THE IZRAH MINE--THE IKYOKO CONCESSION--THE RETURN TO AXIM.
The next day (February 2) showed me my objective, Izrah, after a voyage of
nearly three months. The caravan, now homeward-bound after a fashion, rose
early, and we hammocked in the cool and misty morning along shore to
Inyenápoli--the word means Greater Inyena, as opposed to Inyenachi, the
Less. In the house of Mr. J. Eskine I saw his tradesman bartering cloth
for gold-dust. The weighing apparatus is complicated and curious, and
complete sets of implements are rare; they consist of blowers, sifters,
spoons, native scales, weights of many kinds, and 'fetish gong-gongs,' or
dwarf double bells.
Gold-dust is the only coin of the realm; and travellers who would pass
north of the Protectorate must buy it on the coast. It is handier than one
would suppose; even a farthing can be paid in it by putting one or two
grains upon a knife-tip, and there is a name, _peseha_ (Port. _peso_?),
for a pennyworth. Larger values go by weight; the _aki_ (_ackie_),
[Footnote: The word _aki_ sounds much like the Arab _roukkah_ or
_roukkiyah_. Its weight, the 16th of an ounce, never varies; but the value
ranges from 4_s_. 6_d_. to 5_s_., according as the ounce is worth 3_l_.
12_s_. to 4_l_. 10_s_., the average being assumed at 4_l_. Other
proportions are:--
The _toku_ (carat-seed) = 5_d_.
The _benna_ = 2 _akis_.
The _periquen_, _pereguen_, or _peredroano_ = 32 _akis_, or two ounces in
weight; and ranging in value from 9_l_. to 10_l_. (Bowdich, p. 283). The
word is Ashanti, little used by the Fantis.
For a list of these complicated gold weights, of which Mr. Grant has
promised me a set, see Appendix B, _ A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante
Language_, Rev. Christaller, Basel, 1881.] or sixteenth of an ounce, being
the unit of value. The people may be persuaded to take an English
sovereign, but they spurn a French napoleon. Amongst the many desiderata
of the Coast is a law making all our silver coins legal tenders. At
present the natives will scarcely take anything but threepenny-bits, new
and bright and bearing H.B.M.'s 'counterfeit presentment.' Copper has been
tried, but was made to fail by a clever District-commissioner, who refused
to take the metal in payment of Government dues. The old cowrie-currency,
of which the _tapo_, or score, represented two farthings, is all but
extinct. Its name will be preserved in the proverb, 'There is no market
wherein the dove with the pouting breast (the _cypraea_) has not traded.'
The same is the case with the oldest money, round and perforated
quartz-stones, which suggest the ring-coinage of ancient Egypt. From
Inyenápoli, preceded by King Blay, who so managed that a fair path had
been hastily cut through the bush, we struck inland, the course being
northwards, bending to the north-east and east. The first hour, covering
some three miles, lay partly over a flat plain of grass used for thatch,
pimpled with red anthills and broken by lines and patches of dense jungle.
These savannahs are common near the sea; we had already remarked one
behind Béin. They denote the 'false coast,' and they become during the wet
season almost impassable swamps and mud-fields.
Then we struck the valley of 'Ebumesu, winding water,' whose approach,
rank with mire and corded with roots, is the Great Dismal Swamp of Dahome
in miniature. Here, seven and a quarter miles from the mouth, the stream
measures about twenty yards broad, the _thalweg_ is deep and navigable,
and the water, bitumen-coloured with vegetable matter, tastes brackish.
There is the usual wasteful profusion of growth. Ferns ramp upon the
trees; Cameron counted at Akankon two dozen different species within a few
hundred yards. Orchids bunch the boughs and boles of dead forest-giants;
and llianas, the African 'tie-tie,' varying in growth from a packthread to
a cable, act as cordage to connect the growths.
There is evidently a shorter cut up the river, at whose lagoon-mouth craft
can be hired. Our ferryman with his single canoe wasted a good hour over
the work of a few minutes. We then remounted hammock and struck the 'true
coast,' a charming bit of country, gradually upsloping to the north and
east. The path passed through the plantation-villages, Benyá and Arábo,
growing bananas and maize, cassava and groundnuts, peppers and papaws,
cocoas and bamboo-palms (_Raphia vinifera_). The latter not only build the
houses, they also yield wine of two kinds, both, however, inferior to the
produce of the oil-palm (_Elais guineënsis_). The _adúbé_, drawn from the
cut spathe, which continues to yield for two or three months, is held to
be wholesome, diuretic, and laxative. The _inséfu_ is produced in
mortice-like holes cut along the felled trunk; they fill freely for a
fortnight to three weeks, when fires must be lighted below to make the
juice run into the pots. It is sweeter and better flavoured than the
former, but it is accused of being unwholesome. The people drink palm-wine
at different hours of the day, according to taste. The beverage is mild as
milk in the morning; after noon it becomes heady, and rough as the sourest
cider. The useful palm bears a huge bolster-like roll of fruit, which
should be tried for oil: Cameron brought home a fine specimen for Kew.
Here the land is evidently most fertile, and will form good farms for the
Company. Leaving Arábo, we forded the double stream called the Bilá, which
runs a few yards west of the concession. The banks are grown with rice,
showing how easily they will produce all the food necessary for the
labourers. The quality, moreover, is better, and the grain more nutritious
than the Chinese import. The bed of bright sand, supplying the sweetest
water, has in places been worked for gold by the women, but much remains
to be done.
In another hour, making a total of six miles from Inyenápoli, we reached
our destination, Arábokasu, or 'One Stone for Top.' We lodged our
belongings in the bamboo-house newly built by Mr. Grant, finding it
perfectly fit for temporary use. Before I left Axim Mr. C. C. Robertson
landed there, instructed by the Izrah Company to choose a fair site for a
frame-house mounted on piles. It was presently made in England, but
unfortunately not after the Lagos fashion, with the bed-rooms opening upon
a verandah seven to nine feet broad, and a double roof of wood with
air-space between, instead of thatch and corrugated iron. The house
measures 52 x 32 feet, and contains four bed-rooms, a dining-room, and the
manager's office. A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300_l_. to
500_l_., an exceptional article 700_l_.
We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is
properly Izíá, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on
the spot. This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion.'
Apparently Izíá became Izrah to assume a 'Scriptural' sound; if so, why
not 'go the whole animal' and call it the Isaiah?
This fine concession is a rectangular parallelogram, whose dimensions are
2,000 yards long from north to south, by a breadth of half. The village
stands outside the south-western angle, and the Fía rivulet runs through
the south-eastern corner. The surface is rolling ground, with a rise and a
depression trending from south-west to north-east. The whole extent,
except where 'bush' lingers, is an old plantation of bananas, manioc, and
ground-nuts. There is an ample supply of good hard timber, but red
pitch-pine or creosoted teak from England would last much longer. Amongst
the trees are especially noted the copal, the gamboge, rich in sticky
juice, the _brovi_, said to be the hardest wood, and the _dum_, or African
mahogany (_Oldfieldia africana_), well known in Ceylon as excellent
material for boat-building. There was an abundance of the Calabar-bean
(_Physostigma venenosum_), once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied
by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints. The 'tie-tie,' as
Anglo-Africans call the rope-like creepers, was also plentiful; it may
prove valuable for cordage, and possibly for paper-making. I was pleased
to see the ease with which the heaped-up jungle-growth is burnt at this
season and the facility of road-making. Half a dozen Kru-boys with their
matchets can open, at the rate of some miles a day, a path fit to carry a
'sulky;' and the ground wants only metalling with the stone which lines
every stream. At the same time I hold that here, as in Mexico, we should
begin with railways and tramways. Nor will there be any difficulty in
keeping down the jungle. The soft and silky Bahama-grass has been brought
from Sá Leone to Axim, where it covers the open spaces, and it grows well
at Akankon. There is no trouble except to plant a few roots, which extend
themselves afar; and the carpet when thick allows, like the orange-tree,
no undergrowth.
The 'Izrah' concession is due to the energy and activity of Mr. R. B. N.
Walker, who has told its history. In March 1881, when he first visited it,
there had been a black 'rush;' the din and clamour of human voices were
audible from afar, and on reaching the mine he found some 300 natives hard
at work. I was told that the greatest number at one time was 2,000. The
account reminds us exactly of the human floods so famous in other parts of
the mining world. The men were sinking pits of unusual size along the
south-eastern slope of the hillock, where the great clearing now is. The
excitement was remarkable; and, negroes not being given to hard and
continuous labour without adequate inducement, the bustle and the uproar,
and the daily increasing numbers of miners flocking from considerable
distances, were evidence sufficient that there was an unusually good
'find.' Their pits, attaining a maximum of 12 feet square by 55 deep,
extended over some 150 yards from NN.E. to SS.W., with a breadth of about
20. From some of these holes rich quartz had been taken, one piece, the
size of a 32-pounder cannon-ball, yielding more than ten ounces of gold. A
shaft, however, soon caved in, for the usual reason: it had been
inadequately timbered and incautiously widened at the bottom to the shape
of a sodawater-bottle. All these works owed a royalty to Ahin Blay; but
his dues were irregularly paid, and consequently he preferred to them a
fixed rental of 100_l_. per annum.
The following anecdote will show how limited is the power of these
'kings.' He of Apollonia wished to sell this southern patch of ground,
worked by the natives, it being, in fact, the terminal tail of the Izrah
reef and the key of the property. But one Etié, head-man of Kikam, bluntly
refused. Presently this chieflet agreed to sell to Mr. Grant the whole
tract, a length of one thousand fathoms from north to south, the breadth
being left undetermined. But Etié was deep in Messieurs Swanzy's books,
and he wanted ready money. The tempter came in the shape of Mr. Dawson, a
native missionary whom I met a score of years ago at Agbóme, and whose
name appears in all narratives of the last Ashanti war. Although an
employé of the Tákwá or French mine, he bought for himself, paying
200_l_., the best part of the reef (100 fathoms), leaving the butt-end, of
inferior value, to Mr. Grant. This was a direct breach of contract, and
might be brought into the local law-courts. I advised, however, an
arrangement _à l'aimable_, and I still hope to see it carried out.
Life at Arábokasu was pleasant enough. The site, rising about 120 feet
above ocean-level, permits the 'Doctor,' alias the sea-breeze, to blow
freshly, and we distinctly heard the sough of the surf. Mornings and
evenings were exceedingly fine, and during the cool nights we found
blankets advisable. These 'small countries' (little villages) are
remarkably clean, and so are the villagers, who, unlike certain
white-skins, bathe at least once a day. At this season we had nothing to
complain of mosquitoes or sand-flies, nor was 'Insektenpulver' wanted
inside the house. The only physiological curiosity in the settlement was a
spotted boy, a regular piebald, like a circus-pony; even his head grew a
triangular patch of white hair. We wanted him for the London Aquarium, but
there were difficulties in the way. Amongst the Apollonians albinoes are
not uncommon; nor are the children put to death, as by the Ashantis. Both
races cut the boss from hunchbacks after decease, and 'make fetish' over
it to free the future family from similar distortion. Our villagers told
us strange tales of a magician near Assini who can decapitate a man and
restore him to life, and who lately had placed a dog's head on a boy's
body. Who can 'doubt the fact'? the boy was there!
I will now borrow freely from the diary kept during our five days'
inspection of the Izrah diggings. Cameron worked hard at a rough survey of
the ground which Mr. Walker had attempted with considerable success,
seeing that he carried only a pedometer and a small pocket-compass. My
proceedings were necessarily limited, as I had no authority to disburse
money.
_February 3_.--The night had been somewhat noisy with the hyena-like
screams which startled our soldiers _en route_ to Kumasi. They are said to
proceed from a kind of hyrax (?) about the size of a rabbit; the Krumen
call it a 'bush-dog', and, as will appear, Cameron holds it to be a lemur.
The morning was cool, but not clear, and the country so far like the
'Garden of Eden' that there went up a mist from the earth and watered the
whole face of the ground. But the mist was a Scotch mist, which, in less
humid lands, might easily pass for fine rain; and the drip, drip, drip of
heavy dew-drops from the broad banana-leaves sounded like a sharp shower.
At this hour the birds are wide awake and hungry; a hundred unknown
songsters warble their native wood-notes wild. The bush resounds with the
shriek of the parrot and the cooing of the ringdove, which reminds me of
the Ku-ku-ku (Where, oh, where?) of Umar-i-Khayyám. Its rival is the
_tsil-fui-fui-fui_, or 'hair grown,' meaning that his locks are too long
and there is no one to cut or shave them. Upon the nearest tall tree,
making a spiteful noise to frighten away all specimens, sits the
'watch-bird,' or _apateplu_, so called from his cry; he is wary and
cunning, but we bagged two. The 'clock-bird,' supposed to toll every hour,
has a voice which unites the bark of a dog, the caw of a crow, and the
croak of a frog: he is rarely seen and even cleverer than 'hair grown.'
More familiar sounds are the _roucoulement_ of the pigeon and the tapping
of the woodpecker. The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small
bush-antelope with black robe, of which a specimen was brought home, and
the only accident was the stinging of a Kruboy by a spider more spiteful
than a scorpion.
Reaching the ground after a ten minutes' walk, we examined the principal
reef as carefully as we could. The strike is nearly north-south, the dip
easterly, and the thickness unknown. The trial-shaft, sunk by Mr. Walker
in the centre of the southern line, was of considerable size, eight by
twelve feet; and the depth measured thirty, of which four held water based
upon clay-mud. The original native shafts to the south are of two kinds,
the indigenous chimney-pit and the parallelogram-shaped well borrowed from
Europeans. The latter varied in dimensions from mere holes to oblongs six
by seven feet; and all the more important were roofed and thatched with
pent-houses of palm-leaf, to keep out the rain. The shaft-timbering, also
a loan from foreigners, consisted of perpendicular bamboo-fronds tied with
bush-rope to a frame of poles cut from small trees; they corresponded with
our sets and laths. There were rude ladders, but useful enough, two
bamboos connected by rungs of 'tie-tie.' The 'sollars' were shaky
platforms of branches, but there was no sign of a winch.
We set Krumen and porters to clear and lay out the southern boundary, and
to open a path leading direct to the beach. One would fancy that nothing
is easier than to cut bush in a straight line from pole to pole,
especially when these were marked by strips of red calico. Yet the moment
our backs were turned the wrong direction was taken. It pains one's heart
to see the shirking of work, the slipping away into the bush for a sleep,
and the roasting of maize and palm-nuts--'ground-pigs' fare,' they call
the latter--whenever an opportunity occurs. The dawdling walk and the
dragging of one leg after the other, with intervals to stand and scratch,
are a caution. Even the villagers appear incapable of protracted labour
unless it leads immediately to their benefit, and the future never claims
a thought.
_February 4_.--After the south-eastern corner had been marked with a tall
cross, we opened a path from Arábokasu to the trial-shaft. We threw a
bridge of the felled trunks cumbering the clearing over the Fía rivulet,
and again examined its bed. Gold had been found in it by the women, and
this, as usual, gave rise to the discovery of its subtending reef. The
whole of the little river-valley extending to the sea should be bought and
worked; there is no doubt that it will turn out rich. In the channel we
found an outcrop of slates, both crumbling and compact; this is always a
welcome sign. To the east of the water there is a second quartz-reef,
running parallel with the upper ridge, and apparently untouched by the
pick.
The next two days were spent in finishing the southern line and in
planting a post at the south-western extremity. Here we found that our
workmen had gone entirely wrong, and we were forced to repeat the work. I
had exposed myself over-freely to the sun, and could do little for the
next week: fortunately my energetic companion was in better condition.
_February 7_.--Cameron took bearings from the south of the concession,
which he placed, with Mr. Walker, four geographical miles from the sea.
Other informants had exaggerated it to him, and M. Dahse writes six. After
1,000 to 1,200 yards he struck the 'false coast,' crossed a deep and fetid
swamp, and, after a short rise, came upon the miry borders of the Ebumesu.
He canoed 800 yards down-stream without difficulty; and, finding the water
brackish while the ebb-tide ran strong, he considered that this part was
rather a lagoon than a river. The people also assured us that it runs
along the coast, ending near and north of the Béin Fort-village.
In the evening my companion and Mr. Grant walked to the north-west of the
concession; the place is called by Mr. Walker Iziá-bookah (Izíá Hill), but
the natives ignore the term. Here, at a distance of 900 yards north and by
west (true) of the Arábokasu village, they found and collected specimens
of a fine reef of hard white quartz. 'Women's washings' were numerous,
showing the proper way to begin working the ground. The right of
prospecting the whole of the section to the N.E. had been secured by Mr.
Walker for Mr. Irvine, and presently the 'Apollonian concession' appeared
in the mining journals.
We had now done all we could; the circumstances of the case compelled us
to study the geology and topography of the property rather than its
geology and mineralogy. Nothing now remained save to _rebrousser chemin_.
Good King Blay, who had formally made over to me possession of the 'Izrah'
mine, left us for his own village, in order to cure an inflamed foot. He
attributed it to the 'fetish' of some unfriend; but it turned out to be
Guinea-worm, a malady from which many are suffering this season. We parted
upon the most friendly terms and arranged to meet again.
Both of us came to the conviction that the 'Izrah Concession' will pay,
and pay well. But instead of the routine shafting and tunnelling it must
be treated by hydraulicking and washing away the thirty feet of auriferous
soil, whose depth covers the reef. The bed of the Fía will supply the
water, and a force-pump, worked by men, or preferably by steam-power. Thus
we shall keep the mine dry: otherwise it will be constantly flooded.
Moreover, the land seems to be built for ditching and sluicing, and the
trenches will want only a plank-box with a metal grating at the head. I
can only hope that the operations will be conducted by an expert hand who
knows something of the Californian or the Australian diggings.
On February 8 we left Arábokasu, intending to march upon the 'Inyoko
Concession.' Our guide and people, however, seemed to change every five
minutes what they might call their 'minds,' and at last they settled to
try the worst, but to us the most interesting line. At 8 A.M. we struck
into the bush _viâ_ a heap of huts, the 'Matinga' village, at the
south-eastern corner of the fine mineral property. Here 'women's washings'
again appeared. At the Achyáko settlement we crossed the two branches of
the Fía. One measures twenty feet wide and two feet six inches deep in the
dry season; it runs a knot an hour, and thus the supply is ample. About a
mile further on we were carried across the Gwabisa stream, four feet wide
by eighteen inches deep, running over a bed of quartz-pebbles. This ended
the 'true coast.'
The 'false coast' began close to the little settlement known as Ashankru.
It shows a fine quartz-reef, striking north fourteen degrees east. The
formation was shown by the normal savannah and jungle-strips. About noon
we were ferried over the eastern arm of the Ebumesu, known as the Pápá. I
have noted scanty belief in the bar of the Ebumesu proper, the western
feature. The eastern entrance, however, perhaps can be used between the
end of December and March, and in calm weather would offer little
difficulty to the surfboats transhipping machinery from the steamers.
Beginning a little east of the Esyámo village, the Pápá lagoon subtends
the coast. We shot over it in the evening, and at night found quarters at
the Ezrimenu village marked Ebu-mesu in old maps.
This return march of two hours or so had been a mere abomination. The
path, which had not been cleared, led through a tangle of foul and fetid
thicket, upon which the sun darted a sickly, malignant beam. Creepers and
llianas, some of which are spiny and poisonous, barred the thread of path,
which could not be used for hammocks. The several stream-beds, about to
prove so precious, run chocolate-tinted water over vegetable mire, rich,
when stirred, in sulphuretted hydrogen. The only bridges are fallen
trunks. Amongst the minor pests are the _nkran_, or 'driver,' the _ahoho_,
a highly-savoured red ant, and the _hahinni_, a large black formica
terribly graveolent; flies like the tzetze, centipedes, scorpions, and
venomous spiders, which make men 'writhe like cut worms.' There was a
weary uniformity in the closed view, and the sole breaks were an
occasional plantation or a few pauper huts, with auriferous swish, buried
in that eternal green.
God made the country and man made the town,
sang the silly sage, who evidently had never seen a region untouched by
the human hand. Finally, this 'Fía route' will probably become the main
line from Axim to the Izrah mine, and the face of the country will be
changed within a year.
As I was still weak Cameron and Mr. Grant early next morning (Feb. 9)
canoed over the 300 yards or so of the Pápá lagoon bounding Ezrimenu
village on the landward side. They then struck nearly due north; and,
after walking three-quarters of an hour, perhaps two miles and a half,
over a good open path, easily convertible into a cart-road, they reached
the Inyoko Concession. It measures 2,400 yards square, beginning at the
central shaft, on the northern side of the hill which gives it a name; and
thus it lies only about eight miles westward of the Ancobra River. The
ground has not been much worked of late years, but formerly Kwáko Akka,
the tyrant of Apollonia, 'rich in blood and ore,' who was deposed by the
British Colonial Government about 1850, and was imprisoned in Cape Coast
Castle, is said to have obtained from it much of his wealth.
They found the strike of the hill approximately north 22º east (true);
[Footnote: In laying down limits great attention must be paid to
variation. As a rule 19º 45' west has been assumed from the Admiralty
charts--good news for the London attorney. At Tumento this figure rises to
20º; upon the coast it must be changed to 19º 15' (W.), and in other
places to 16º 40'.] the dip appears to be easterly, and the natives have
worked the _Abbruch_ or _débris_ which have fallen from the reef-crest.
This wall may be a continuation of the Akankon formation; both are rich in
a highly crystalline quartz of livid blue, apparently the best colour
throughout the Gold Region. The surface-ground, of yellowish marl with
quartz-pebbles, is evidently auriferous, and below it lies a harder red
earth rusty with iron. From the southern boundary of the Inyoko
concession, and the village of that name, runs a strong outcrop of a
kindly white quartz, which, when occurring in conjunction with the blue,
usually denotes that both are richer than when a single colour is found.
Such at least is Cameron's experience.
Mr. Walker, who secured this concession also, notes that the native pits
were very shallow and superficial. He was pressed for time, and sunk his
trial-shaft but little more than three fathoms: here free gold was visible
in the blue quartz, which yielded upwards of one ounce per ton.
My companion found the shaft still open, and observed that the valley
contained many holes and washing-pits. One was pointed out to him by Mr.
Grant as having yielded twenty ounces of dust in one day: these reports
recall the glories of California and Australia in the olden time. The
little Etubu water, which runs 200 yards from the shaft, would easily form
a reservoir, supplying the means of washing throughout the year. Here,
then, are vast facilities for hydraulic work; millions of cubic feet can
be strained of thin gold at a minimum expenditure. There will be less
'dead work,' and 'getting' would be immediate. Thus, too, as in
California, the land will be prepared for habitation and agriculture, and
the conditions of climate will presently be changed for the better.
Early in the forenoon (Jan. 9) we hammocked to the Kikam village, and were
much disappointed. King Blay, too lame to leave his home, had sent his
interpreter to show us the Yirima or 'Choke-full' reef; and the man,
doubtless influenced by some intrigue, gave us wrong information. Moreover
the _safahin_ Etié, before mentioned, had gone, they said, to his lands at
Prince's: he was probably lurking in some adjacent hut. We breakfasted in
his house, but all the doors were bolted and locked, and his people would
hardly serve us with drinking water. We attempted in vain to buy the
_boma_, or fetish-drum, a venerable piece of furniture hung round with
human crania, of which only the roofs remained. King Blay, however,
eventually sent us home a _boma_, and it was duly exhibited in town. Kikam
was the only place in Apollonia where we met with churlish treatment; no
hospitality, however, could be expected when the strangers were supposed
to be mixed up in a native quarrel.
Unwilling to linger any longer in the uninviting and uninteresting spot,
we ordered our hammocks, set out at noon, and, following the line over
which we had travelled, reached Axim at 5 P.M.
We had no other reason to complain of our week's trip except its
inordinate expense. Apparently one must be the owner of a rich gold-mine
to live in and travel on the Gold Coast. We had already in a fortnight got
through the 50_l_. of silver sent from England; and this, too, without
including the expenses of bed and board.
We came home with the conviction that the Inyoko property should have been
the second proposed for exploitation, coming immediately after the Apatim.
Our reasons were the peculiar facilities of reaching it and the certainty
that, when work here begins, it will greatly facilitate communication with
'Izrah.' But progress is slow upon the Gold Coast, and our wishes may
still be realised.
I cannot better conclude this chapter than with an extract from Captain
Brackenbury's 'Narrative of the Ashanti War.' [Footnote: Blackwoods,
Edinburgh and London, 1874. Vol. ii. pp. 351, 352.] It will show how well
that experienced and intelligent officer foresaw in 1873 the future of the
Gold Coast.
'Are there no means of opening this country up to trade, no means of
infusing into it an element superior to that of the Fanti races, of
holding in check the savagery of the inland tribes, and preventing the
whole coast again becoming abandoned to fetishism and human sacrifices? To
the writer's mind there is but one method, and that one by an appeal to
man's most ignoble passion--the lust of gold. This country is not without
reason called the Gold Coast. Gold is there in profusion, and to be had
for the seeking. We have ourselves seen the women washing the sand at Cape
Coast and finding gold. When Captain Thompson visited the Wassaw (Wásá)
country, he found the roads impassable at night by reason of the gold-pits
upon them. Captain Butler describes western Akim as a country teeming with
gold. Captain Glover has said that in eastern Akim gold is plentiful as
potatoes in Ireland, and the paths were honeycombed with gold-pits. Dawson
has distinctly stated his opinion that the Fanti gold-mines are far more
valuable than those of Ashanti--that the only known Ashanti gold-mine of
great value is that of Manoso; whereas the Wassaw and the Nquamfossoo
mines, as well as the Akim mines, have rock-gold (nuggets) in profusion.
He says that the Ashantis get their gold from the Fantis in exchange for
slaves, whom they buy for two or three loads of coller- (kola-) nuts,
worth less than half an ounce of gold, and sell to the Fantis for as much
as two and a quarter ounces of gold. Let our Government prospect these
mines; let Acts be passed similar to those by which vast railway companies
are empowered to compel persons to sell their land at a fair price; let
our Government, by means of Houssa troops, guarantee protection to
companies formed to work the mines, and let the payment to the kings in
whose country they are be by royalties upon the gold obtained. The kings
would offer the utmost resistance to their mines being thus taken and
worked; but they have never worked them properly themselves, and they will
never work them properly; and it would be no injustice to allow others to
do so. If the true value of these services were ascertained by Government
mining engineers, if the Government would guarantee protection to those
engaged in working them, companies would soon be formed to reap the rich
harvest to be found upon the coast. Chinese coolies would be imported, who
would breed in with the natives and infuse some energy into the Fanti
races. Trade would soon follow, roads be made, and the whole country
opened up. The engagement of our Government should be a limited one, for
if once the gold-mines were at work there would be no further fear that
the country would ever fell back into the hands of the Ashantis.'
The counsel is good, but we have done better. Private companies have
undertaken the work, and have succeeded where the Government would fail.
So far from resisting, the 'kings' have been too glad to accept our
offers. And now the course is forwards, without costing the country a
farthing, and with a fair prospect of supplying to it a large proportion
of the precious metal still wanted.
NOTE.--Since these lines were written the _Yiri_ (full) _ma_ (quite) reef
has been leased by Mr. Grant, who sent home specimens showing, I am told,
14 oz. per ton. The fine property belongs to King Blay, who built a
village upon it and there stationed his brother to prevent 'jumping.' In
the spring of 1862 he wished to keep half the ground for his own use.