To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 11

At the landing-place I mounted my hammock and struck the path which runs over level ground pretty thick with second-growth. The chief Bimfu, who met me at Tumento, had broken his promise to guide me, and had neglected to clear the way. On a largish creek which was nearly dry I saw a number of 'women's was.h.i.+ngs.' Then we pa.s.sed on the right a hillock seventy to eighty feet high, where quartz showed in detached and weathered blocks.

Beyond it were native shafts striking the auriferous drift at a depth of eight to ten feet. A few yards further on the usual was.h.i.+ngs showed that the top soil is also worth working.

Another half-hour brought us to about a dozen native shafts in the usual chimney shape. They were quite new and had been temporarily left on account of the rise of the water, which was here twenty-four feet below the surface. The top soil is of sandy clay, and the gold-containing drifts, varying in thickness, they told me, from two to four feet, consisted of quartz pebbles bedded in red loam. The general look of the stratum and the country suggested an old lagoon.

An hour and a half of hammock brought me from the landing-place of the Fura Creek to the village of Insimankao. Rain was falling heavily and prevented all attempts at observation. The settlement is the usual group of swish and bamboo box-huts nestling in the bush. A small clean bird-cage, divided into two compartments, with standing bedstead, was a.s.signed to me. Next morning I walked to the Insimankao mine by a path leading along, and in places touching, the bank of the Fura Creek, which runs through the whole property. After thirty-three minutes we reached the 'marked tree.' Here the land begins to rise and forms the Insimankao Hill, whose trend is to north-north-east. Mr. Walker calls it Etia-Kaah, or Echia-Karah, meaning 'when you hear (of its fame) you will come.' It is the usual mound of red clay, fairly wooded, and about 150 feet high; the creek runs about 100 yards west of the pits. The reefs seemed to be almost vertical, with a strike to the north-north-east; and the walls showed slate, iron-oxide, and decomposed quartz. The main reef [Footnote: Mr. O.

Pegler (A.R.S.M.) describes it as a 'very powerful reef outcropping boldly from a hill at a short distance from the native village, the strike being north-north-east to south-south-west, and the vein having a great inclination. At the crest of the hill it presents a ma.s.sive appearance, and is many feet in width--in some places between twenty and thirty feet.

This diminishes towards the native pits, and there the vein diverges into two portions, both presenting a decomposed appearance, the casing on both foot and hanging wall having a highly talcose character.' This engineer also washed gold specks from the loose soil. Finally, he notes that the ma.s.sive quartz-outcrop is h.o.m.ogeneous and crystalline, giving only traces of gold, but that the stone improves rapidly with depth.] was from eight to ten feet thick, and I believe that there are other and parallel formations. But the ground is very complicated, and for proper study I should have required borings and cross-cuts.

There were two big rough pits called shafts. I descended into the deeper one, which was fourteen to fifteen feet below ground. The walls would repay was.h.i.+ng on a large scale; and the look of the top soil reminded me of the descriptions of old California and Australia when there were rushes of miners to the gold-fields, carrying for all machinery a pick, a pan, and a tin 'billy.'

The Insimankao concession contains 1,000 fathoms square; the measurements being taken from a 'marked tree' on the north-western slope of the hill with the long name. The position is N. lat. 5 18' 15" and the long. W.

(Gr.) 2 14' 03". West of the centre the Fura Creek receives a small tributary. Mr. Walker took fair samples from the well-defined reef and the outcropping boulders, whose strike is from north-north-east to south-south-west. He notes that the land Egwira, which lies between Wasa and Aowin, was long famous for its mining-industry, and that it appears in old maps as a 'Republick rich in gold.' We heard of the Abenje mine on the same reef, four to five miles east of Insimankao; and he declares that it has been abandoned because the population is too scanty.

I left this mining property convinced that working it will pay well. The only thing to be guarded against is overlapping the French concession of Mank.u.ma, which lies immediately to the east.

From the mine I walked back to the village, breakfasted, and returned in the canoes to the sluice-like mouth of the Fura Greek. I then ascended the Ancobra, in order to inspect the Butabue rapids, said to be the end of canoe-navigation. We pa.s.sed on the right a reef and a shallow of conglomerate, washed out of the banks and forming a race; there is another reef with its rip at Aroasu. In the early part of the afternoon we got to the village of Ebiasu, which means 'not dark.' Here the equinoctial showers began to fall heavily, and I was again obliged to sleep without observations. The village is built upon a steep bank of yellow clay, with rich red oxides; it stands forty feet above the present level, and yet at times it is flooded out.

Leaving Ebiasu next morning, I found the banks of sand, clay, and small pebbles beginning to shelve. We pa.s.sed over slaty rocks in the bed; and the depth of water was often not more than three feet. Women's was.h.i.+ngs were seen on the left bank, and the river had risen after they had been worked. We could not approach them on account of the reefs and the current. The opposite bank, about five minutes further up, is of soft sandstone; and here a native tunnel of forty to fifty feet had been run in from the river to communicate with a shaft. My men were nervous about leopards, and I had to encourage them by firing my rifle into the hole.

The normal formation continued, and here the land is evidently built by the river; there are few hills, and the present direction of the bed has been determined by the rocks and reefs, the outliers of the old true coast. These features may have been lower than they are now, and owe their present elevation to upheaval. Immature conglomerate--that is, a pudding of pebbles and hardened clay--seems to have been deposited in the synclinal curve of the bed-rock, princ.i.p.ally slate. Overlying both are the top soil and the sands, the latter often resembling the washed out tailings of stamped rock.

Pa.s.sing the village Abanfokru, I found myself amongst the extensive concessions of the French, who have taken the alluvial grounds for was.h.i.+ng and working. M. Bonnat's map gives the approximate positions and dimensions; and the several sites are laid down by M. Dahse. I shall have more to say about this section on my return.

Navigation now becomes more intricate and difficult, owing to rocks and reefs, rips and rapids. A large stony holm about mid-stream is called Eduasim, meaning 'thief in river.' I need not repeat from my map the names of the unimportant settlements. At the mouth of the Abonsa the bed widens to nearly double, and the north-easterly direction s.h.i.+fts to due north.

This great drain, falling into the left bank, lies between five and six miles above the Fura Creek. I shall have more to say about it when describing my descent. Two miles further north brought us to the beginning of the rapids, which apparently end the boat-navigation. The only canoes are used for ferrying; I saw no water-traffic, and there were no longer any fish-weirs. Moreover, the country has been deserted, I was told, since the arrival of strangers. The natives have probably been treated with little consideration. A quarter of an hour's hauling, all hands being applied to the canoe, took us about fifty yards over the Impayim rapid, whose fall is from four to five feet deep. Immediately after the Butabue influent on the right bank the bed bends abruptly east, and we reached the far-famed rapids of that name. Here the whole surface, as far up as the eye can see, is a ma.s.s of rocks and of broken, surging water. The vegetation of the banks, bound together by creepers, llianas, and rattans, is peculiarly fine. I landed upon one of the rocks, sketched the Butabue, whose name none could explain, and returned down stream to the 'great central Depot,' Tumento.

I can say little about the River Ancobra above the rapids, except that it resumes its course from the north-north-east and the north, apparently guided by the hills. The sources are now only a few miles distant, but the stream is unnavigable, and they must be reached on foot. The late M.

Bonnat walked up by a hunter's path, now killed out, to the ruins of Bush Castle, which Jeekel calls Fort Ruyghaver. He there secured possession of the rich Asaman mines, which the work was intended to defend. There is some fetish there, and the place is known as the burial-ground of the kings. I was also told that four or five marches off a _cache_ of treasure, described to be large, had been made during the Ashanti-Gyaman war, and had been defended by the usual superst.i.tions. Fetish may have lost much of its power on the coast; in the interior, however, it is still strong, and few white men live long after being placed under its ban.

CHAPTER XXIII.

TO EFFUENTA, CROCKERVILLE, AND THE AJI BIPA HILL.

At Tumento the halt of a day (March 22) was necessary in order to hire carriers and get ready for the march eastward. Here, too, I washed sundry specimens of soft earth from various parts of the river-banks, finding colour of gold in all except the grey clay. Our Mohammedan friends were there; the eldest called upon me and was exceedingly civil, besides being to a certain extent useful. For the hire of a s.h.i.+lling and two cakes of Cavendish he found me eggs in a village some three miles off, and he ended by writing me a 'safy,' which would bring me good luck in all my undertakings. It consists of the usual Koranic quotations in black, and of magic numbers in pink, ink.

Dr. Roulston and Mr. Higgins, the new District Commissioner for Takwa, entered Tumento about 3 P.M. The carriers hired in addition to my canoe-men would now be wanted, said the cunning old chief, for the 'Government man,' with whom he wished to stand well. As the porters had received an advance of pay I objected to this proceeding. The fresh arrivals had to find other hands, and were not very successful in the search. Their detachment of twenty-five Haussa soldiers, who had escorted to the coast Dr. Duke, the acting commissioner lately invalided, were sent abroad in all directions to act press-gang, and the natural lawlessness of the race came out strong. The force is injured by enlisting 'Haussas' who are not Haussa at all; merely semi-savage and half-pagan slaves. On detached duty they get quite out of hand; and they by no means serve to make our Government popular. By the rules of the force they should never be absent from head-quarters for more than six months; their transport costs next to nothing, as they march by bush-paths. And yet they are kept for years on outpost-duty, where it would require a Glover to discipline them and to make them steady soldiers. They live by plunder. A private on a s.h.i.+lling a day will eat three fowls, each worth 9_d_. to 10_d_., and drink any taken amount of palm-wine. There are no means of punishment, or even of securing a criminal; the colony cannot afford irons or handcuffs; there is no prison, and a Haussa, placed under arrest in a bamboo-hut, cuts his way out as easily as a rat from a bird-cage.

One of these men was accused of murdering a woman in one of the villages on the way. His comrades brought in husbands, wives, and children indiscriminately, not sparing even the chiefs. Bimfu, of Insimankao, was among the number; next morning, however, he threw his pack, bolted to the bush, and eventually reported his grievances to Axim. The second headman of Tumento, when pressed, managed to secure a very small load. But as payment is by weight, 6_d_. per 10 lbs. from the river to Effuenta, and no subsistence is allowed, his gains were small in proportion; he received for three days only 9_d_., the ordinary value of porter's rations.

Next day (March 23) we left Tumento at 7.30 A.M. The caravan consisted of thirty-two men, all told--canoe-men from Axim, Tumento bearers, boatswain, and my three body-servants. All were under the command of Joe the Indefatigable, who formed a kind of body-guard of gun-carriers out of the porters that carried the lightest packs. Mr. Dawson a.s.sisted me in collecting; Paul prepared to shoulder a bed, and the boatswain was ordered to catch b.u.t.terflies. The cries of 'batli,' 'basky,' and 'bokkus' (bottle, basket, and box) continually broke the silence of the bush and gladdened the collector's ears. I was still able to dispense with the hammock.

In the first few minutes the path trends southwards; it then a.s.sumes and keeps an easterly direction. Here is a water-parting: the many little beds, mostly full of water, flow either north towards the Abonsa or south and westwards to the Ancobra. They are divided by detached hills, or rather oblong mounds, of the same formation as the beds; quartz, gravel, and red clay, all disposed in the usual direction. Women's was.h.i.+ngs were seen everywhere along the road, and in some places oozings of iron from the soil heavily charged the streamlets. Some of the quartz-boulders were coloured outside like porphyry by the oxide. About three-quarters of the way from Tumento to Apankru is a hill rich in outcrops of quartz. I believe it to be French property.

These rises and falls led over 7-1/2 direct geographical miles, usually done in three hours, to Apankru, a second 'great central Depot.' The village lies on the right bank of the Abonsa River, here some forty feet high. It is composed almost entirely of the store-houses of the several companies--(Gold Coast) Effuenta, and Swanzy's (English), the African Gold Coast and Mines d'Or d'Aboa.s.su [Footnote: At first I supposed the word to be Abo-Wasa, or Stones of Wasa: it is simply Abosu, meaning 'on the rock.'] (French). Only the latter use the Abonsa for transport purposes--I think very unwisely. My descent of the stream will show all its dangers of snags, rapids, and heavy currents. Here it rises high during the floods, and sometimes it swamps the lower courtyards.

I put up at Mr. Crocker's establishment, which was, as usual, nice and clean; and the officials went on to Effuenta. The native clerk took good care of me, probably moved thereto by Mr. Joe, who addressed him, 'Here, gib me key; I want house for _my_ master!' During the evening, in the intervals of heavy rain, I obtained a lat.i.tude by Castor. Apankru lies in north lat.i.tude 5 13' 55", and its longitude (by calculation) is 0 20' 6"

west.

The next morning (March 24) was dark and threatening. At 6.30 A.M. we struck into the path, a mere bush-track, the corduroys and bridges made by the Swanzy house having completely disappeared. This want of public feeling, of 'solidarity,' amongst the several mining companies should be remedied with a strong hand. These men seem not to know that rivalry may be good in buying palm-oil, but is the wrong thing in mining. Such a jealousy a.s.sisted in making the Spanish proverb 'A silver mine brings wretchedness; a gold mine brings ruin.' Even in England I have met with unwise directors who told me, 'Oh, you must not say that, or people will prefer such and such a mine.' But, speaking generally, employers are aware that unity of interest should produce solidarity of action. The local employes like to breed divisions, in order to increase their own importance. This should be put down with a strong hand; and all should learn the lesson that what benefits one mine benefits all. Many of the little streams run between steep banks, and in the rainy season mud and water combine to make the line impracticable. Yet there is nothing to stand in the way of a cheap tram; and perhaps this would cost less and keep better than a metalled road. The twisting of the track, 'without rhyme or reason,' reminded me of the snakiest paths in Central Africa. Our course, as the map shows, was in every quadrant of the compa.s.s except the south-western.

On our left or north ran the Aunabe, M. Dahse's Ahunabe, [Footnote: M.

Dahse's paper, _Die Goldkuste_ (Geog. Soc. of Bremen, vol. ii., 1882), has been ably translated by Mr. H. Bruce Walker, jun., of the India Store Depot.] the northern fork of the Abonsa, which falls into the right bank below Apankru. It has a fine a.s.sortment of mixed rapids, which show well during the floods. Hills of the usual quartz blocks, gravels, sand, and clay lead, after 1 hr. 40 min. walking and collecting, at the rate of two geographical miles an hour, to Mr. Crocker's second set of huts. They were built on a level for shelter and resting-places before Apankru was in existence, and were baptised 'Sierra Leone' by emigrants from the white man's grave and the black man's Garden of Eden.

Beyond this settlement is a fine quartz hill, round the northern edge of which the path winds to the little Kwansakru. This is a woman's village, where the wives of chiefs who have mining-rights, accompanied by their slaves, are stationed, to pan gold for their lazy husbands. In this way may have arisen the vulgar African story of Amazon settlements. Messieurs Zweifel and Moustier [Footnote: _Voyage_, &c., p. 115.] were told by a Kissi man that twelve marches behind their country is a large town called Nahalo, occupied only by the weaker s.e.x. A man showing himself in the streets, or met on the road, is at once put to death; however, some of the softer-hearted have kept them prisoners, and the result may easily be divined. All the male issue is killed and only the girls are kept.

Many large 'women's was.h.i.+ngs' of old date give us a hint how the country should be worked. All along the line of the Aunabe white sands, the tailings of natural sluices, have been deposited; the black sand sinking by its own weight. I was unable to find out the extent of the French concessions, and look forward to the coming day of compulsory definition of boundaries and registration in Government offices. These grants are mingled in inextricable confusion with those secured by 'Surgeon-Major Dr.

James Africa.n.u.s Beale Horton, Esq.'

Soon after Kwansakru we exchanged the ordinary path for a mere thread in the bush, leading to the southern end of Tebribi Hill. The name, according to Mr. Sam, means 'when you hear, it shakes,' signifying that the thunder reverberates from the heights owing to its steep side and gives it a tremulous motion. This abrupt, cliff-like side is the western, where the schistose gneiss is exposed for a thickness of 60 feet and more: the stone is talcose, puddinged in places with quartz pebbles, and everywhere showing laminations of black sand. The long oval mound of red clay, overgrown with trees, and rising 295 feet above sea-level, is all auriferous; but there are placers richer than their neighbours. Tebribi was the favourite was.h.i.+ng-ground of the Apinto Wasas; but the old shafts were all neglected after the Dutch left, and no deep sinking was known within the memory of man until the last twelve years. I pa.s.sed a pit on the western flank; the winch had been removed, and my people found it impracticable: we descended to it by cut steps and followed a cornice, mainly artificial, for a short distance to where its mouth opened. This hole had been sunk 70 to 80 feet deep in the talcose stone; and it would have been far easier and better to have driven galleries and adits into the face of the rock.

We took fourteen minutes to clamber up the stiff side in the pelting rain, with a tornado making ready to break. Ten minutes more, along the level, and a total of three hours, placed us at Mr. Crocker's Bellevue House. I had been asked to baptise it, and gave the name after a place in Sevenoaks which overlooks the wooded expanse of the Kentish weald. The place being locked up, we at once committed burglary; I occupied one of the two boarded bedrooms with plank walls, and my men established themselves in the broad and well-thatched verandah. When the view cleared we saw various outliers of hill, all running nearly parallel and striking north with more or less easting; the temperature was delightful, and between the showers the breezes were most refres.h.i.+ng. At night a persistent rain set in and ruined all chance of getting sights.

The next morning broke dull and grey with curtains of smoky fog and mist hanging to the hills; and the heavy wet made the paths greasy and slippery. Leaving Bellevue House, we walked along the whole length of the ridge in half an hour; and, descending the north-western slope, we struck the main thoroughfare--such as it is. Reaching the level, we found more 'women's was.h.i.+ngs,' and the highly auriferous ground looked as if made for the purpose of hydraulic mining.

Another half-hour along the lower flat led us to Burnettville, Crocker's _Ruhe_ No. 3. It is a large native-built house fronted by long narrow quarters for negroes on the other side of the road. The path crossed several streamlets trending north to the Aunabe, and a bad mud which had seen corduroy in its better days. Blocks of quartz and slate protruded between the patches of bog. We then traversed fairly undulating and well-wooded ground, clay-stone coated with oxide of iron; we crossed another small stream flowing northwards, and we began the ascent leading to 'Government House, Takwa.' It is also known as Mount Pleasant, Prospect Mount, and Vinegar Hill.

The site facing the Effuenta mine is the summit of a long thin line about 275 feet high. This queer specimen of official head-quarters was built by the united genius of the owners of the ground, Mr. Commissioner Cascaden and Dr. Duke. As before said the really comfortable house of boarding has been bequeathed to the white ants at Axim by the Government of the Golden Land, too poor to pay transport. Commissioner and doctor receive no house-allowance, and according to popular rumour, which is probably untrue, were graciously told that they might pig in a native hut in or about Takwa. Consequently they built this place and charge a heavy rent for it.

Government House is a large parallelogram of bamboo. The roof is an intricate ma.s.s of branches and tree-trunks, with a pitch so flat that it admits every shower. Mr. Higgins was at once obliged to expend 10_l_.-12_l_. in removing and restoring the house-cover. Under it are built two separate and independent squares of wattle with plank floors raised a foot or so off the ground; these dull and dismal holes, which have doors but no windows, serve as sleeping-places. The rest of the interior goes by the name of a sitting-room. The outer walls are whitewashed on both sides, and between them and the two wattle squares is a s.p.a.ce of 6 to 8 feet, adding to the disproportionate appearance of the interior. Had it been divided off in the usual way the tenement would have been much more comfortable. There is a scatter of ragged huts, grandiosely designated as the barracks, on the level s.p.a.ce where the Haussas parade.

When Mr. Higgins was making himself water-tight, these lazy loons had the impudence to ask that he would either have their lines mended or order new ones to be built. I would have made them throw down their ramshackle cabins, knock up decent huts, and keep them in good order.

Leaving Government House, I descended the steep incline of Vinegar Hill, pa.s.sed through the little Esanuma village, and crossed two streams flowing south. One is easily forded; the eastern has a corduroy bridge 176 ft.

long, built to clear the muds on either side. I shall call this double water the Takwa rivulet, and shall have more to say about it on my return.

Another steep ascent placed me at the Effuenta establishment. I was now paying my second visit to the far-famed Takwa Ridge. It is a long line running parallel with Vinegar Hill, but instead of being regular, like its neighbour, it is broken into a series of small crests looking on the map like vertebrae; these heights being parted by secondary valleys, some of which descend almost to the level of the flowing water. Westward the hog's-back is bounded by the Takwa rivulet, rising in the northern part of the valley. Eastwards there is a corresponding feature called by the English 'Quartz Creek:' it breaks through the ridge in the southern section of the Effuenta property and unites with the Takwa. My aneroid showed the height of the crest to be 260 feet above sea-level, and about 160 above the valley. Mr. Wyatt has raised it to 1,400 feet--a curious miscalculation.

At Effuenta I found Mr. MacLennan, the manager whom we last met at Axim.

Owing to the drowned-out state of 'Government House' he had given hospitality to Messieurs Higgins and Roulston, and I could not prevent his leaving his own sleeping-room for my better accommodation. I spent two days with him inspecting the mine and working up my notes; during this time Mr. Bowden, of Takwa, and Mr. Ex-missionary Dawson pa.s.sed through the station; and I was unfortunate in missing the former.

'Effuenta House' is a long narrow tenement of bamboo and thatch, divided into six or seven rooms, and built upon a platform of stone and swish raised seven feet off the ground. All the chambers open upon a broad verandah, which shades the platform. The inmate was talking of rebuilding, as the older parts were beginning to decay. He had just set up in his 'compound' two single-room bamboo houses, with plank floors raised four feet off the ground; these were intended to lodge the European staff.

Other bamboo huts form the offices and the stores. The Kru quarters are at the western base of the hill; a few hands, however, live in the two little villages upon the Takwa rivulet. The Sierra Leone and Akra artificers occupy their own hamlet between the Kru lines and the stamps. Last year there was a garden with a small rice-field, but everything was stolen as soon as it was fit to gather.

Next morning Mr. MacLennan led me to the diggings. This concession, which is the southernmost but one upon the Takwa ridge, contains one thousand by two thousand fathoms; and desultory work began in 1880. The rock, a talcose gneiss, all laden with gold, runs along the whole length of the hill, striking, as usual, north 6 east (true). In places it forms a ba.s.set, or outcrop, cresting the summit; and the eastern flank is cliffy, like that of the Tebribi. To get at the ore three shafts have been sunk on the western slope of the ridge just below the highest part, and a pa.s.sage is being driven to connect the three. A rise for ventilation, and for sending down the stone, connects this upper gallery with a lower one; and the latter is being pushed forward to unite the three tunnels pierced horizontally near the foot of the hill, at right angles to the lode. There is also a fourth tunnel below the manager's house, which will be joined on to the others. The three tunnels open westward upon a tramway, along which the ore is carried to the stamps. I judged the output already made to be considerable, but could not make an estimate, as it was heaped up in different places.

The stamp-mill, lying to the extreme north of the actual workings, is supplied with water by a leat from the eastern Takwa rivulet. The twelve head of stamps, on Appleby's 'gravitation system,' are driven by a Belleville boiler and engine; this has the merit of being portable and the demerit of varying in effective power, owing to the smallness of the steam-chest. The battery behaves satisfactorily; only the pump, which is worked by the cam-shaft, wants power to supply the whole dozen; consequently another and independent pump has been ordered. Krumen, who will never, I think, make good mine-workmen, are constantly employed in was.h.i.+ng the blankets as soon as they are charged; and the resulting black sand is carried to the was.h.i.+ng-house to be panned, or rather calabashed, by native women. In time we shall doubtless see concentrating bundles and amalgamating barrels.

The three iron-framed stamp-boxes discharge their sludge into two parallel mercury- or amalgam-boxes, which Mr. Appleby declares will arrest 75 to 80 per cent. of free gold. It then pa.s.ses on to the distributing table, the flow to the strakes being regulated by small sluices. Of the latter there is one to each width of green baize or of mining-cloth made for the purpose. The overflow of the sluices runs into a large tailing-tank of board-work, with holes and plugs at different levels to tap the contents.

These tailings are also washed by women.

Finally, the mercury is squeezed through leathers and the hard amalgam is sent for treatment to England. Retorting is not practised at present in any of the mines. The only reduction-gear belongs to the Gold Coast Mining Company; and some time must elapse before it is ready for use. My discovery of native cinnabar will then prove valuable.

The Effuenta can now bring to bank, with sufficient hands, at least a hundred tons a day of good paying ore; whereas the stamps can crush at most one-tenth. When this section of the lode, about 200 fathoms, shall be worked, there will still be the balance of 1,000. But even this fifth of the property will supply material for years. The proportion of gold greatly varies, and I should not like to hazard a conjecture as to average, but an ounce and a half or two ounces will not be above the mark.

At present the manager works under the difficulty of wanting European a.s.sistants. His mining-engineer and one mechanic lately left him to return home; and he has only a white book-keeper, an English working-miner, and a mechanic, besides a man who made his way from the coast on foot, and who is now doing good, honest work. The progress made by Mr. MacLennan, during his ten months of charge, has been most creditable. He has literally opened the mine, the works of which were begun by M. Dahse. He has personally supervised the transport and erection of all the machinery; and at present, in addition to the ordinary managerial routine, he has to act as chief of each and every department. Owing to his brave exertions the future of the Effuenta mine is very promising: it will teach those to come 'how to do it,' in contrast with another establishment which is the best guide 'how _not_ to do it.' If the Board prove itself efficient, this property will soon pay a dividend. But half-hearted measures will go far to stultify the able and energetic work I found on the spot. [Footnote: This forecast has been unexpectedly verified with the least possible delay. Perfect communication has been established between the shafts and levels; and the mine can now (October 1882) turn out 100 tons a day at five s.h.i.+llings. But imperfect pumps have been sent out, and the result is a highly regretable block. Of the value of the mine there can be no doubt.]

The northern extremity of the Takwa ridge, whose length may be nine to ten miles, remains unappropriated, as far as can be known. The furthest concession has been made, I am told, to Mr. Creswick. South of the section in question lies a property now in the hands of the late M.

Bonnat's executors: the grant was given to him as a wedding-present by his friends, the chiefs. Report says that from this part of the lode, which is riddled with native pits, came some of the specimens that floated the G.