance of eighty-two miles, in four or five days. The public post starts on Wednesdays, halts without reason between Fridays and Mondays at Sekondi (Seecondee), and consumes a week in the down-march. I have already noted the want of sanitation, the condition of the ammunition, and the absence of medical stores. It moves one's sense of the absurd to compare the desolate condition of the Goldland, which is to supply the money, with the civilised machinery in England which is to work it, companies and syndicates, shares, debentures, and what not.

I have treated the subject of Axim with a minuteness that is almost 'porochial;' its future importance must be my excuse. The next chapter will show that we are truly in the Land of Gold, in an Old New California.

And now to conclude this unpleasant account with the good words of old Barbot: 'Axim, in my opinion, is the most tempting of any on the coast of _Guinea_, taking one thing with another. You have there a perpetual greenness, which affords a comfortable shade against the scorching heat of the sun, under the lofty palm and other trees, planted about the village, with a sweet harmony of many birds of several sorts perching on them. The walk on the low flat strand along the seaside is no less pleasant at certain hours of the day; and from the platform of the fort is a most delightful prospect of the ocean and the many rocks and small islands about it.'

CHAPTER XVI.

GOLD ABOUT AXIM, ESPECIALLY AT THE APATIM OR BUJIa CONCESSION.

Any one who has eyes to see can a.s.sure himself that Axim is the threshold of the Gold-region. It abounds in diorite, a rock usually a.s.sociated with the best paying lodes. After heavy showers the naked eye can note spangles of the precious metal in the street-roads. You can pan it out of the wall-swish. The little stream-beds, bone-dry throughout the hot season, roll down, during the rains, a quant.i.ty of dark arenaceous matter, like that of Taranaki, New Zealand, and the 'black sand' of Australia, which collects near the sea in stripes and patches. The people believe that without it gold never occurs; and, if they collect the common yellow sand, it is to extract from it the darker material. If the stuff does not answer the magnet, it is probably schorl (tourmaline), hornblende, or dark quartz. Strangers have often mistaken this emery-like rock for tin, which occurs abundantly in the northern region. It is simply t.i.taniferous iron, iserine, pleonaste, ilmenite [Footnote: Or peroxide of iron, with 8 to 23 per cent, of blue oxide of t.i.tanium.] and degraded itabirite, the iron and quartz formation so called in the Brazil; and it is the same mineral which I found so general throughout the gold and silver fields of neglected Midian. It is found striating white sandstone about Takwa and other places in the interior. The surface-stone is decomposed by the oxide of iron, and thus the precious dust with its ingrained gold is dissolved and separated from it. At a greater depth the itabirite will be found solid; and the occurrence of these oldest crystalline formations in large layers is a hopeful sign. When Colonel Bolton was interested in the Gold Coast diggings I advised him to send for a few tons of this metal, and to test it as 'pay-dirt.' A barrelful was forwarded from the coast to the Akankon Company: it was probably thrown away without experiment.

At Axim, as at Cape Coast Castle and other parts of the sh.o.r.e, women may be seen gold-gathering even on the sea-sands. They rarely wash more than 40 lbs., or a maximum of 50 lbs., per diem; and they strike work if they do not make daily half a dollar (2_s_. 3_d_.) to two dollars. They have nests of wooden platters for pans, the oldest and rudest of all mechanical appliances. The largest, two feet in diameter, are used for rough work in the usual way with a peculiar turn of the wrist. The smallest are stained black inside, to show the colour of gold; and the finer was.h.i.+ngs are carried home to be worked at leisure during the night. This is peculiarly women's work, and some are well known to be better panners than others; they refuse to use salt-water, because, they say, it will not draw out the gold.

The whole land is impregnated with the precious metal. I find it richer in sedimentary gold than California was in 1859. Immediately behind the main square of Axim a bank of red clay leads eastward to a shallow depression, the old valley of the Besaon, a swamp during the rains backed by rising and forested ground to the east. On the inland versant a narrow native shaft has been sunk for gold by Mr. Sam, now native agent under Mr.

Crocker. We pounded and panned the rock, which yielded about twopence per 2 lbs., or one ounce to the ton. Observing its strike, we concluded that it must extend through Mr. Irvine's property. Throughout the Gold Coast auriferous reefs ran north-south, with easting rather than westing; the deviation varies from 5 west to 15-22 east; and I have heard of, but not seen, a strike of north-east (45) to south-west. This confirms the 'meridional hypothesis' of Professor Sedgwick, who stated, 'As some of the great physical agencies of the earth are meridional, these agencies may probably, in a way we do not comprehend, have influenced the deposit of metals on certain lines of bearing.' We may also observe that all the great mineral chains of the old and new world are meridional rather than longitudinal, striking from north-east to south-west. The geologist's theory, combined with the knowledge that the n.o.ble metal is 'chiefly found among palaeozoic rocks of a quartzose type,' is practically valuable on the Gold Coast. Every mound or hillock of red clay contains one or more quartz-reefs, generally outcropping, but sometimes buried in the subsoils.

They can always be struck by a cross-cut trending east-west. The dip is exceedingly irregular: some lodes are almost vertical, and others quasi-horizontal.

We now take the main road leading to the Ancobra. After crossing the fetid Besaon by its ricketty bridge of planks, we find on the right hand, facing Messieurs Swanzy's, a fine bit of rising ground, which I shall call, after its proprietor, 'Mount Irvine.' Over the southern slope runs a cleared highway, which presently becomes a 'bush-path;' it is named the 'Dudley Road,' after an energetic District-commissioner. This is the first Takwa line, whose length is described to be about fifty miles, or four days'

slow journey for laden porters. Mr. Gillett, who had covered twenty-six (sixteen?) miles of it, describes the path as unbroken by swamps or streams. Further north, according to the many native guides whom I questioned, travellers pa.s.s two rivulets, and finally they are ferried over the Abonsa, or Takwa River. The second road follows closely the left bank of the Ancobra: it is used by the Hausa soldiers, but only in the heart of the Dries, and it must be impa.s.sable during the Rains. Dr. J.

Africa.n.u.s B. Horton, who contributes to a characteristic paper, [Footnote: The _African Times_, January 2, 1882. The paper is full of inaccuracies; it begins by placing Tomento (Tumento) ninety-five miles (for thirty) along the river-course from the mouth, and he makes steam-launches 'take from two to four days (say one) to go up to it.'] has never heard of the former when he says 'from Axim to Taquah (Takwa) there is no direct route,' and he justly deprecates the latter. But he cries up the Bushua or Dixcove-Takwa line, upon which he has large concessions. I shall return to this subject in a future chapter.

On the north side of Mount Irvine is a second nullah, the Eswa, which flows, like the Besaon, through the dense growth of bush covering the eastern uplands. A few minutes' walk along the right bank leads to a broadening of the bed, a swamp during the Rains and a field of cereals in the Dries. Thence we plunge into the jungle, and after a couple of hundred yards come upon signs of mining. In the Eswa bed, where the gulch is choked by two mounds or hillocks, appear the usual 'women's was.h.i.+ngs,'

shallow pits like the Brazilian _catas_, whence the pay-dirt has been extracted. On the right bank, subtending the bed, their husbands have sunk the usual chimney-hole to scratch quartz from the bounding-wall of the reef. These rude beginnings of shafts reach a depth of 82 feet, and perhaps more. All are round, like the circular hut of the African savage; similarly in Australia the first pits were circular or oval. They are descended in sweep-fas.h.i.+on by means of foot-holes, and they are just large enough for a man to sit in and use his diminutive tool. The quartz is sent up to gra.s.s by a basket, and carried to the hut. After a preliminary roasting, the old custom of Egypt, it is broken into little bits and made over to the women, who grind it down upon the cankey-stone which serves to make the daily bread. In some parts of Africa this is men's work, and it is always done at night, with much jollity and carousing.

I named this place the 'Axim Reef.' It had been taken by Dr. J. Ogilby Ross, formerly district medical officer, Axim, and now preparing to explore the regions behind the Ancobra sources. He allowed, however, his prospecting term to elapse, and thus it has been secured by Mr. Grant for Mr. J. Irvine. It taught us three valuable lessons.

1. Wherever _catas_, or 'women's was.h.i.+ngs,' are found, we can profitably apply the hydraulic system of sluicing and fluming not by an upper reservoir only, but also from below by a force-pump. Water is procurable at all seasons by means of Norton's Abyssinian tubes, [Footnote: The Egyptian campaigners seem to have thought of these valuable articles somewhat late in the day. Yet two years ago I saw one working at Alexandria.] and the brook-beds, dammed above and below, will form perennial tanks. I am surprised that English miners on the Gold Coast have not borrowed this valuable hint to wash from the people who have practised it since time immemorial. Wherever we read, as on Mr. Wyatt's map, 'Gold-dust found in all these streams;' 'Natives dive for gold in the dry,' and 'Old gold-shafts all along this track,' we should think of 'hydraulicking.'

2. The natives, here and elsewhere, prospect for and work the bank-reefs after the subtending gutter-bed has proved auriferous. There is, however, no connection between the two, and the precious metal in the subsoil is either swept down by the floods or washed out of the sides, as we shall see on the Ancobra River.