THE RETURN--VISIT TO KING BLAY; ATÁBO AND BÉIN.
I spare my readers the slightest description of the troubles that attended
our departure from Axim on January 31. Briefly, we began loading at dawn
and the loads were not headed before 10 A.M.
The black caravan, or rather herd, was mustered by its guide and manager,
the energetic W. M. Grant. His _personnel_ consisted of seven Kruboys from
Cape Palmas and forty-three Axim carriers, who now demand eight and
sixpence for a trip which two years ago cost a dollar. They stray about
the country like goats, often straggling over four miles. As bearers they
are the worst I know, and the Gold Coast hammock is intended only for
beach-travelling. The men are never sized, and they scorn to keep step,
whilst the cross-pieces at either end of the pole rest upon the head and
are ever slipping off it. Hence the jolting, stumbling movement and the
sensation of feeling every play of the porters' muscles, which make the
march one long displeasure. Yet the alternative, walking, means fever for
a new comer. On return we cut long bamboos and palm-fronds and made the
Krumen practise carrying, Hindu-fashion, upon the shoulder.
The rest of the moving multitude was composed of the servantry and the
camp-followers. One _bouche inutile_ bore a flag, a second carried a gun,
and so forth, the only principle being to work as little as possible and
to plunder all things plunderable. There were exceptions. Joe (Kwasi
Bedeh) of Dixcove, Cameron's old servant, who boasts of being a pagan, and
who speaks English, French, and Dutch, a handy and intelligent young
fellow, who can cook, sew, carpenter, or lead a caravan--in fact, can
serve as factotum--and his accounts, marvellous to recount, are honestly
kept. I should want no better servant in these coast-countries and in
exploring the far interior. The cook, 'Mister Dawson,' of Axim, is a
sturdy senior of missionary presence: having been long employed in that
line, he wears a white tie on Sundays, and I shrewdly suspect him of
preaching. A hard worker, beginning early and ending late, he is an
excellent stuffer of birds and beasts, and the good condition of our
collection is owing entirely to him. His son, Kwasi Yau (Sunday Joe), is a
sharp 'boy' in the Anglo-Indian sense. The carpenter, our model idler, who
won't work and can't work, receives 3_l_. per mens., when $8 should be the
utmost; we cleared him out on return to Axim. Meanwhile he saunters about
under an umbrella, and is always missing when wanted for work.
Our companions and body-guards are Bianco and Nero, both bought by Cameron
at L'pool for a suspiciously trifling sum. The former is a small
smooth-haired terrier, who dearly loves to bark and bite, and who shows
evident signs of early training in the cab-line. A dog with all the
manners of a doggess, he eventually found a happy home in the fort, Axim.
The second, a bastard Newfoundland with a dash of the bloodhound, and just
emerging from puppyhood, soon told us the reason why he was sold for a
song. That animal was a born murderer; he could not sight a sheep, a goat,
or a bullock without the strongest desire to pull it down; therefore he
had been sold into slavery, African and old-English fashion, instead of
being hanged. He had fine qualities--obedience, fidelity, affection, a
grand voice, and a ferocious presence. All these good gifts, however, were
marred by an over-development of destructiveness. He survived his journeys
by passing many of his hours in the water, and he was at last 'dashed' to
Dr. Roulston, of Tákwá.
We took once more the northern road to Brévia, or 'Stink-fish Town,' and
crossed its tongue of red clay bounded by the bed of the Anjueri stream.
Here again appeared a large block of greenstone deeply grooved by the
grinder. Thence we debouched upon the surf-lashed shore, tripped over by
the sandpiper and the curlew and roped by the bright-flowered convolvulus.
Streaks of the auriferous black sand became more frequent and promising as
we advanced.
We ran close to Akromasi, or One-tree Point, upon whose flat dorsum linger
the bush-grown ruins of a fort. It was named Elisa Cartago by its
founders, the Portuguese, who were everywhere haunted by memories of the
classics. Bowdich [Footnote: Folio, p. 271.] is eminently in error when he
places the remains 'at the extreme navigable point of the river,' and
opines that the work was built by Governor Ringhaven (Ruyghaver), buried
at Elmina in 1700. He was misinformed by Colonel Starrenberg, a Dutch
officer who canoed three days up the Bosom Prah River, a fact probably
unknown to Commodore Commerell. Bosman [Footnote: Letter I. 1737.] shows
'Elisa Cartago op den Berg Ancober,' crowning the head of Akromasi Point,
with a road leading up to the palisades which protect the trade-houses.
Lieutenant Jeekel, [Footnote: Map of the former Dutch possessions on the
Gold Coast (districts of Apollonia, Azim, Dixcove, Sekondi, Chama, and
El-Mina), by Lieut. C. A. Jeekel, Royal Dutch Navy. Lithographed at the
Topographical Depôt of the War Office, Major C. W. Wilson, R.R., Director,
1873. It extends only from the Ebumesu to the Sweet River (Elmina) and up
the Ancobra valley; and it is best known for the seaboard.] an excellent
authority, also places it at the river-mouth. According to some it was
taken in early days by the French, who still hold it. Captain Ellis has
transferred to this site the story of Fort Eguira, an inland, or rather
up-stream, work, destroyed, as Dr. Reynhaut and others tell us, in an
'elendige manier' (a piteous way).
The gallant Mynheer commanding fought the natives till his men were shot
down, after using 'rock-gold' (nuggets) for bullets. He rolled sundry
powder-barrels under the palaver-hall, and stationed there a boy with a
match to be applied when he stamped on the floor. He then flung open the
gates, hung out a flag of trace, and invited the bloodthirsty savages, who
were bent on killing him by torture, to take the hoard of gold for which
the attack was made. When all crowded the great room he reproached them
with their greed of gain, gave the sign, and blew them and himself into
eternity. I am told by a good authority that the natives, whose memories
are tenacious on some points, will not show to strangers the ruins which
cost their forefathers so dear.
The last village on the sands is Kukakun, where the wreck of a schooner
saddens the scene. Within a few hundred yards of Akromasi we bent abruptly
eastward and exchanged the sands for the usual stiff soil of red clay. The
gut is formed by the point-bluff and a southern block, and the surface is
covered with dense second-growth--pandanus, the false sugar-cane, ferns
large and small, and the sloth-tree, the Brazilian _ubá_ or Preguiça, with
tall, thin white trunk and hanging palmated leaves. The African palm-birds
(orioles of the _Merulidæ_ family), whose two colours, red (_ntiblii_) and
golden yellow (_enadsi_), apparently divide them into as many fighting
factions, give a touch, a bright colour to the dulness, and chatter over
their pensile homes, which strangers would mistake for cocoa-nuts.
Severely hustled and horribly shaken up, we ran down the little valley of
the Avin streamlet. It comes from afar, heading, they say, in Abasakasu, a
region where gold abounds. In three-quarters of an hour we had cleared the
four short miles which separate Axim from the Ancobra ferry. This is the
line of a future tramway, which will transport goods from the port to the
river; at present they must be shipped in bar-boats, which cost much and
carry little. The ground divides itself into three sections--the red clay
north of Axim; the sands, whose green-grown upper levels are fitted to
support iron-pot sleepers; and the Avin valley, which debouches upon the
left bank of the Ancobra. The first and the last divisions are safe for
creosoted wood. My friend Mr. Russell Shaw would, I doubt not, take the
contract for 4,000_l_., and a macadamised cart-road could be made for
500_l_.
This would be the beginning of a much-wanted change. At present the prices
of transport are appalling. The French mines pay from 2_l_. to 2_l_.
10_s_. per ton from England to Axim; from Axim to Tákwá, forty miles by
river and thirty by land, costs them 600 francs (24_l_.) per ton.
Moreover, native hands are not always forthcoming.
The Ancobra River, the main artery and waterway of this region, must not
be written after the Jonesian or modern mode, 'Ankobra' and 'Ankober,' nor
with Bosman 'Rio Cobre' (River of Copper). It has evidently no connection
with Abyssinian Ankober. To the native name, 'Anku' or 'Manku,' the
Portuguese added Cobra, expressing its snaky course. Bowdich, followed by
many moderns, calls it Seënna, for Sánmá or Sánumá, meaning 'unless a gale
(of wind).' The legend is that a savage and murderous old king of the
Apollonians, whose capital was Atábo, built a look-out upon a tall
cocoanut-tree, and declared that nothing but a storm could lay it low.
Sánmá is still the name of the settlement on the right bank near the
rivermouth.
We rested at Kumprasi, a few huts close to the _embouchure_ of the
iron-bedded Avin streamlet and backwater. The little zinc-roofed hut,
called by courtesy a store, belonging to Messieurs Swanzy, was closed.
Katubwé, the northern hill on the left bank, had been bought, together
with Akromasi Point and the Avin valley, by the late M. Bonnat, who
cleared it and began shafting it for gold in the usual routine way. During
the last six months it has been overgrown with dense vegetation. Mr.
Walker believes, not unreasonably, that this lode is connected with the
Apatim or Bujiá reefs.
Ferrying across, we could note the wild features of the Ancobra's mouth.
The bar, which in smooth weather allows passage to a load of five tons,
not unfrequently breaks at an offing of four miles, and breaks obliquely.
The gape is garnished on either side by little black stumps of rocks, and
the general effect is very unpleasant. A fine school of sharks fattens on
the fish inside the bar. At this season the entrance narrows to a few
feet, the effect of a huge sandspit on the right lip, and carries only six
feet of water. During the rains it will rise eleven feet at Sánmá, and at
Tumento twenty-four feet in a day, falling with the same dangerous
rapidity. We shall see more of the Ancobra, which here separates two
districts. Between it and Cape Threepoints the land is called Avaláwé; and
the westward region, extending to Cape Apollonia, is named Amrehía, the
Amregia of Jeekel and Dahse, meaning, 'where people meet.'
We halted for breakfast at Sánmá, where Messieurs Swanzy have another
storehouse, and where the French Company is building one for itself with
characteristic slowness. The settlement is ill-famed for the Chigo or
jigger (_Pulex penetrans_), unknown in my day upon the West African coast.
It has killed men by causing gangrenous sores. From 'Tabon,' [Footnote:
'Tabon' is evidently corrupted from the popular greeting ''Sta bom?' (Are
you well? How d'e do?)] the Brazil, it crept over to São Paulo de Loanda,
and thence it spread far and wide up and down coast, and deep into the
interior. This fact suggests that there may be truth in the theory which
makes the common flea of India an immigrant from Europe.
At 1 P.M. we resumed our way along the beach, under sunshine tempered by
the 'smokes.' These mists, however, are now clearing away for the
tornado-season, and 'insolation' will become more decided. We ran by
sundry little bush-villages: their names will be found in my companion's
careful route-survey. I shall notice only those which showed something
notable.
There is sameness in the prospect, which, however, does not wholly lack
interest. Soon after dawn the village urchins begin disporting themselves
among the breakers and billows upon broken bits of boat, while their
fathers throw the cast-net nearer shore. The brown-black pigs and piglets
root up the wet sand for shell-fish; and, higher up, the small piebald
cattle loiter in the sun or shade. From afar the negro-groups are not
unpicturesque in their bright red and brimstone yellow sheets, worn like
Roman togas. A nearer view displays bridgeless, patulous noses, suggesting
a figure of [Symbol: Figure-8 on its side.]; cheek-bones like molehills,
and lips splayed out in the manner of speaking-trumpets: often, indeed,
the face is a mere attachment to the devouring-apparatus. Throughout the
day sexes and ages keep apart. The nude boys perch upon stones or worn-out
canoes. Their elders affect the shade, men on one side of the village and
women on the other. All the settlements are backed by cocoa-trees in lines
and clumps. Those who view Africa biliously compare them with hearse-plumes;
I find in them a peculiar individuality and likeness to humankind. There
is the chubby babe, six feet high; the fast-growing 'hobbedehoy;' the
adult, bending away from you like a man, or, woman-like, inclining towards
you; there is the bald, shrunken senior; and, lastly, appears death, lean
and cold and dry.
Between sea and settlement stand the canoes, flat-bottomed and tip-tilted
like Turkish slippers; where the land is low and floods are high, each is
mounted upon four posts. Fronting and outside the village stands a
wall-less roof of flat matting, the palaver-house. The settlement is
surrounded by a palisade of fronds stripped from the bamboo-palm and
strengthened by posts; the latter put forth green shoots as soon as stuck
in the ground, and recall memories of Robinson Crusoe. The general
entrance has a threshold two to two and a half feet high. The tenements
are simple as birds' nests, primitive as the Highlander's mud-cabin and
shieling of wattle and heather. The outer walls are of bamboo-palm fronds,
the partitions are of bamboo-palm matting, and the roofs are of
bamboo-palm thatch. Each place has its _osafahin_, or headman, and each
headman has his guest-house, built of better material, swish or adobe.
The only approach to grandeur are the long surges and white combers of the
mournful and misty Atlantic. They roll like the waving prairie-land, curl
their huge heads, and dash down in a fury of foam. 'On the top of a billow
we ride,' with a witness. Here and there black dots peer through the surf,
and to touch them is death. This foul shore presents a formidable barrier
to landing: there absolutely is no safe place between Apollonia and the
Ancobra. European employés avoid tempting the breakers; they disembark and
re-embark for home, and that is all. Mr. Grant assures us that there is no
risk; Mr. Grillett, who has worked the coast since 1875, says the
contrary; no man knows it better or fears it more. Some places are worse
than others; for instance, Inenyápoli is exceptionally dangerous. The sea
is shallow, and ships, requiring eight fathoms, must, to be safe, anchor
four miles out. The coast-soundings in the Admiralty charts are positively
unsafe, and will remain so until revised. On the other hand, the reefs and
rocks of Axim Bay have wholly disappeared, with some exceptions seen off
Kikam and Esyáma.
Looking inland we find the shore mostly subtended by a _marigot_, or
salt-water lagoon, a miniature of those regular rivers which made the
Slave Coast what it was. And along the sea we can detect its presence by
the trickling of little rills guttering and furrowing the sandy surface.
The formation of these characteristic African features, which either run
parallel with or are disposed at various angles to the coast, is
remarkably simple. There is no reason to assume with Lieutenant R. C. Hart
that they result from secular upheaval. [Footnote: Page 186, _Gold Coast
Blue Book_. London, 1881]. The 'powerful artillery with which the ocean
assails the bulwarks of the land' here heaps up a narrow strip of high
sand-bank; and the tails of the smaller streams are powerless to break
through it, except when swollen by the rains. They maintain their level by
receiving fresh water at the head and by percolation through the beach,
while most of them are connected with the sea.
We halted for rest at the Esyáma village; its landmarks are the ronnier,
the glorious palmyra (_Borassus flabelliformis_), here called 'women's
cocoa-tree.' The village looked peculiarly neat with its straight, sandy
street-roads, a quarter of a mile long; and the tenements generally are
better than those of Axim. We noticed the usual feature, a long thatched
barn of yellow clay--school-cum-chapel. The people are fond of planting
before their doors the _felfa_, croton or physicnut (_Jatropha curcas_),
whose oil so long lighted Lisbon. It is a tree of many uses. Boys suck the
honey of the flower-stalk; and adults drink or otherwise use, as
corrective of bile, an infusion of the leaves and the under bark. They
could not give me the receipt for the valuable preparation of the green
apple, well known to the Fantis of Accra.
After returning to Axim we heard of rich diggings two hours' march inland,
or north with easting from Esyáma. They are called 'Yirima,' or
'Choke-full'--that is, of gold. The site is occupied by King Blay's
family, and the place is described as containing three or four reefs which
have all been more or less worked by the natives. After we left the coast
Yirima was visited by Mr. Grant, who reported it as exceptionally
promising.
About sunset we hit the Ebumesu, or 'Winding Water.' The people declare
that it had a single mouth till the earthquakes of July 1862, which shook
down Accra, raised a divide, and made a double _embouchure_. The eastern
fork, known as the Páná, is the drain of a large and branchy lagoon,
brackish water, bitumen-coloured or brassy-yellow, with poisonous
vegetation, and bounded by mangroves abounding in tannin. These
water-forests grow differently from the red and white rhizophores of
Eastern Africa. We shall again be ferried over the upper part of the
western mouth. Both have bad bars, especially the latter. I therefore can
by no means agree with Mr. Walker's report:--'The western outlet of the
Ebumesu, near the village of Eku Enu, or Ekwanu, is quite practicable for
ordinary surf-boats during the dry season--say half the year--and even in
the middle of June I found the bar smooth and safe. Having for thirty
years worked some of the worst bars and beaches' (the Gaboon? or the
Sherbro?) 'along some hundreds of miles of the West Coast, I am able to
state that the Ebumesu bar might be safely utilised for landing goods and
machinery; but during the heavy surf of the rainy season goods could
always be disembarked at Axim, and, if necessary, carried along the beach
to the mouth of the Ebumesu, and thence by boat to the tramway from that
river to the mine.' This last statement is quite correct.
All the Aximites described the Ebumesu bars as practically impassable.
Cameron and I agreed that the only way of entering them is by running the
boat ashore, unloading her, and warping her round the point, as we shall
afterwards do at Prince's. But the best line to the Izrah concession has
not yet been discovered. I strongly impressed the necessity of careful
search upon Mr. A. A. Robertson, the traffic-manager of the Company. For
the present I hold the surf along shore and the Ebumesu bar to be equally
dangerous. The land-tongue between the two streams is the favourite haunt
of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and it produces nothing save mud and
mangroves, miasma and malaria. Yet here in 1873-74 loyal and stout-hearted
King Blay defended himself against the whole Apollonian coast, which
actively sympathised with the Ashantis. [Footnote: Captain Brackenbury,
vol. ii, p. 29, _The Ashanti War_, &c., gives an account of King Blay
fighting the Ashantis on the Ebumesu.] He was at last relieved by the
Wásás (Wassaws) coming to his side; and now he has little to fear. He can
put some 5,000 musketeers into the field; and, during the late Ashanti
scare, he offered to aid us with 7,000, if we could supply the extras with
arms and ammunition.
When the 'Queen of Shades' arose, and it became too dark to see the world,
we halted at the Sensyéré village, and found good sleeping-quarters in the
guest-house of the headman, Bato. Fortunately we had brought mattresses.
The standing four-poster of the country offers only cross-planks covered
with the thinnest matting. As the ancient joke of many a lugubrious
African traveller says, it combines bed and board. Next morning, despite
the chilly damp and the 'old-woman-cannot-see,' as the Scotch mist is here
called, our men were ready within reasonable limits. After two hours'
hammock we found ourselves at Atábo, capital of eastern Apollonia, about
to pay our promised return-visit to good King Blay. It is useless to
describe the settlement, which in no way differs from those passed on the
path. The country-people related its origin as follows:--A Fanti man from
the country between Secondee (Sekondi), or Fort Orange, and Shamah
(Chamah), at the mouth of the Bosom Prah, when driven out by war, first
founded 'Kabeku,' near the present place of that name. His sons built
Béin, or Behin, [Footnote: The aspirate is hardly audible. Captain
Brackenbury, generally so careful, manages to confound Béin and Benin.]
meaning a 'strong man,' and Atábo, in Fanti _atába_, the name of a tree
with a reddish-yellow fruit. The latter was paramount till late years,
when turbulent and unruly Béin was allowed to set up for herself an
independent king; and the sooner things return to the _status quo ante_
the better for peace.
King Blay's guest-house of whitewashed swish is a model of its kind. You
pass through a large compound, which contains the outhouses, into a broad,
deep verandah, generally facing away from the sea. It opens upon a central
room adorned with German prints of Scriptural subjects--Mariahilf, for
instance, all gaudy colour and gilt spangles. On each side of this piece
are sleeping-rooms. The furniture of the five is exceedingly simple--a
standing bedstead, a table, and a few wooden chairs. But Ahin Blay is a
civilised man who strews his floors with matting, and has osier
_fauteuils_ from Madeira. These quarters are quite wholesome and
comfortable enough for temporary use. They would be greatly improved by
mounting on pillars or piles; and they might serve for all seasons save
the rainy.
Mr. Graham, who dispenses elementary knowledge to the missionary pupils,
came to us at once, and kindly offered his aid as 'mouf.' These useful
men, who serve as go-betweens and interpreters, are called 'scholars' by
the people, and are charged with making profit out of whites and blacks.
In the afternoon Mr. Graham brought me two neolithic stone-implements. We
then set out for the 'palace,' a large congeries of houses and huts,
guided by a mighty braying of horns and beating of drums, and by Union
Jacks, with the most grotesque adjuncts of men and beasts, planted in the
clean and sandy street-road. King Blay received us in his palaver-hall,
and his costume now savoured not of Europe, but of 'fetish.' He had been
'making customs,' or worshipping after country-fashion, and would not keep
us waiting while he changed dress. The cap was a kind of tall hood,
adorned with circles of cowries and two horns of the little bush-antelope;
the robe was Moorish, long and large-sleeved, and both were charged with
rolls of red, white, and blue stuff, supposed to contain grígrís, or
talismans. The Ashanti medal, however, was still there; indeed, he wore it
round his neck even on the march, when his toilette was reduced to a
waist-cloth and a billycock. After discussing palm-wine in preference to
trade-gin, we persuaded King Blay, despite all his opposition, that 'time
is gold,' and that with strange and indelicate haste we _must_ set out
early on the morrow for the Izrah mine. His main difficulty was about
clearing the path; he had issued strong orders upon the subject, but
African kings often command and no one cares to obey. The monarchy is
essentially limited, and the lieges allow no stretch of power, unless the
ruling arm be exceptionally long and strong.
Hearing that the gold-hilted official swords of the King of Béin were for
sale, and wishing to inspect the place, we set off at 3.30 P.M. to cover
the 4,769 yards measured along the sands by Mr. Graham. Reaching our
destination, eighteen miles distant from Axim, we were carried up the long
straight street-road which leads to the old English fort. It is the normal
building, a house on bastions, both well and solidly made of stone and
lime. Amongst the materials I found a fine yellow sandstone-grit and a
nummulite so weathered that the shells stood out in strong relief. Both
were new to us on this trap-coast, and no one could say where they were
quarried; many thought they must have come from Europe, others that they
are brought from inland. The masonry of the sea-front was pitted with
seven large wounds, dealt by as many shells when we broke down our own
work. Such was the consequence of sympathising with the Ashantis in 1873,
when Axim also was bombarded.
What changes these factory-forts have seen, beginning with the days of the
jolly old Hollanders, who, in doublets and trunk-hose, held high state,
commanding large garrisons and ruling the rulers of the land. What
banquets, what carousals, with _sopies_ of the best schiedam, and long
clay-pipes stuffed with the finest tobacco, when an exceptional haul of
gold-dust or captives had come to hand! But Time got the better of them;
the abolition of the export slave-trade cut the ground from under their
feet; diminished profits made economy necessary, and the forts were
allowed to become the shadows of their former selves. Then came the
cession to England, when all appeared running on the road to ruin. Now,
however, things are again changed, and 'Resurgam' may be written upon
these scenes of decay. The Mines will once more make the fortune of the
Gold Coast, and the old buildings will become useful as hospitals, and
store-houses, and barracoons for coolie emigrants.
The Béin fort has been repaired and whitewashed inside by the lessees,
Messieurs Swanzy, whose agent, Mr. Carr, we found here in possession.
Unlike Axim, it still preserves intact the outer work with its dwarf
belfry over the strong doorway. But the cistern in the middle of this
slave-court must make the cleanly old Netherlanders turn in their tombs.
Opposite the fort is the normal school-room, occasionally served by Mr.
Graham, of Atábo; Béin has a tide-waiter, but no pedagogue. Beyond it
rises the large and uneven swish-house of the 'King,' who has lately been
summonsed, as a defaulting debtor, to Cape Coast Castle: the single black
policeman who served the writ evidently looked upon us as his colleagues.
The people eyed us with no friendly glances; they were 'making custom' for
the ruler's return. The vague phrase denoted, in this case, a frantic
battering of drums, big and little; a squeaking of scrannel pipes; a
feminine 'break-down' of the most _effrénée_ description, and a general
libation to the Bacchus of Blackland. A debauched and drunken Ashanti, who
executed for our benefit a decapitation-dance, evidently wishing that we
had been its objects, thanked us ironically for a sixpence. We met some
difficulty in seeing the swords, which were _not_ to be sold. They were
the usual rusty and decayed fish-slicers; Cameron, however, was kind
enough to sketch them for me, and they will appear in my coming book.
Most of the adult males had travelled inland to the Tákwá or French mines,
where the Apollonians bear the highest reputation. Whole gangs flock to
the diggings, bringing their own provisions and implements. Thus they have
begun working on tribute and contracting for piece-work. [Footnote: This
information was given to me by M. Plisson, traffic-manager to the
Company.] This is a favourable phase of the labour-question. At the same
time it is clear that the labourer can easily keep the richest specimens
for himself and palm off the worst stuff upon the stranger.
Here we are next door to the Ivory Coast, and elephants, they say, are
still to be found within two days north of Béin. The hunters cross a broad
stream (the Tando?) and a dry swamp; they then enter an uninhabited
forest; and, after a couple of marches, they reach the animals' haunts.
Small tusks are at times brought in, but no Europeans, so far as I know,
ever killed a tusker in these wilds. My informants heard that a route from
Béin leads to Gyáman, and that it may be travelled without difficulty.
The following note, by Mr. Edward L. McCarthy, describes an excursion from
Béin to the unvisited Essuá-tí, made by him in August 1881:--
'Accompanied by Prince John Coffee, heir to King Blay, three other chiefs,
their servants, and my own party of Krumen, we left the town of Béin,
Apollonia, to go up to the village in the bush called Essuá-tí. Half a
mile from the town we found canoes awaiting us, and in these we were poled
along for over half an hour over what in the dry season is a native path,
but now a narrow channel of water winding about in a dense jungle of
reeds. Here and there we came upon small hillocks covered with trees, in
which numerous monkeys sported about. Emerging from these reeds, one broad
sheet of water presented itself to the eye, encircled by a low shore
fringed with canes, bush, and palm-trees, and at its western extremity a
range of hills rose out of the background. The lagoon receives several
small streams, and empties itself into the sea by the Ebumesu river, its
mouth being about half-way between Béin and the Ancobra. According to the
natives the river used to be navigable to its mouth, but of late years has
become overgrown with reeds. A few years back they set to work to cut a
channel through them, but getting tired of the work gave it up. The length
of the lagoon appears to be about three to four miles, and about one to
one and a half in breadth. Its major axis runs parallel to the coastline,
or nearly due east and west. Twenty minutes' paddling brought us round the
point of a small headland, where we came in sight of a pretty lake-village
built upon piles, at some little distance from the shore, the whole
forming a most picturesque and animated scene. From house to house canoes
laden with people, plantains, &c., were passing to and fro; groups of
villagers, some standing, others sitting, upon the raised bamboo-platforms
outside their houses, were busy bartering fish for plantains, while the
children played around, apparently unconscious of any danger from falling
into the water. The settlement consisted of over forty houses, mostly of
bamboo, a few of "swish," forming one long irregular line, and three or
four standing away from the rest round a corner of land, after the Fanti
custom. These houses were built on a bamboo-platform supported by piles,
and raised above the water some three and a half feet. One half of the
platform is covered by the house; the other half, left free, is used to
fish from, for the children to play about on, and for receptions when
palavers are held.
'The distance from the shore varies with the overflow of the lake, at the
time of my visit about thirty to forty yards, though for miles beyond this
the ground was saturated with water, whose depth varied from three and a
half to nine feet. The piles are made of stout sticks; the mode of driving
them in is to lash two canoes abreast by means of two sticks or paddles,
placed transversely, leaving an open space of about two and a half feet
between them. Two men in each canoe, and facing each other, then
vigorously twist and churn about the pole, or rather stick, into the soft
bottom of the lagoon. Some fifteen of these poles are thus driven in and
firmly braced together by cross-pieces, upon which the platform is
constructed, and on this again the house is built.
'We stopped here to breakfast before ascending the Bousaha River; and,
while so doing, I counted at one time over forty natives sitting round us
on the platform. I was not without my fears that we should all be
precipitated into the water, but the structure, though in appearance frail
and very rude, was far stronger than what it looked.
'I closely questioned the natives as to why they had built their village
upon the lake, and they invariably gave as their reason that they chiefly
fished at night; and, as the water often overflowed, they would have to
build their houses too far away to be able to come and go during the
night; whereas "now," they said, "we are close to where we catch our fish,
and we often catch them even from our houses." Underneath each house were
tied from one to five, and sometimes more, canoes. These were much
lighter, more rounded off in the keel, stem, and stern, than the
beach-canoes.
'Three white men, they told me, had visited their village--Captain Dudley
in 1876, judging from the age of a child who was born at the time of his
visit; Captain Grant and Mr. Gillett, in 1878, I afterwards learnt, were
the other two. None of them went further into the interior.
'After breakfast we crossed the lagoon, passing on our way several canoes
fishing in the middle. The water was very clear and blue, and of
considerable depth, judging from a stone dropped in. Unfortunately I had
no other means of sounding. Not until a dozen yards from the shore were
any signs of a stream discernible. Pushing aside some reeds, we entered a
narrow lane of water, varying from three feet to eighteen feet in width,
deep, and, according to the natives, navigable for three days by canoes.
This stream is known by the name of Bousaha, and the lagoon by Ebumesu.
After two hours' hard paddling in a northerly direction we stopped to walk
to the village of Níbá, a large place, principally engaged in raising food
for the coast fishing-villages and Béin, and also in elephant-hunting.
'Elephants at the time of my visit were reported in large numbers two
days' journey in the bush, and the villagers were then organising a party
for a hunt. Outside the village I came across the skull of a young
elephant, from which I extracted the teeth. The only report of a white man
having been here before was long ago, when, some of the old men told me,
he came from Assini direction, but turned back again. The village was
neatly laid out in streets and was beautifully clean.
'Another three hours' pull, still bearing northwards, brought us to the
village of Essuati, a smaller place than Níbá, but very prettily laid out
with trees, surrounded by seats in its central street. The people here, as
at Níbá, were mainly engaged in agriculture.
'Crowds came to see the "white man," many of the women and children never
having been to Axim, the nearest place where whites are to be found, and,
consequently, had never seen one before.
'After a few days' stay here I returned to the coast. While there I came
across a curious fish-trap, a description of which may not be
uninteresting. Across a stick planted in the river-bed a light piece of
bamboo was tied, and at its further extremity was suspended a string
carrying fish-hooks. Above these a broad piece of wood, suspended so as to
be half in and half out of the water, acted as a float and spindle. Above
this again were tied four large shells, so that when a fish is hooked the
shells begin to jingle, and the fishermen, hid in the bush, immediately
rush out and secure the fish.'
[Illustration of fish trap.]