To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 7

Life at Arabokasu was pleasant enough. The site, rising about 120 feet above ocean-level, permits the 'Doctor,' alias the sea-breeze, to blow freshly, and we distinctly heard the sough of the surf. Mornings and evenings were exceedingly fine, and during the cool nights we found blankets advisable. These 'small countries' (little villages) are remarkably clean, and so are the villagers, who, unlike certain white-skins, bathe at least once a day. At this season we had nothing to complain of mosquitoes or sand-flies, nor was 'Insektenpulver' wanted inside the house. The only physiological curiosity in the settlement was a spotted boy, a regular piebald, like a circus-pony; even his head grew a triangular patch of white hair. We wanted him for the London Aquarium, but there were difficulties in the way. Amongst the Apollonians albinoes are not uncommon; nor are the children put to death, as by the Ashantis. Both races cut the boss from hunchbacks after decease, and 'make fetish' over it to free the future family from similar distortion. Our villagers told us strange tales of a magician near a.s.sini who can decapitate a man and restore him to life, and who lately had placed a dog's head on a boy's body. Who can 'doubt the fact'? the boy was there!

I will now borrow freely from the diary kept during our five days'

inspection of the Izrah diggings. Cameron worked hard at a rough survey of the ground which Mr. Walker had attempted with considerable success, seeing that he carried only a pedometer and a small pocket-compa.s.s. My proceedings were necessarily limited, as I had no authority to disburse money.

_February 3_.--The night had been somewhat noisy with the hyena-like screams which startled our soldiers _en route_ to k.u.masi. They are said to proceed from a kind of hyrax (?) about the size of a rabbit; the Krumen call it a 'bush-dog', and, as will appear, Cameron holds it to be a lemur.

The morning was cool, but not clear, and the country so far like the 'Garden of Eden' that there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. But the mist was a Scotch mist, which, in less humid lands, might easily pa.s.s for fine rain; and the drip, drip, drip of heavy dew-drops from the broad banana-leaves sounded like a sharp shower.

At this hour the birds are wide awake and hungry; a hundred unknown songsters warble their native wood-notes wild. The bush resounds with the shriek of the parrot and the cooing of the ringdove, which reminds me of the Ku-ku-ku (Where, oh, where?) of Umar-i-Khayyam. Its rival is the _tsil-fui-fui-fui_, or 'hair grown,' meaning that his locks are too long and there is no one to cut or shave them. Upon the nearest tall tree, making a spiteful noise to frighten away all specimens, sits the 'watch-bird,' or _apateplu_, so called from his cry; he is wary and cunning, but we bagged two. The 'clock-bird,' supposed to toll every hour, has a voice which unites the bark of a dog, the caw of a crow, and the croak of a frog: he is rarely seen and even cleverer than 'hair grown.'

More familiar sounds are the _roucoulement_ of the pigeon and the tapping of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small bush-antelope with black robe, of which a specimen was brought home, and the only accident was the stinging of a Kruboy by a spider more spiteful than a scorpion.

Reaching the ground after a ten minutes' walk, we examined the princ.i.p.al reef as carefully as we could. The strike is nearly north-south, the dip easterly, and the thickness unknown. The trial-shaft, sunk by Mr. Walker in the centre of the southern line, was of considerable size, eight by twelve feet; and the depth measured thirty, of which four held water based upon clay-mud. The original native shafts to the south are of two kinds, the indigenous chimney-pit and the parallelogram-shaped well borrowed from Europeans. The latter varied in dimensions from mere holes to oblongs six by seven feet; and all the more important were roofed and thatched with pent-houses of palm-leaf, to keep out the rain. The shaft-timbering, also a loan from foreigners, consisted of perpendicular bamboo-fronds tied with bush-rope to a frame of poles cut from small trees; they corresponded with our sets and laths. There were rude ladders, but useful enough, two bamboos connected by rungs of 'tie-tie.' The 'sollars' were shaky platforms of branches, but there was no sign of a winch.

We set Krumen and porters to clear and lay out the southern boundary, and to open a path leading direct to the beach. One would fancy that nothing is easier than to cut bush in a straight line from pole to pole, especially when these were marked by strips of red calico. Yet the moment our backs were turned the wrong direction was taken. It pains one's heart to see the s.h.i.+rking of work, the slipping away into the bush for a sleep, and the roasting of maize and palm-nuts--'ground-pigs' fare,' they call the latter--whenever an opportunity occurs. The dawdling walk and the dragging of one leg after the other, with intervals to stand and scratch, are a caution. Even the villagers appear incapable of protracted labour unless it leads immediately to their benefit, and the future never claims a thought.

_February 4_.--After the south-eastern corner had been marked with a tall cross, we opened a path from Arabokasu to the trial-shaft. We threw a bridge of the felled trunks c.u.mbering the clearing over the Fia rivulet, and again examined its bed. Gold had been found in it by the women, and this, as usual, gave rise to the discovery of its subtending reef. The whole of the little river-valley extending to the sea should be bought and worked; there is no doubt that it will turn out rich. In the channel we found an outcrop of slates, both crumbling and compact; this is always a welcome sign. To the east of the water there is a second quartz-reef, running parallel with the upper ridge, and apparently untouched by the pick.

The next two days were spent in finis.h.i.+ng the southern line and in planting a post at the south-western extremity. Here we found that our workmen had gone entirely wrong, and we were forced to repeat the work. I had exposed myself over-freely to the sun, and could do little for the next week: fortunately my energetic companion was in better condition.

_February 7_.--Cameron took bearings from the south of the concession, which he placed, with Mr. Walker, four geographical miles from the sea.

Other informants had exaggerated it to him, and M. Dahse writes six. After 1,000 to 1,200 yards he struck the 'false coast,' crossed a deep and fetid swamp, and, after a short rise, came upon the miry borders of the Eb.u.mesu.

He canoed 800 yards down-stream without difficulty; and, finding the water brackish while the ebb-tide ran strong, he considered that this part was rather a lagoon than a river. The people also a.s.sured us that it runs along the coast, ending near and north of the Bein Fort-village.

In the evening my companion and Mr. Grant walked to the north-west of the concession; the place is called by Mr. Walker Izia-bookah (Izia Hill), but the natives ignore the term. Here, at a distance of 900 yards north and by west (true) of the Arabokasu village, they found and collected specimens of a fine reef of hard white quartz. 'Women's was.h.i.+ngs' were numerous, showing the proper way to begin working the ground. The right of prospecting the whole of the section to the N.E. had been secured by Mr.

Walker for Mr. Irvine, and presently the 'Apollonian concession' appeared in the mining journals.

We had now done all we could; the circ.u.mstances of the case compelled us to study the geology and topography of the property rather than its geology and mineralogy. Nothing now remained save to _rebrousser chemin_.

Good King Blay, who had formally made over to me possession of the 'Izrah'

mine, left us for his own village, in order to cure an inflamed foot. He attributed it to the 'fetish' of some unfriend; but it turned out to be Guinea-worm, a malady from which many are suffering this season. We parted upon the most friendly terms and arranged to meet again.

Both of us came to the conviction that the 'Izrah Concession' will pay, and pay well. But instead of the routine shafting and tunnelling it must be treated by hydraulicking and was.h.i.+ng away the thirty feet of auriferous soil, whose depth covers the reef. The bed of the Fia will supply the water, and a force-pump, worked by men, or preferably by steam-power. Thus we shall keep the mine dry: otherwise it will be constantly flooded.

Moreover, the land seems to be built for ditching and sluicing, and the trenches will want only a plank-box with a metal grating at the head. I can only hope that the operations will be conducted by an expert hand who knows something of the Californian or the Australian diggings.

On February 8 we left Arabokasu, intending to march upon the 'Inyoko Concession.' Our guide and people, however, seemed to change every five minutes what they might call their 'minds,' and at last they settled to try the worst, but to us the most interesting line. At 8 A.M. we struck into the bush _via_ a heap of huts, the 'Matinga' village, at the south-eastern corner of the fine mineral property. Here 'women's was.h.i.+ngs'

again appeared. At the Achyako settlement we crossed the two branches of the Fia. One measures twenty feet wide and two feet six inches deep in the dry season; it runs a knot an hour, and thus the supply is ample. About a mile further on we were carried across the Gwabisa stream, four feet wide by eighteen inches deep, running over a bed of quartz-pebbles. This ended the 'true coast.'

The 'false coast' began close to the little settlement known as Ashankru.

It shows a fine quartz-reef, striking north fourteen degrees east. The formation was shown by the normal savannah and jungle-strips. About noon we were ferried over the eastern arm of the Eb.u.mesu, known as the Papa. I have noted scanty belief in the bar of the Eb.u.mesu proper, the western feature. The eastern entrance, however, perhaps can be used between the end of December and March, and in calm weather would offer little difficulty to the surfboats trans.h.i.+pping machinery from the steamers.

Beginning a little east of the Esyamo village, the Papa lagoon subtends the coast. We shot over it in the evening, and at night found quarters at the Ezrimenu village marked Ebu-mesu in old maps.

This return march of two hours or so had been a mere abomination. The path, which had not been cleared, led through a tangle of foul and fetid thicket, upon which the sun darted a sickly, malignant beam. Creepers and llianas, some of which are spiny and poisonous, barred the thread of path, which could not be used for hammocks. The several stream-beds, about to prove so precious, run chocolate-tinted water over vegetable mire, rich, when stirred, in sulphuretted hydrogen. The only bridges are fallen trunks. Amongst the minor pests are the _nkran_, or 'driver,' the _ahoho_, a highly-savoured red ant, and the _hahinni_, a large black formica terribly graveolent; flies like the tzetze, centipedes, scorpions, and venomous spiders, which make men 'writhe like cut worms.' There was a weary uniformity in the closed view, and the sole breaks were an occasional plantation or a few pauper huts, with auriferous swish, buried in that eternal green.

G.o.d made the country and man made the town,

sang the silly sage, who evidently had never seen a region untouched by the human hand. Finally, this 'Fia route' will probably become the main line from Axim to the Izrah mine, and the face of the country will be changed within a year.

As I was still weak Cameron and Mr. Grant early next morning (Feb. 9) canoed over the 300 yards or so of the Papa lagoon bounding Ezrimenu village on the 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 Kwako Akka, the tyrant of Apollonia, 'rich in blood and ore,' who was deposed by the British Colonial Government about 1850, and was imprisoned in Cape Coast Castle, is said to have obtained from it much of his wealth.

They found the strike of the hill approximately north 22 east (true); [Footnote: In laying down limits great attention must be paid to variation. As a rule 19 45' west has been a.s.sumed from the Admiralty charts--good news for the London attorney. At Tumento this figure rises to 20; upon the coast it must be changed to 19 15' (W.), and in other places to 16 40'.] the dip appears to be easterly, and the natives have worked the _Abbruch_ or _debris_ which have fallen from the reef-crest.

This wall may be a continuation of the Akankon formation; both are rich in a highly crystalline quartz of livid blue, 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 was.h.i.+ng-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 was.h.i.+ng 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_ Etie, 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 50_l_. 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 fetis.h.i.+sm and human sacrifices? To the writer's mind there is but one method, and that one by an appeal to man's most ign.o.ble pa.s.sion--the l.u.s.t 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 was.h.i.+ng the sand at Cape Coast and finding gold. When Captain Thompson visited the Wa.s.saw (Wasa) country, he found the roads impa.s.sable 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 Wa.s.saw 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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER XIX.

TO PRINCE'S RIVER AND BACK.

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 s.h.i.+lling a day each. They are the life of the fis.h.i.+ng 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. Pa.s.sing the long black tongue of Prepre, or Inkubun, and the red projection, Ponta Terceira, we sighted the important Ajamera village, so called from a tree whose young leaves show a tender pinkish-red. On the Awazan Boppo Hill, about two miles from the trial-shaft of his concession, Dr. Ross found a native 'Long Tom.' It was a hollowed palm-trunk rotten with age, closed at one end and open at the other, with a slant downwards; two forks supported it over a water-filled hollow, measuring ten feet each way by three deep. Ajamera lies a little west of the peninsula, _Africanice_ Madrektanah, a jutting ma.s.s of naked granite glazed red by sea-water: on either side of the sandy neck, pinned down, like Pirate's Bay, by cocoa-nuts, there is the safest landing-place.

And now we sight our port, distant some nine miles from Axim.

In front rises Prince's Hill, clad in undergrowth with a topping tuft of tall figs. At its eastern base lies the townlet, showing more whitewash than usual; and, nearer still, the narrow mouth of the fiery little Yenna, Prince's or St. John's River. The view is backed by the tall and wooded ridge of Cape Threepoints, the southernmost headland of the Gold Coast, behind which is Dixcove. It is interesting to us because a syndicate has been formed, and engineers are being sent out to survey the pathless 'bush' between the sea and Tumento on the Ancobra, whose site was at the time unknown. Cameron presently discovered that the Takwa ridge is nearer Axim than Dixcove is, and that the line would pa.s.s within easy distance of Kinyanko, one of its _raisons d'etre_.

This wild plan has been supported by sundry concessionists whose interests lie behind Dixcove and at Kinyanko. Dixcove of the crocodile-wors.h.i.+p has one of the worst bars on the coast. Canoes and surf-boats must run within biscuit-throw of the Rock k.u.m-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 'b.u.t.te,' 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 'was.h.i.+ng' 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 sh.o.r.ewards, 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 fas.h.i.+on, _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, Eshanchi, _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, Wafapa, _alias_ 'Barnabas,' a stout, active freedman of the village, proved very useful.