AXIM, THE GOLD PORT OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
All the traveller's anxiety about the Known and apprehensions of the
Unknown fell from him like a garment as, after passing the hummocks of
Apollonia, his destination, Axim, [Footnote: The port lies in N. lat. 4º
52' 20" (say 5º round numbers) and in W. long. (Gr.) 2º 14' 45": it must
not be confounded, as often occurs in England, with 'Akim,' the region
north of Accra.] peeped up over the port-bow at dawn of the 25th of
January.
The first aspect of Axim is charming; there is nothing more picturesque
upon this coast.
After the gape of the Ancobra River the foreshore gradually bends for a
few miles from a west-east to a north-south rhumb, and forms a bay within
a bay. The larger is bounded north by Akromasi Point, the southern wall of
the great stream; the bold foreland outlain with reefs and a rock like a
headless sphinx, is known from afar, east and west, by its 'one tree,' a
palm apparently double, the leader of a straggling row. On the south of
the greater bay is Point Pépré, by the natives called Inkubun, or
Cocoanut-Tree, from a neighbouring village; like the Akromasi foreland, it
is black and menacing with its long projection of greenstone reefs, whose
heads are hardly to be distinguished from the flotilla of fishing canoes.
The lesser bay, that of Axim proper, has for limits Pépré and the Bosomato
promontory, a bulky tongue on whose summit is a thatched cottage.
The background of either bay is a noble forest, a wall of green, the items
being often 150 feet high, with branchless white boles of eighty,
perpendicularly striping the verdure. The regular sky-line--broken by tall
knolls and clumps, whose limits are rivulet-courses and bosky dells;
thrown up by refraction; flecked with shreds of heavy mist
That like a broken purpose waste in air;
and dappled with hanging mists, white as snow, and 'sun-clouds,' as the
natives term the cottony nimbus--is easily mistaken, in the dim light of
dawn, for a line of towering cliffs.
The sea at this hour is smooth as oil, except where ruffled by
fish-shoals, and shows comparatively free, today at least, from the long
Atlantic roll which lashes the flat coast east of Apollonia. Its selvage
is fretted by green points, golden sands, and a red cove not unlike the
crater-port of Clarence, Fernando Po. The surface is broken by two islets,
apparently the terminal knobs of many reefs which project westward from
the land. To the north rises Asiniba ('Son of Asini'), a pyramid of rock
below and tree-growth above. Fronting the landing-place is Bobowusúa,
[Footnote: The Hyd. Chart calls them Suaba and Bobowassi; it might be a
trifle more curious in the matter of significant words.] or Fetish Island,
a double feature which we shall presently inspect. The foreshore is barred
and dotted perpendicularly by black reefs and scattered _diabolitos_, or
detached hard-heads, which break the surges. At spring-tides, when rise
and fall reach at least ten feet, and fourteen in the equinoctial ebb and
flow, it appears a gridiron of grim black stone. [Footnote: Not as the
Hyd. Chart says--'rise and fall at springs six or seven feet.']
The settlement, backed by its grand 'bush' and faced by the sea, consists
of a castle and a subject town; it wears, in fact, a baronial and
old-world look. Fort Santo Antonio, a tall white house upon a bastioned
terrace, crowns proudly enough a knob of black rock and low green growth.
On both sides of it, north and south, stretches the town; from this
distance it appears a straggle of brown thatched huts and hovels,
enlivened here and there by some whitewashed establishments, mining or 'in
the mercanteel.' The soil is ruddy and rusty, and we have the usual
African tricolor.
The agents of the several Aximite houses came on board. We drained the
normal stirrup-cup and embarked in the usual heavy surf-boat, manned by a
dozen leathery-lunged 'Elmina boys' with paddles, and a helmsman with an
oar. There are smaller surf-canoes, that have weather-boards at the bow to
fend off the waves. Our anchorage-place lies at least two miles
south-west-and-by-south of the landing-place. There is absolutely nothing
to prevent steamers running in except a sunken reef, the Pinnacle or
Hoeven Rock. It is well known to every canoeman. Cameron sounded for it,
and a buoy had been laid by fishermen, but so unskilfully that the surge
presently made a clean sweep. Hence a wilful waste of time and work. I
wrote to Messieurs Elder and Dempster, advising them to replace it for
their own interests and for the convenience of travellers; but in Africa
one is out of the world, and receiving answers is emphatically not the
rule.
There is no better landing-place than Axim upon this part of the African
coast. The surf renders it impracticable only on the few days of the worst
weather. We hugged the north of the Bobowusúa rock-islet. When the water
here breaks there is a clear way further north; the southern passage,
paved with rocks and shoals, can be used only when the seas are at their
smoothest. A regular and well-defined channel placed us on the shingly and
sandy beach. We had a succulent breakfast with Messieurs Gillett and Selby
(Lintott and Spink), to whose unceasing kindness and hospitality we
afterwards ran heavily in debt. There we bade adieu to our genial captain
and our jovial fellow-travellers.
The afternoon was spent in visiting the Axim fort. Santo Antonio, built by
the Portuguese in the glorious days of Dom Manuel (1495-1521), became the
Hollander Saint Anthony by conquest in 1682, and was formally yielded by
treaty to the Dutch West Indian Company. It came to us by convention at
the Hague; and, marked 'ruined' in the chart, it was repaired in 1873
before the Ashanti war. It can now act harbour of refuge, and is safe from
the whole power of the little black despotism. Bosman [Footnote: _Eerste
Brief_, 1737: the original Dutch edition was lent to me by M. Paulus
Dahse.] shows 'Fort St. Antonio' protected by two landward bastions and an
old doorway opening upon a loopholed courtyard. Barbot (1700) sketches a
brick house in gable-shape, based upon a triangular rock.
Passing the Swanzy establishment, a model board-house, with masonry posts,
a verandah all round, and a flying roof of corrugated iron, we ascend the
old paved ramp. Here we remark that the castle-gateway of the Dutch,
leading to the outer or slave court, has been replaced by a mean hole in
the wall. The external work was demolished, lest the enemy effect a
lodgement there. We can walk seawards round the green knob scattered with
black boulders, and pick an excellent salad, a kind of African dandelion,
which the carnivorous English miners called 'grass,'--with a big, big D.
Entering the hole in the wall, and passing through a solid arched gateway
and across a small court upon which the prison opens, we ascend the steps
leading to the upper work. This is a large square house, pierced in front
for one door and three windows, and connected by a bridge, formerly a
drawbridge, with the two tall belvideres, once towers guarding the
eastern entrance. The body is occupied by the palaver-hall of the _opper
koopman_ (chief factor), now converted into a court-house and a small
armoury of sniders. It leads to the bedrooms, disposed on three sides. The
materials are trap, quartz, probably gold-bearing, and fine bricks,
evidently home-made. The substantial quarters fronting the sea are breezy,
comfortable, and healthy; and the large cistern contains the only good
drinking-water in Axim. Life must be somewhat dull here, but, after all,
not so bad as in many an out-station of British India. The chief grievance
is that the inmates, the District-commissioner and his medico, are mere
birds of passage; they are ordered off and exchanged, at the will of
head-quarters, often before they can settle down, and always before they
learn to take interest in the place. The works consist of two bastions on
the land side; a large one to the south-east, and a smaller to the
north-east. Seawards projects a rounded cavalier, fronted by dead ground,
or rather water. In the days of the Dutch the platforms carried '22 iron
guns, besides some patteraroes.' Now there are two old bronze guns, two
'chambeis' bearing the mark 'La Hague,' and an ancient iron tube
dismounted: a seven-pounder mountain-gun, of a type now obsolete, lurks in
the shadows of the arched gateway. I afterwards had an opportunity of
seeing the ammunition, and was much struck by a tub of black mud, which
they told me was gunpowder. The Ashantis at least keep theirs dry.
The dispensary appeared equally well found. For some weeks there was a
native assistant; then Dr. Roulston came, and, after a few days, was
ordered off at a moment's notice to the remotest possible station. He had
no laudanum, no Dover's powders, no chlorodyne, no Warburg; and, when
treating M. Dahse for a burst vein, he was compelled to borrow styptics
from our store. This style of economy is very expensive. To state the case
simply, officials last one year instead of two.
The late Captain P. D. O'Brien, District-commissioner of Axim, did the
honours, showing us the only 'antiquity' in the place, the tomb of a Dutch
governor, with a rudely cut inscription set in the eastern wall:--
WILLEM
SCHOORWAS
COMAD. OP AXEM
1659.
Amongst the slave-garrison of twenty-five Hausás I found a Wadai-man,
Sergeant Abba Osman, who had not quite forgotten his Arabic. Several
Moslems also appeared about the town, showing that the flood of El-Islam
is fast setting this way. They might profitably be hired as an armed
escort into the pagan interior.
Axim, preferably written by the Portuguese 'Axem,' was by them pronounced
Ashim or Ashem: no stress, therefore, must be laid upon its
paper-resemblance with Abyssinian Axum. [Footnote: I allude to _The Guinea
or Gold Coast of Africa, formerly a Colony of the Axumites_ (London,
Pottle and Son, 1880), an interesting pamphlet kindly forwarded to me by
the author, Captain George Peacock. I believe, as he does, that the West
Coast of Africa preserves traces of an ancient connection with the Nile
valley and the eastern regions; but this is not one of them.] Barbot calls
it 'Axim, or Atzyn, or Achen.' The native name is Essim, which, in the
language of the Mfantse or Mfantse-fo (Fanti-race), means 'you told me,'
and in the Apollonian dialect 'you know me.' These fanciful terms are
common, and they allude to some tale or legend which is forgotten in
course of time. The date of its building is utterly unknown. The Fanti
tradition is that their race was driven coastwards, like their kinsmen the
Ashantis, [Footnote: In _Wanderings in West Africa_, (ii. 98) I have given
the popular derivation of Fanti (Fan-didi = herb-eater) and Asyanti
(Sán-didi = corn-eater). Bowdich wrote 'Ashanti' because he learnt the
word from the Accra-men.] by tribes pressing down upon them from the
north. They must have found the maritime lands occupied, but they have
preserved no notices of their predecessors. The port-town became the
capital of an upper factor, who ruled the whole coast as far as Elmina. It
was almost depopulated, say the old authorities, by long wars with the
more powerful Apollonia; but its commanding position has always enabled it
to recover from the heaviest blows. It is still the threshold of the
western Gold-region, and the principal port of occidental Wásá (Wassaw).
We may fairly predict a future for Axim. The town is well situated to
catch the sea-breeze. The climate is equatorial, but exceptionally
healthy, save after the rainy season, which here opens a month or six
weeks earlier than on the leeward coast. The downfall must, however, have
diminished since the times when 'the _blacks_ will tell you the wet
weather lasts eleven months and twenty-nine days in the year.' The rains
now begin with April and end in September. The position is south of the
thermal equator (22º R. = 81 5º F.), which runs north lat. 6º on the
western coast, 15º in the interior, and 10º on the eastern seaboard.
[Footnote: Berghaus, following Humboldt, places the probable equator of
temperature (80º 16') in N. lat. 4º, or south of Axim, rising to N. lat.
13º in Central and in Eastern Africa] Add that the average daily
temperature is 75º-80º (F.), rising to 96º in the afternoon and falling
after midnight to 70º, and that the wet season on the seaboard is perhaps
the least sickly. We were there in January-March, during an unusually hot
and dry season, following the Harmatan and the Smokes and preceding the
tornadoes and the rains; yet I never felt an oppressive day,--nothing
worse than Alexandria or Trieste in early August. The mornings and
evenings were mostly misty; the moons were clear and the nights were
tolerable. An excessive damp, which mildews and decays
everything--clothes, books, metals, man--was the main discomfort. But we
were living, as it were, in the open, and we neglected morning and evening
fires. This will not be the case when solid and comfortable houses shall
be built. The improvement of lodging and diet accounts for the better
health of Anglo-Africans, as of Anglo-Indians, in the present day. Our
predecessors during the early nineteenth century died of bad shelter, bad
food, and bad drink.
The town, built upon a flat partly formed by cutting away the mounds and
hillocks of red clay, was well laid out by Mr. Sam, the
District-commissioner, after its bombardment during the Ashanti war. The
main streets, or rather roads, running north-south, are avenued with
shady Ganian or umbrella figs. I should prefer the bread-tree, which here
flourishes. These thoroughfares are kept clean enough, and nuisances are
punished, as in England. Cross lines, however, are wanted; the crooked
passages between the huts do not admit the sea-breeze. Native hovels,
also, should be removed from the foreshore, which, as Admiralty property,
ought to be kept for public purposes. The native dwellings are composed of
split bamboo-fronds (_Raphia vinifera_), thatched with the foliage of the
same tree. They are mere baskets--airy, and perhaps too airy. Some are
defended against wind and wet by facings of red swish; a few, like that of
the 'king' and chief native traders, are built of adobes (sun-dried
bricks), whitewashed outside. Of this kind, too, are the stores and the
mining establishments; the 'Akankon House,' near the landing-place; the
'Gold Coast House,' in the interior; the Methodist chapel, a barn-shaped
affair; the Effuenta House to the north, and the Tákwá, or French House,
to the south.
'Sanitation,' however, is loudly called for; and if cholera come here it
will do damage. The southern part of the narrow ledge bearing the town,
and including the French establishment, is poisoned by a fetid, stagnant
pool, full of sirens, shrimps, and anthropophagous crabs, which after
heavy rains cuts a way through its sand-bar to the sea. This _marigot_ is
the 'little shallow river Axim,' the Achombene of Barbot, which the people
call Awaminísu ('Ghost's or Deadman's Water'). To the north also there are
two foul nullahs, the Eswá and the Besáon, which make the neighbourhood
pestilential. In days to come the latter will be restored to its old
course east of the town and thrown into the Awaminísu, whose mouth will be
kept open throughout the year. The eastern suburbs, so to call them, want
clearing of offal and all manner of impurities. Beyond the original valley
of the Besáon the ground rises and bears the wall of trees seen from the
offing. There is, therefore, plenty of building-room, and long heads have
bought up all the land in that direction. Mr. Macarthy, of the School of
Mines, owns many concessions in this part of the country.
All the evils here noted can easily be remedied. As in the Cairo of
Mohammed Ali's day, every house-holder should be made responsible for the
cleanliness of his surroundings. The Castle-prison, too, rarely lodges
fewer than a dozen convicts. These men should be taken away from
'shot-drill' and other absurdities of the tread-mill type, which diversify
pleasant, friar-like lives of eating and drinking, smoking, sleeping, and
chatting with one another. Unfortunately, humanitarianism does not allow
the lash without reference to head-quarters. Labour must therefore be
light; still it would suffice to dig up the boulders from the main
thoroughfares, to clean the suburbs, and to open the mouths of the fetid
and poisonous lagoons.
Mr. William M. Grant, the clever and active agent of our friend Mr. James
Irvine, came on board to receive us, and housed us and our innumerable
belongings in his little bungalow facing 'Water Street.' We found life at
Axim pleasant enough. Even in these days of comparative barbarism, or at
best of incipient civilisation, the station is not wholly desert. The
agents of the several firms are hospitable in the extreme. Generally also
a manager of the inner mines, or a new comer, enlarges the small circle.
There is a flavour of England in 'A. B. and Co., licensed dealers in wine
and spirits, wholesale and retail,' inscribed upon boards over the
merchants' doors; also in the lawn-tennis, which I have seen played in a
space called by courtesy a square: Cameron, by-the-bye, has hired it,
despite some vexatious local opposition, and it will be a fine _locale_
for the Axim Hotel now being opened. Sunday is known as a twenty-four
hours of general idleness and revelry: your African Christian is
meticulous upon the subject of 'Sabbath;' he will do as little work as
possible for six days, and scrupulously repose upon the seventh. Whether
he 'keeps it holy' is quite another matter, into which I do not care to
enquire. Service- and school-hours are announced by a manner of
peripatetic belfry--a negroling walking about with a cracked muffin-bell.
From the chapel, which adjoins some wattled huts, the parsonage, surges at
times a prodigious volume of sound, the holloaing of hymns and the
bellowing of anthems; and, between whiles, the sable congregation, ranged
on benches and gazing out of the windows, 'catches it 'ot and strong' from
the dark-faced Wesleyan missionary-schoolmaster.
We were never wearied of the 'humours' of native Axim. The people are not
Fantis, but Apollonians, somewhat differing in speech with the Oji; both
languages, however, are mutually intelligible. [Footnote: Oji is also
written Otschi, Tschi, Chwee, Twi, Tswi, Otyi, Tyi, or whatever German
ingenuity can suggest. I can hardly explain why the late Keith Johnston
(Africa) calls the linguistic family 'Ewe' (Ewhe, or properly Whegbe),
after a small section of the country, Dahome, Whydah, &c. He was probably
led to it by the publications of the Bâle and other German missions.] The
men are the usual curious compound of credulity and distrust, hope and
fatalism, energy and inaction, which make the negro so like the Irish
character. But we must not expect too much from the denizens of African
seaports, mostly fishermen who will act hammock-bearers, a race especially
fond of Bacchus and worshippers of the 'devil Venus.' Perhaps a little too
much license is allowed to them in the matter of noisy and drunken 'native
customs,' palavers, and pow-wows. They rarely go about armed; if you see a
gun you know that the bearer is a huntsman. They are easily commanded,
and, despite their sympathies with Ashanti-land, they are not likely to
play tricks since their town was bombarded. In the villages they are civil
enough, baring the shoulders, like taking off the hat, when they meet
their rulers. Theirs, also, is the great virtue of cleanliness; even when
the mornings are coldest you see them bathing on the beach. They are never
pinched for food, and they have high ideas of diet. 'He lib all same
Prince; he chop cow and sheep ebery day, and fowl and duck he be all same
vegeta'l.' They have poultry in quantities, especially capons, sheep with
negro faces like the Persian, dwarf milch-goats of sturdy build, dark and
dingy pigs, and cattle whose peculiarity it is to be either black or
piebald. The latter are neat animals like the smallest Alderneys, with
short horns, and backs flat as tables. There are almost as many bulls as
there are cows, and they herd together without fighting. Being looked upon
as capital, and an honour to the owner, they are never killed; and,
although the udders of cows and goats are bursting with milk, they are
never milked.
The women differ very little from their sisters of the Eastern Gold Coast.
You never see beauty beyond the _beauté du diable_ and the naïve and
piquant plainness which one admires in a pug-pup. The forms are
unsupported, and the figure falls away at the hips. They retain the savage
fashion of coiffure shown in Cameron's 'Across Africa,' training their
wool to bunches, tufts, and horns. The latter is the favourite; the
pigtails, which stand stiff upright, and are whipped round like pricks of
tobacco, may number half a dozen: one, however, is the common style, and
the size is said to be determined by a delicate consideration. Opposed to
this is the highly civilised _atufu_, 'kankey,' or bussle, whose origin is
disputed. Some say that it prevents the long cloth clinging to the lower
limbs, others that it comes from a modest wish to conceal the forms; some
make it a jockey-saddle for the baby, others a mere exaggeration of
personal development, an attempt to make Aphrodite a Callipygé. I hold
that it arose, in the mysterious hands of 'Fashion,' from the knot which
secures the body-cloth, and which men wear in front or by the side.
Usually this bussle is a mere bundle of cloth; on dress occasions it is a
pad or cushion. I had some trouble to buy the specimen, which Cameron
exhibited in London.
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) ... Kwábina ... Abiena.
Wuku (Wednesday-born) ... Kwáko ... Akudea.
Tan (Thursday-born) ... Kwáo ... Yá (Yawá).
Afio (Friday-born) ... Kofi (Coffee) ... Afuá.
Amu (Saturday-born) ... Kwámina ... Amma.
Ayisi (Sunday-born) ... Kwasi ... Akosúa (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
_guassia_-wood. The names of the days are taken from the seven Powers
which rule them. Kwa-Si would be Kwá (=_akoa_, man, slave), and Ayisi (a
man) belonging to Ayisi. Amongst the Accra people the first-born are
called Téte (masc.) and Dede (fem.), the second Tété 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 entitled 'Kwábina Echipu'--Tuesday Baldhead. I became
Sásá Kwési (Fetish Sunday), from a fancied clerical appearance, Sásá being
probably connected with Sásábonsam, '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 Kwámina Blay, of
Attabo, Ahin (Ahene) or King of Amrehía, 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-fashion by
four sturdy 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 cocked 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 shield.
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 relationships, 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
ambassador. The system much resembles that of the village-republics in
Maráthá-land.] sat down, in caps and billycocks; 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 _afõa_, 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 fashion, 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
butter. The impossible handles were worthy of the blades, bulging grips
between two huge balls utterly unfitted for handling; four were covered
with thin gold-plate in _repoussé_ 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 hourglass-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 titles, and after every blast the liege lord responded
mechanically, 'Kwámina Blay! atinásu 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 'drinkitite' 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 document 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 cocked
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 Bobowusúa 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-fashion 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 mass threaded with quartz-veins from north to south (1º 30'),
bossed by granite dykes [Footnote: It is generally believed that these
granite injections have been cooled and consolidated deep below earth's
surface.] trending east-west (96º 50'), and traversed by a burnt vein
striking 67º. 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.
Bobowusúa 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
shells. 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 knob 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-grass, a variety of salsolaceæ, 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 Bobowusúa, 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 Bobowusúa is Poké islet, a similar
but smaller block. During spring-tides they are linked together and to the
shore by reefs that stand up high and dry. Poké 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 Kumasi. 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
noble anthropological collection, lately presented to the University.] All
were of the neolithic or ground type; the palæolithic 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' (_osráman-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 _osráman-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
_básanos_ 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 Haurán. 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 Assini 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 hoards 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 primæval
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.'