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 sh.o.r.e presents a formidable barrier to landing: there absolutely is no safe place between Apollonia and the Ancobra. European employes avoid tempting the breakers; they disembark and re-embark for home, and that is all. Mr. Grant a.s.sures 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, Inenyapoli 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 Esyama.

Looking inland we find the sh.o.r.e 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sails 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 Esyama village; its landmarks are the ronnier, the glorious palmyra (_Bora.s.sus 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-c.u.m-chapel. The people are fond of planting before their doors the _felfa_, croton or physic.n.u.t (_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 Esyama. 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 Eb.u.mesu, 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 Pana, is the drain of a large and branchy lagoon, brackish water, bitumen-coloured or bra.s.sy-yellow, with poisonous vegetation, and bounded by mangroves abounding in tannin. These water-forests grow differently from the red and white rhizoph.o.r.es 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 Eb.u.mesu, 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 Eb.u.mesu 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 Eb.u.mesu, and thence by boat to the tramway from that river to the mine.' This last statement is quite correct.

All the Aximites described the Eb.u.mesu bars as practically impa.s.sable.

Cameron and I agreed that the only way of entering them is by running the boat ash.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e and the Eb.u.mesu 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 Eb.u.mesu.] He was at last relieved by the Wasas (Wa.s.saws) 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 Sensyere 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 Atabo, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Bein, or Behin, [Footnote: The aspirate is hardly audible. Captain Brackenbury, generally so careful, manages to confound Bein and Benin.]

meaning a 'strong man,' and Atabo, in Fanti _ataba_, the name of a tree with a reddish-yellow fruit. The latter was paramount till late years, when turbulent and unruly Bein 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 pa.s.s 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 grigris, 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 billyc.o.c.k. 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 Bein 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 barrac.o.o.ns for coolie emigrants.

The Bein 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 Atabo; Bein 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 _effrenee_ 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 Takwa 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 Bein. 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 Bein leads to Gyaman, and that it may be travelled without difficulty.

The following note, by Mr. Edward L. McCarthy, describes an excursion from Bein to the unvisited Essua-ti, 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 Bein, Apollonia, to go up to the village in the bush called Essua-ti. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Eb.u.mesu river, its mouth being about half-way between Bein 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 sh.o.r.e, the whole forming a most picturesque and animated scene. From house to house canoes laden with people, plantains, &c., were pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.e 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 s.p.a.ce 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, pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Eb.u.mesu.

After two hours' hard paddling in a northerly direction we stopped to walk to the village of Niba, a large place, princ.i.p.ally engaged in raising food for the coast fishing-villages and Bein, 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 a.s.sini 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 Niba, but very prettily laid out with trees, surrounded by seats in its central street. The people here, as at Niba, 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 sh.e.l.ls, so that when a fish is hooked the sh.e.l.ls begin to jingle, and the fishermen, hid in the bush, immediately rush out and secure the fish.'

[Ill.u.s.tration of fish trap.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

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 sh.o.r.e to Inyenapoli--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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumed 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 Inyenapoli, 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 gra.s.s 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 Bein. They denote the 'false coast,' and they become during the wet season almost impa.s.sable swamps and mud-fields.

Then we struck the valley of 'Eb.u.mesu, 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 pa.s.sed through the plantation-villages, Benya and Arabo, growing bananas and maize, ca.s.sava 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 guineensis_). The _adube_, drawn from the cut spathe, which continues to yield for two or three months, is held to be wholesome, diuretic, and laxative. The _insefu_ 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 Arabo, we forded the double stream called the Bila, 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 Inyenapoli, we reached our destination, Arabokasu, 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-s.p.a.ce 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 Izia, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the spot. This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion.'

Apparently Izia became Izrah to a.s.sume 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 Fia 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-gra.s.s has been brought from Sa Leone to Axim, where it covers the open s.p.a.ces, 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 Etie, 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 Etie 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 Agbome, and whose name appears in all narratives of the last Ashanti war. Although an employe of the Takwa or French mine, he bought for himself, paying 200_l_., the best part of the reef (100 fathoms), leaving the b.u.t.t-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 _a l'aimable_, and I still hope to see it carried out.