To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 10

The routine-day would be as follows: At 5.15 A.M. first bell, and notice to 'turn out;' at 5.40 the 'little breakfast' of tea or coffee, bread-and-b.u.t.ter, or toast, ham and eggs. The five working-hours of morning (6-11 A.M.) to be followed by a substantial _dejeuner a la fourchette_ at 11.30. Each would have a pint of beer or claret, and be allowed one bottle of whisky a week. Mr. Ross, the miner, preferred breakfast at 8 A.M., dinner at 1 P.M., and 'tea' at 5 P.M.; but these hours leave scant room for work.

The warning-bell, at 12.45 P.M., after 1 hr. 45 min. rest, would prepare the men to fall in, and return to work at 1 P.M.; and the afternoon-spell would last till 5.30. Thus the working-day contains 9 hrs. 30 min. Dinner would be served at any time after 6 P.M., and the allowance of liquor be that of the breakfast. An occasional holiday to Axim should be allowed, in order to correct the monotony of jungle-life.

CHAPTER XXI.

TO TUMENTO, THE 'GREAT CENTRAL DEPoT.'

March 4 was a sore trial to us both. We 'went down' on the same day and by our own fault. We had given the sorely-abused climate no chance; nor have we any right to abuse it instead of blaming ourselves. The stranger should begin work quietly in these regions; living, if possible, near the coast and gradually increasing his exercise and exposure. Within three months, especially if he be lucky enough to pa.s.s through a mild 'seasoning' of ague and fever, he becomes 'acclimatised,' the consecrated term for a European shorn of his redundant health, strength, and vigour.

Medical men warn new comers, and for years we had read their warnings, against the 'exhaustion of the physical powers of the body from over-exertion.' They prescribe gentle const.i.tutionals to men whose hours must do the work of days. It is like ordering a pauper-patient generous diet in the shape of port and beef-steaks; for the safe system, which takes a quarter of a year, would have swallowed up all our time.

Consequently we worked too hard. Our mornings and evenings were spent in collecting, and our days in boating, or in walking instead of hammocking.

Indeed, we placed, by way of derision, the Krumen in the fas.h.i.+onable vehicle. And we had been too confident in our past 'seasoning;' we had neglected such simple precautions as morning and evening fires and mosquito-bars at night; finally, we had exposed ourselves somewhat recklessly to sickly sun and sweltering swamp. Four days on the burning hill-side completed the work. My companion was prostrated by a bilious attack, I by ague and fever.

'I thought you were at least fever-proof,' says the candid friend, as if one had compromised oneself.

Alas! no: a man is not fever-proof in Africa till he takes permanent possession of his little landed estate. Happily we had our remedies at hand. There was no medico within hail; and, had there been, we should have hesitated to call him in. These gentlemen are Government servants, who add to their official salaries (400_l._ per annum) by private practice. For five visits to a sick Kruboy six guineas have been charged; 5_l._ for tapping a liver and sending two draughts and a box of pills, and 37_l._ 10_s._ for treating a mild tertian which lasted a week. The late M. Bonnat cost 80_l._ for a fortnight. Such fees should attract a host of talented young pract.i.tioners from England; at any rate they suggest that each mine or group of mines should carry its own surgeon.

Cameron applied himself diligently to chlorodyne, one of the two invaluables on the Coast. We had a large store, but unfortunately the natives have learnt its intoxicating properties, and during our absence from Axim many bottles had disappeared. I need hardly say that good locks and keys are prime necessaries in these lands, and that they are mostly 'found wanting.'

I addrest myself to Warburg's drops (_Tinctura Warburgii_), a preparation invaluable for travellers in the tropics and in the lower temperates. The action appears to be chiefly on the liver through the skin. The more a traveller sees, the firmer becomes his conviction that health means the good condition of this rebellious viscus, and that its derangement causes the two great pests of Africa, dysentery and fever. Indeed, he is apt to become superst.i.tious upon the subject, and to believe that a host of diseases--gout and rheumatism, cholera and enteric complaints--result from, and are to be cured or relieved only by subduing, hepatic disturbances. My 'Warburg' was procured directly from the inventor, not from the common chemist, who makes the little phialful for 9_d._ and sells it for 4_s._ 6_d_. Some years ago a distinguished medical friend persuaded Dr. Warburg, once of Vienna, now of London, to reveal his secret, in the forlorn hope of a liberal remuneration by the Home Government. Needless to say the reward is to come. I first learnt to appreciate this specific at Zanzibar in 1856, where Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton used it successfully in the most dangerous remittents and marsh-fevers. Cases of the febrifuge were sent out to the Coast during the Ashanti war for the benefit of army and navy: the latter, they say, made extensive use of it. I have persistently recommended it to my friends and the public; and, before leaving England in 1879, I wrote to the 'Times,' proposing that all who owe (like myself) their lives to Dr. Warburg should join in relieving his straitened means by a small subscription. At this moment (June 1882) measures are being taken in favour of the inventor, and I can only hope that the result will be favourable.

The 'drops' are composed of the aromatic, sudorific and diaph.o.r.etic drugs used as febrifuges by the faculty before the days of 'Jesuits' bark,' to which a small quant.i.ty of quinine is added. Thus the tincture is successful in many complaints besides fevers. Evidently skilful manipulation is an important factor in the sum of its success. Dr. Warburg has had the experience of the third of a century, and the authorities could not do better than to give him a contract for making his own cure.

The enemy came on with treacherous gentleness--a slight rigor, a dull pain in the head, and a local irritation. 'I have had dozens of fevers, and dread them little more than a cold,' said Winwood Reade; indeed, the English catarrh is quite as bad as the common marsh-tertian of the Coast.

The normal month of immunity had pa.s.sed; I was prepared for the inevitable ordeal, and I flattered myself that it would be a mild ague, at worst the affair of a week, Altro!

Next morning two white men, owning that they felt 'awful mean,' left Granton, walked down to Riverside House, and at 8 A.M. embarked upon the hapless _Effuenta_. The stream rapidly narrowed, and its aspect became wilder. Dead trees, anch.o.r.ed by the bole-base, c.u.mbered the bed, and d.y.k.es and bars of slate, overlaid by shales of recent date, projected from either side. The land showed no sign of hills, but the banks were steep at this season, in places here and there based on ruddy sand and exposing strips of rude conglomerate, the _cascalho_ of the Brazil. This pudding is composed of waterworn pebbles, bedded in a dark clayey soil which crumbles under the touch. On an arenaceous strip projecting from the western edge the women were was.h.i.+ng and panning where the bottom of the digging was below that of the river. This is an everyday sight on the Ancobra, and it shows what scientific 'hydraulicking' will do. After six hours of steaming, not including three to fill the boiler, we halted at Enframadie, the Fanti Frammanji, meaning 'wind cools,' that is, falls calm. It is a wretched split heap of huts on the left bank, one patch higher pitched than the other, to avoid the floods; the tenements are mere cages, the bush lying close to the walls, and supplies are unprocurable. In fact, the further we go the worse we fare as regards mere lodgings; yet the site of our present halt is a high bank of yellow clay, which suggests better things. There is no reason why this miserable hole should not be made the river-depot.

On March 4 we set out in the 'lizard's sun,' as the people call the morning rays; our vehicle was the surf-boat, escorted by the big canoe.

Enframadie is the terminus of launch-navigation; the snags in the Dries stop the way, and she cannot stem the current of the Rains. The Ancobra now resembles the St. John's or Prince's River in the matter of timber-floorwork and _chevaux de frise_ of tree-corpses disposed in every possible direction. After half an hour we paddled past the 'Devil's Gate,'

a modern name for an old and ugly feature. H.S.M.'s entrance (to home?) is formed by black reefs and ridges projected gridiron-fas.h.i.+on from ledges on either side almost across the stream, leaving a narrow _Thalweg_ so shallow that the boatmen must walk and drag. During the height of the floods it is sometimes covered for a few hours by forty feet of water, rising and falling with perilous continuity.

Beyond 'Devil's Gate' a pleasant surprise awaited us. Mr. D. C. MacLennan, manager of the Effuenta mine, [Footnote: The name was given by M. Dahse; it is that of the first worker, Efuata, a woman born on Sat.u.r.day (_Efua_), and the third of a series of daughters (_ata_).] stopped his canoe to greet us. He was justly proud of his charge--a box of amalgam weighing 15 lbs. and carrying eighty ounces of gold. It was to be retorted at home and to be followed within a fortnight by a larger delivery, and afterwards by monthly remittances. The precious case, which will give courage to so many half-hearted shareholders, was duly embarked on the A.S.S. _Ambriz_ (Captain Crookes); and its successor, containing the produce of a hundred tons, on the B. and A. _Benguela_ (Captain Porter). Consequently the papers declared that Effuenta was first in the field of results. This is by no means the case. As early as November 1881 Mr. W. E. Crocker, of Crockerville, manager of the important Wasa, (Wa.s.saw) mining-property, sent home gold--amalgam, and black sand [Footnote: I have before noticed this 'golden sea-sand.' It has lately been found, the papers tell me, on the coast about Cape Commerell, British Columbia. A handful, taken from a few inches below the surface, shows glittering specks of 'float-gold,'

scales so fine that it was difficult to wash them by machinery. Mem. This is what women do every day on the Gold Coast. The _Colonist_ says that a San Francisco company has at length hit upon the contrivance. It consists of six drawers or layers of plates punched with holes about half an inch in diameter, and covered with amalgam. The gold-sand is 'dumped in;' and the water, turned on the top-plate, sets all in motion: the sand falls from plate to plate, leaving the free loose gold which has attached itself to the amalgam, and very little remains to be caught by the sixth plate.

So simple a process is eminently fitted for the Gold Coast.]--a total of sixty-eight ounces to twenty-five tons.

After an hour's paddling we sighted a few canoes and surf-boats under a raised clay-bank binding the stream on the left. This was Tumento (Tomento), our destination; the word means 'won't go,' as the rock is supposed to say to the water. The aspect of the Ancobra becomes gloomy and menacing. The broad bed shrinks to a ditch, almost overshadowed by its sombre walls of many-hued greens; and the dead tree-trunks of the channel, ghastly white in the dull brown shade, look to the feverish imagination like the skeleton hands and fingers of monstrous spectres outspread to bar thoroughfare.

We landed and walked a few yards to the settlement. A 'Steam-launch'

sounds grandiose, and so does a 'Great Central Depot'--seen on paper. And touching this place I was told a tale. Some time ago two young French employes, a doctor and an engineer, were sent up to the mines, and fell victims to the magical influence of the name. Quoth Jules to Alphonse, 'My friend, we will land; we will call a _fiacre_; we will drive to the local Three Provincial Brothers; we will eat a succulent repast, and then for a few happy hours we will forget Blackland and these ign.o.ble blacks.' So they toiled up the stiff and slippery slope, and found a scatter of crate-huts crowning a bald head of yellow argil. Speechless with rage and horror at the sight of the 'Depot,' they rushed headlong into the canoe, returned without a moment's delay to Axim, and, finding a steamer in the bay, incontinently went on board, flying the Dark Continent for ever.

We housed ourselves in Messieurs Swanzy and Crocker's establishment at Tumento. The climate appeared wholesome; the river brought with it a breeze, and we were evidently entering the region of woods, between the mangrove-swamps of the coast and the gra.s.s-lands of the interior.

At Tumento I met, after some twenty years, Mr. Dawson, of Cape Coast Castle. The last time it was at Dahoman Agbome, in company with the Rev.

Mr. Bernasko, who died (1872) of dropsy and heart-disease. He is now in the employment of the Takwa, or French Company, and his local knowledge and old experience had suggested working the mines to M. Bonnat. Some forty years ago the English merchants of 'Cabo Corso' used to send their people hereabouts to dig; and more recently Mr. Carter had spent, they say, 4,000_l_. upon the works. He was followed by another roving Englishman, who was not more successful. The liberation of p.a.w.ns and other anti-abolitionist 'fads' had so raised the wage-rate that the rich placers were presently left to the natives. We exchanged reminiscences, and he at once started down stream for Axim.

As we were unable to work, Mr. Grant proceeded to inspect the concession called 'Insimankao,' the Asamankao of M. Zimmermann. It is the name of the village near which Sir Charles Macarthy was slain: our authorities translated it 'I've got you,' as the poor man said to the gold, or the cruel chief to the runaway serf. Mr. Dawson, who is uncle by marriage to Mr. Grant, had also suggested this digging. Our good manager, now an adept at prospecting, found the way very foul and the place very rich. It was afterwards, as will be seen, visited by Mr. Oliver Pegler and lastly by Cameron.

Amongst the few new faces seen at Tumento were two 'Krambos,' Moslems and writers of charms and talismans. A 'Patent Improved Metallic Book,' which looked in strange company, contained their 'fetish' and apparently composed their travelling kit. Both hailed from about Tinbukhtu, but their Arabic was so imperfect that I could make nothing of their route. These men acquire considerable authority amongst the pagan negroes, who expect great things from their 'grigris.' They managed to find us some eggs when no one else could. This Hibernian race of Gold Coast blacks had eaten or sold all its hens, and had kept only the loud-crowing c.o.c.ks. The presence of these two youths convinced me that there will be a Mohammedan movement towards the Gold Coast. A few years may see thousands of them, with mosques by the dozen established upon the sea-board. The 'revival of El-Islam' shows itself nowhere so remarkably as in Africa.

At Tumento Cameron found himself growing rapidly worse. He suffered from pains in the legs, and owned that even when crossing Africa during his three years of wild life he remembered nothing more severe. In my own case there was a severe tussle between Dr. Warburg and Fever-fiend. The attacks had changed from a tertian to a quotidian, and every new paroxysm left me, like the 'possessed' of Holy Writ after the expulsion of 'devils,' utterly prostrate. During the three days' struggle I drained two bottles of 'Warburg.' The admirable drug won the victory, but it could not restore sleep or appet.i.te.

Seeing how matters stood, and how easily bad might pa.s.s to worse, I proposed the proceeding whereby a man lived to fight another day. We were also falling short of ready money, and the tornadoes were becoming matters of daily occurrence. After a long and anxious pow-wow Cameron accepted, and it was determined to run down to the coast, and there collect health and strength for a new departure. No sooner said than done. On March 8 we left Tumento in our big canoe, pa.s.sed the night at Riverside House, and next evening were inhaling, not a whit too soon, the inspiriting sea-whiffs of Axim.

The rest of my tale is soon told.

Cameron recovered health within a week, and resolved to go north again.

His object was to inspect for the second time the working mines about Takwa, and to note their present state; also to make his observations and to finish his map. He did not look in full vigour; and, knowing his Caledonian tenacity of purpose, I made him promise not to run too much risk by over-persistence. After a _diner d'Axim_ and discussing a plum-pudding especially made for our Christmas by a fair and kind friend at Trieste, he set out Ancobra-wards on March 16. He would have no Krumen; so our seven fellows, who refused to take service in the Effuenta mine, were paid off and s.h.i.+pped for 'we country.' The thirty hands ordered in mid-January appeared in mid-March, and were made over to Mr. MacLennan. My companion set out with faithful Joe, Mr. Dawson the stuffer, and his dog Nero. I did not hear of him or from him till we met at Madeira.

My case was different. I could not recover strength like my companion, who is young and who has more of vital force to expend. This consideration made me fearful of spoiling his work: a sick traveller in the jungle is a terrible enc.u.mbrance. I therefore proposed to run south and to revisit my old quarters, 'F.Po' and the Oil Rivers, in the B. and A. s.s. _Loanda_ (Captain Brown), the same which would pick up my companion after his return to Axim.

Life on the coast was not unpleasant, despite the equinoctial gales which broke on March 19 and blew hard till March 25. I had plenty of occupation in working up my notes, and I was lucky enough to meet all the managers of the working mines who were pa.s.sing through Axim. From Messieurs Crocker (Wasa), MacLennan (Effuenta), Creswick (Gold Coast Company), and Bowden (Takwa [Footnote: Alias the African Gold Coast Company, whose shareholders are French and English. It has lately combined with the Mine d'Or d'Abowa.s.su (Abosu), the capital being quoted at five millions of francs.

Thus the five working mines are reduced to four, while the 'Izrah' and others are coming on (May 1882).]) I had thus an opportunity of gathering much hearsay information, and was able to compare opinions which differed widely enough. I also had long conversations with Mr. A. A. Robertson, lately sent out as traffic-manager to the Izrah, and with Mr. Amondsen, the Danish sailor, then _en route_ to the hapless Akankon mine. Mr. Paulus Dahse, who was saved from a severe sickness by Dr. Roulston and by his brother-in-law, Mr. Wulfken, eventually became my fellow-pa.s.senger to Madeira, where I parted from him with regret. During long travel and a residence of years in various parts of the Gold Coast he has collected a large store of local knowledge, and he is most generous in parting with his collection.

But, when prepared to embark on board the _Loanda_, which was a week late, my health again gave way, and I found that convalescence would be a long affair. Madeira occurred to me as the most restful of places, and there I determined to await my companion. The A.S.S. _Winnebah_ (Captain Hooper) anch.o.r.ed at Axim on March 28; the opportunity was not to be lost, and on the same evening we steamed north, regaining health and strength with every breath.

The A.S.S. _Winnebah_ could not be characterised as 'comfortable.' Mr.

Purser Denny did his best to make her an exception to the Starvation rule, but even he could not work miracles. She is built for a riverboat, and her main cabin is close to the forecastle. She was crowded with Kruboys, and all her pa.s.sengers were 'doubled up.' A full regiment of parrots was on board, whose daily deaths averaged twenty to thirty. The birds being worth ten s.h.i.+llings each, our engines were driven as they probably had never been driven before, and the clacking of the safety-valve never ceased.

The weather, however, was superb. We caught the north-east Trade a little north of Cape Palmas, and kept it till near Grand Canary. On April 13, greatly improved by the pleasant voyage and by complete repose, I rejoiced once more in landing at the fair isle Madeira.

And now _Cameronus loquitur_.

CHAPTER XXII.

TO INSIMANKaO AND THE BUTABUe RAPIDS.

Leaving Axim on March 16, I slept at k.u.mprasi and remarked a great change in the bar of the Ancobra River. During the dry season it had been remarkably good, but now it began to change for the worse; and soon it will become impa.s.sable for three or four days at a time. My surf-boat, when coming across it, s.h.i.+pped three seas. On my return down the river (April 15) the whole sand-bank to the west of the mouth had been washed away, forming dangerous shoals; the sea was furiously breaking and 'burning,' as the old Dutch say, and the waves which entered the river were so high that canoes were broken and boats were seriously damaged.

I stored my goods in the surf-boat, and set out in our big canoe early next morning. A string of dug-outs was next pa.s.sed, loaded with palm-kernels, maize, and bananas; it appeared as if they were all bound for the market at Axim. I took specimens of swish and stone from 'Ross's Hill.' The top soil showed good signs of gold, and the grains were tolerably coa.r.s.e. Here a floating power-engine would soon bare the reefs and warp up the swamp. Messieurs Allan and Plisson, who were floating down in a surf-boat, gave me the news that the steam-launch _Effuenta_ had at last succ.u.mbed in the struggle for life.

I landed at Akromasi, a village where the true bamboo-cane grows, and found the soil to be a grey sandy clay; there were many 'women's was.h.i.+ngs'

near the settlement. Shortly before reaching the Ahenia River we saw the landing-place for the valuable 'Apatim concession.' They told me on enquiry that the stream is deep and has been followed up in a surf-boat for a mile or two. It may therefore prove of use to Mr. Irvine's property, Apatim.

At half-past five that evening I reached Akankon, and slept well at 'Riverside House.' Mr. Morris had begun levelling the ground and building new quarters for general use. I gave him some slips of bamboo and roots of Bahama-gra.s.s, as that planted had grown so well.

Next morning we got under way early (6.50) and proceeded up the river. The canoe-men, seeing pots of palm-wine on the banks, insisted upon landing to slake their eternal thirst. The mode in which the liquor is sold shows a trustfulness on the part of the seller which may result from firm belief in his 'fetish.' Any pa.s.ser-by can drink wine _a discretion_, and is expected to put the price in a calabash standing hard by. Beyond the Yengeni River I saw for the first and only time purple clay-slate overlying quartz. Collecting here and there specimens of geology, and suffering much from the sun, for I still was slightly feverish, I reached the 'great central depot' at 4 P.M.

Tumento was found by observation to lie in N. lat. 4 12' 20" and in W.

long. (Gr.) 2 12' 25". Consequently it is only eighteen direct geographical miles from the sea, the mouth of the Ancobra being in W. lat.

2 54'. Some make the distance thirty and others sixty miles. The latter figure would apply only by doubling the windings of the bed.

This ascent of the river convinced me more than ever that Enframadie is the proper terminus of its navigation. I pa.s.sed the next day at Tumento, which proved to be only half the distance usually supposed along the Ancobra bed from its mouth. The time was spent mainly in resting and doctoring myself. At night the rats, holding high carnival, kept me awake till 3 A.M.; and I heard shots being continually fired from a native mine whose position was unknown. The natives now know how to bore and blast; consequently thefts of powder, drills, and fuses become every day more common. My first visit (March 20) was to the Insimankao concession. I left the surf-boat behind, and put my luggage into small canoes hired at Tumento, myself proceeding in the large canoe. We shoved off from the beach at 8.50 A.M. The Ancobra had now, after the late rains, a fair current instead of being almost dead water; otherwise it maintained the same appearance. The banks are conglomerate, grey clay and slate; gravel, sand, s.h.i.+ngle, and pebbles of reddish quartz, bedded in earth of the same colour, succeeding one another in ever-varying succession. Only two reefs, neither of them important, projected from the sides.

After an hour and a half paddling we reached the Fura, which I should call a creek; it is not out of the mangrove-region. The bed is set in high, steep banks submerged during the rains; and the narrowness of the mouth, compared with the upper part, made it run, after the late showers, into the Ancobra like a mill-race. In fact, the paddlers were compelled to track in order to make headway. After ten minutes (=200 yards) we reached a landing-place, all jungle with rotting vegetation below. I do not think that as a waterway the Fura Creek can be made of any practical use; but it will be very valuable for 'hydraulicking.' Canoes and small surf-boats may run down it at certain seasons, but the flow is too fast and the bed is too full of snags and sawyers to be easily ascended.