CHAPTER XXV
.
RETURN TO AXIM AND DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
I awoke on Saturday, April 9, in bad condition, and during the afternoon had my third attack of fever, the effect of the dam and its miasma. Wanting change of air, and looking forward to Effuenta, I set off in my hammock and found my friends. The tertian lasted me till Monday, Sunday being an 'off-day;' and, as the Tuesday was wet and uncomfortable, I delayed departure till Wednesday morning. My 'Warburg' had unfortunately leaked out: the paper cover of the phial was perfect, but of the contents only a little sediment remained. Treatment, therefore, was confined to sulphate of quinine and a strychnine and arsenic pill; arseniate of quinine would have been far better, but the excellent preparation is too economical for the home-pharmist, and has failed to secure the favour of the Coast-doctors. One of my friends has made himself almost fever-proof by the liberal use of arsenic; but I can hardly recommend it, as the result must be corrected by an equally liberal use of Allan's anti-fat. Burton, who has studied its use amongst the Styrian arsenic-eaters, denies that this is the common effect: he found that it makes the mountaineer preserve his condition, wind and complexion, arms him against ague, and adds generally to his health. He is still doubtful, however, whether it shortens or prolongs life.
On Wednesday, April 12, I left Effuenta after morning tea. My hospitable host had nearly seen the last of his stores, to which he had made me so cordially welcome; and there were no signs of fresh supplies, although they had long been due. This is hardly fair treatment for the hard-working employé: let the Company look to it. With a certain tightening of the heart I made over my canine friend, Nero, to Dr. Roulston. He had lost all those bad habits which neglected education had engrafted upon the heat of youth. He now began to show more fondness for sport than for sheep-worrying; and he retrieved one bird, carrying it with the utmost delicacy of mouth.
I set out on foot for Vinegar Hill, and found that the steep eastern ascent from the Tákwá ridge had been provided with a series of cut steps by Mr. Commissioner: in these lands, as elsewhere, new brooms sweep clean; but they are very easily worn out. This place has been for years the 'black beast' of travellers, especially in rainy weather, when the rapid incline becomes so slippery that even the most sure-footed slither and slide.
After crossing the Abonsá Hill I took to my hammock and was carried through rain, and a very devilry of weather, into the Abonsá village. The whole path was shockingly bad and muddy. Once more I became a lodger of Mr. Crocker's; his house, being as usual far the best, gave us good shelter for the night.
Next morning (7.30) we set out down the Abonsá stream in a small canoe belonging to Mr. MacLennan. The natives made the usual difficulties; the craft (which was quite sound) could not float, and amongst other things she had no paddles: for this, however, I had provided by making my men cut them last evening. Almost immediately after leaving this head of navigation, barred above by a reef and a fall, we saw that eternal mangrove. Presently the Aunábé creek broke the line of the right bank. Our course was as usual exceedingly tortuous, turning to every quadrant of the compass; and, during the last fortnight, the water-level had risen four feet. The formation of the trough is that of the Ancobra, and the bed bristles with rocks. In a distance of seven miles and a half by course there were four small breaks, and one serious rapid about a hundred yards long, where the decline exceeded five feet. Here the men had to get overboard and to ease the canoe down the swirling waters, which dashed heavily on the rocks. The snags were even thicker than on the upper Ancobra, and were far more dangerous than on the St. John's. In places the mangrove fallen from the banks had taken root in the river-bed. In fact, unless some exertion be soon made, even the present insufficient channel will be blocked up.
At the Abonsá _embouchure_ Mr. Wyatt's map, copied from M. Dahse, shows an island backed by a ridge running nearly east-west. I found no river-holm, and only a small broadening of the Ancobra to about double its usual breadth. The banks at the sharp angle of junction are, however, low; and, perhaps, my predecessor saw them when flooded. The Mankuma Hill, on the right bank, belonging to the Franco-English Company, is somewhat taller than its neighbours: as usual in this silted-up archipelago, it trends from the north-east to the south-west.
I had already shot the Ancobra River when paddling up, and was not over lucky when coming down. The big kingfisher did not put in an appearance, and the sun-birds equally failed me: the smallest item of my collection measures two and a quarter inches, and is robed in blue, crimson, and sulphur. I was fortunate enough to bring home four specimens of a rare spur-plover (_Lobivanellus albiceps_): they are now in Mr. Sharp's department of the British Museum. I killed a few little snakes and one large green tree-snake; two crocodiles, both lost in the river, and an iguana, which found its way into the spirit-cask. A tzetze-fly (_Glossina morsitans_) was captured in Effuenta House, curiously deserting its usual habit of jungle-life in preference to a home on clear ground: its dagger-like proboscis, in the grooved sheath with a ganglion of muscles at the base, assimilated it to the dreaded and ferocious cattle-scourge which extends from Zanzibar to the Tanganyika Lake and from Kilwa (Quiloa) to the Transvaal. My kind friend and hospitable host Dr. (now Sir) John Kirk, who did the geography and natural history for the lamentable Zambeze expedition, met it close to the Victoria Falls. Burton also sent home a specimen from the Gold Coast east of Accra.
Mr. MacLennan gave me sundry beetles, but insisted on retaining one which is the largest I ever saw. The hunting-dog must scour the bush in packs, for the voice is exactly that of hounds. The laugh of the hyæna and the scream of the buzzard are commonly heard. The track of a 'bush-cow' once crossed my path: the halves of the spoor were some five inches long by three wide, and the hoofs knuckled backwards so as to show false hoofs of almost equal size. I was unable to procure for Dr. Günther a specimen of the 'bush-dog,' as the Kruboys call it: last year I was bringing home a live one in the s.s. _Nubia_; but one day the fellow in charge reported that it was dead and had been thrown overboard. I hold it to be a tailless lemur, the _galago_ of the East Coast. The French name is _orson_, the popular idea being that it is an ursine. The Fanti peoples, whose 'folk-lore' is extensive, and who have some tale about every bird, beast, and fish, thus account for the loud cries which we heard at night in every 'bush.' King Leo, having lost his mother, commanded by proclamation all his subjects to attend her funeral, and none failed save Orson. One evening his Feline Majesty, when going his rounds, found the delinquent upon the ground, and roughly demanded the reason why. Orson, shuffling towards the nearest tree, pleaded in all humility, 'O King, is thy beloved parent really deceased? I never heard of it. I am so sorry; I would never have failed to show the respect due to the royal house.' When he had climbed the foot of the tree his tone began to alter. 'But, Sire, if thy Majesty hath lost a mother, I see no cause compelling me to attend her funeral.' And when quite safe the change was notable. 'Bother the old woman! very glad she is dead, and may her grave be defiled!' These people know the stuff of which courtiers are made.
My collection of specimens from the mines and the river-beds filled a dozen cases. The butterflies, of which we collected a large number, were all spoilt by the moth for want of camphor. 'Insect-powder' had been our only preservative. I had also a thirty-gallon cask of plants preserved in spirits, two boxes well stuffed, a large case of orchids, and a raceme of the bamboo-palm (_Raphia vinifera_), whose use has still to be found. The animals, including insects in tubes, filled nearly two kegs and three bottles, and I had two small cases of stuffed birds, the handiwork of Mr. Dawson.
Of stone-implements I was lucky enough to secure thirty-six, and made over four of them to my friend Professor Prestwich. They are found everywhere throughout the country, but I saw no place of manufacture except those noted near Axim. Mr. Sam, of Tumento, promised to forward many others to England. The native women search for and find them not only near the beds of streams, but also about the alluvial diggings. Nearly all are shaped like the iron axe or adze of Urúa, in Central Africa, a long narrow blade with rounded top and wedge-shaped edge. This tool is either used in the hand like a chisel, or inserted into a conical hole burnt through a tree-branch, and the shape of the aperture makes every blow tighten the hold. The people mount it in two ways, either as an axe in line with, or as an adze at a right angle to, the helve.
At Akankon I obtained from Mr. Amondsen a stone-implement of novel shape, not seen by me elsewhere. A bit of the usual close-grained trap had been cut into a parallelopiped seven and a half inches long with a flat head one inch and a half in diameter and a bevel-edge of two inches and one-third along the slope. This part had been chipped ready for grinding, and the article was evidently unfinished; one side still wanted polishing, and the part opposite the bevel showed signs of tapering, as if a point instead of an edge had been intended. At Axim I split off by gads and wedges a large slice of the grooved rocks described by Burton; it came home with me, and is now lodged in the British Museum.
The rest of my story is told in a few words. I canoed safely down the Ancobra River, and reached Axim on April 14. This return was made sad and solitary by the absence of my canine friend, Nero.
A week soon passed away at the port of the Gold-region. Mr. Grant presently returned from his excursion to the west. He showed me fine specimens of gold collected at Newtown, the English frontier-settlement immediately east of French Assini. I had also warned him to look out for, and he succeeded in finding, beds of bitumen permeated with petroleum: this material will prove valuable for fuel and for asphalting, if not for sale. My time was wholly taken up with papering and repacking my collection, which had now assumed formidable proportions, and time fled the faster as the days were occupied in also fighting an impertinent attack of ague and fever.
On April 24 the B. and A. s.s. _Loanda_ (Captain Brown) anchored in the roads. Mr. Grant accompanied me on board, and showed himself useful and energetic as usual. At Cape Palmas we shipped the Honourable Doctor and Professor Blyden. He pointed out to me certain hillocks on the coast about Grand Bassá, where he said gold had lately been found. The lay of the land and the strike and shape of the eminences reminded me strongly of those I had left behind me. The 'Secretary of the Interior,' who had been compelled to leave his college, assured me that if wiser counsels prevail Liberia will abandon her old Japanese policy of exclusion, and will open her ports to European capital and enterprise. At Sierra Leone I called upon Governor Havelock, who was recovering from the accident of a dislocated shoulder. Both he and the 'Governess' were in the best of health. At Madeira, on May 12, my companion Burton joined us, and we had a week of dull passage to Liverpool. As we left on Friday and carried a reverend gentleman on board, the cranky old craft was sorely tossed about for two successive days, and we were delayed off the Liverpool bar, arriving on the 20th instead of the 18th of May, 1882.
CONCLUSION.
The journey and the voyage ended, as such things should do, with a dinner of welcome at the Adelphi, given to us by our hospitable friend Mr. James Irvine. And here we had the first opportunity of delivering the message which we had brought home from the Golden Land.
APPENDIX I
§1. THE ASHANTI SCARE.
That fears of an Ashanti attack upon the mines of the Gold Coast Protectorate are rather fanciful than factual we may learn from the details of the Blue Book 'Gold Coast, 1881.' The 'threatened Ashanti invasion,' popularly termed the 'Ashanti scare,' did abundant good by showing up the weakness of that once powerful despotism, and the superiority in numbers and in equipment of the coastlanders over the inlanders. It is true that there are tribes, like the Awunahs of the Volta, and villages, like Béin in Apollonia, which still sympathise with our old enemy. But only the grossest political mismanagement, like that which in 1876 abandoned our ally, the King of Juabin, to the tender mercies of his Ashanti foeman, aided by the unwisest economy, which starves everything to death save the treasure-chest, will ever bring about a general movement against us.
On December 1, 1880, died, to the general regret of native and stranger, Mr. Ussher, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Gold Coast; a veteran in the tropics and an ex-commissariat officer, whose political service dated from 1861. In British India a change of rulers is always supposed to offer a favourable opportunity for 'doing something,' often in the shape of a revolt or a campaign. The same proved to be the case in West Africa, where the Ashanti is officially described as 'crafty, persistent, mendacious, and treacherous.'
It may easily be imagined that after the English victories at Amoaful and Ordusu in 1873-74 the African despotism sighed for _la revanche_. The Treaty of Fománá, concluded (February 13), after the capture (February 4) and the firing (February 6) of Kumasi, between Sir Garnet Wolseley and the representative of the King, Kofi Kalkali, or Kerrikerri, subsequently dethroned, stripped her of her principal dependencies--lopped off, in fact, her four limbs. These were the ever-hostile province of Denkira, auriferous Akim, Adansi, and lastly Assin, now part of our Protectorate. The measure only renewed the tripartite treaty of April 27, 1831, when King Kwáko Dúa, in consideration of free access to the seaboard, and in friendship with the unfortunate and ill-treated Governor (George) Maclean, 'renounced all right or title to any tribute, or homage, from the Kings of Denkira, Assin, and others formerly his subjects.' But _nulla fronti fides_ is the rule of the hideous little negro despotism, which, in 1853, again invaded the coveted lands on its southern frontier, Assin.
The treaty of 1874, moreover, compelled Ashanti formally to renounce all pretensions to sovereignty over Elmina and the tribes formerly in connection with the Dutch Government. It vetoed her raids and forays upon neighbouring peoples; like Dahome she had her annual slave-hunts and the captives were sold for gold-dust to the inner tribes. The young officers who replaced the veterans of the war would naturally desire, in Kafir parlance, to 'wash their spears.' Nor are they satisfied with the defeats sustained by their sires. 'I believe,' wrote Winwood Reade, 'that Sir Garnet Wolseley attained the main object of the expedition, namely, the securing of the Protectorate from periodical invasion. Yet still I wish that the success had been more definite and complete.' The wish is echoed by most people on the coast; and the natives still say, 'White man he go up Kumasi, he whip black boy, and then he run away.'
It is regretable that the Commander-in-Chief, if he could not occupy Kumasi himself, did not leave Sir John H. Glover in charge, and especially that he did not destroy the Bantama (royal place of human sacrifice), [Footnote: Sir Garnet Wolseley's admirable conduct of the Egyptian campaign, where he showed all the qualities which make up the sum of 'generalship,' have wiped out the memory of his failures in Ashanti and Kafir-land. Better still, he has proved that the British soldier can still fight, a fact upon which the disgraceful Zulu campaign had cast considerable doubt. But the public ignores a truth known to every professional. Under an incompetent or unlucky commander all but the best men will run: the worst will allow themselves to be led or driven to victory by one they trust. Compare the Egyptian troops under old Ibrahim Pasta, and under Arabi, the Fe-lah-Pasha.] or at least remove from it the skull of Sir Charles Macarthy. [Footnote: Captain Brackenbury throws doubt upon the skull being preserved in the Bantama; but his book is mainly apologetic, and we may ask, If the cherished relic be not there, where is it? The native legend runs thus: 'And they took him (_i.e._ Macarthy) and cut off his head, and brought it to their camp and removed the brains; but the skull, which was left, they filled it with gold, and they roasted the whole body and they carried it to Ashanti.... And the head, which they bore to Ashanti, has become their "fetish," which they worship till this day.'--Native account of Macarthy's death, Zimmermann's _Grammar of the Accra or Ga Language_, Stuttgart, 1858.] And yet we now learn that the campaign did good work. Captain Lonsdale, who has spent some time in Kumasi, reports that the Caboceers have built huts instead of repairing their 'palaces.' Moreover, he declares that the story of sacrificing girls to mix their blood with house-swish is a pure fabrication; the Ashantis would no longer dare to do anything so offensive to the conqueror.
Last on the list of solid Ashanti grievances is her exclusion from the seaboard. Unknown to history before A.D. 1700, the Despotism first invaded the Coast in 1807, when King Osai Tutu Kwámina pretended a wish to recover the fugitive chiefs Chibbu and Aputai. These attacks succeeded one another at intervals of ten years, say the Fantis. The main object was to secure a port on the coast, where the inlanders could deal directly with the white man, and could thus escape the unconscionable pillaging, often fifty per cent. and more, of the Fanti middleman. This feeling is not, indeed, unknown to Europe: witness Montenegro. I see no reason why the people should not have an 'Ashantimile' at the Volta mouth; and I shall presently return to this subject.
Hardly was Governor Ussher buried than troubles began. Mr. Edmund Watt, a young District-commissioner at Cape Coast Castle, officially reported to Lieutenant-Governor W. B. Griffith, subsequently Administrator of Lagos, that Opoku, 'King' of Bekwa (Becquah), had used language tending to a breach of the peace. This commander-in-Chief of the Ashanti forces in 1873-74 had publicly sworn in his sober senses at Kumasi, and in presence of the new king, Kwámina Osai Mensah, that he would perforce reduce Adansi, the hill-country held to be the southern boundary of Ashanti-land. Such a campaign would have been an infraction of treaty, or at least a breach of faith: although the province is not under the protection of the Colonial Government, King Kofi Kalkali [Footnote: This ruler succeeded his father, King Kwáko Dúa, in 1868; and his compulsory abdication is considered to have been an ill-advised measure.] had promised to respect its independence and to leave it unmolested.
Lieutenant-Governor Griffith lost no time in forwarding the report to the Colonial Office, adding sundry disquieting rumours which supported his suspicions. Missionaries and merchants had observed that certain 'messengers,' or envoys, sent from Kumasi to acknowledge the presents of the late Governor Ussher, were lingering without apparent reason about Cape Coast Castle, after being formally dismissed. Moreover, their residing in the house of 'Prince Ansah,' a personage not famous for plain dealing, boded no good.
A new complication presently arose. Prince Owusu, nephew of the King and heir to the doughty Gyáman kingdom, fled from Kumasi to the Protectorate, and reached Elmina on January 18. He appeared in great fear, and declared that a son of the chief Amankwá Kwomá and three 'court-criers,' or official heralds, were coming down to the coast on a solemn mission to demand his extradition. They carried, he said, not the peaceful cane with the gold or silver head, but the mysterious 'Gold Axe.' Opinions at once differed as to the import and object of this absurd implement. According to some its mission portended war, and it had preceded the campaigns of 1863 and 1873. Others declared that it signified a serious 'palaver,' being a strong hint that the King would cut through and down every obstacle. Strange to say, the first Ashanti messengers were never called upon to explain before the public what the 'Gold Axe' really did mean.
The Colonial Office acted with spirit and wholesome vigour. It was urged on by Mr. Griffith, whose energetic reports certainly saved the Protectorate grave troubles. He has thereby incurred much blame, ridicule, and obloquy; nor has he received due credit from those under whom he served.
The newly-appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Gold Coast, Sir Samuel Rowe, at once ordered out to relieve Mr. Griffith, left England in mid-February. He was accompanied by a staff of seven officers temporarily employed. Reinforcements were hurried from Sierra Leone and the West Indies. The Admiralty was applied to for the reunion of cruisers upon the Gold Coast waters. Estimates of native allies were drawn up, showing that 20,000 half-armed men could be brought into the field against the 30,000 of Ashanti. The loyal and powerful chief Kwámina Blay, of Atábo, in Amrehía, or Western Apollonia, offered 6,000 muskets, and an additional 1,000 hands if the Government would supply arms and ammunition.
On January 19 the ambassador with the 'Gold Axe' presented himself at Elmina. He was accompanied by Saibi Enkwiá, who had signed the treaty at Fománá, a village in Assin, between Kumasi and the Bosom Prah River. The envoy formally demanded possession of Prince Owusu and of one Amangkrá, an Ashanti trader who had aided him to escape. Saibi Enkwiá added by way of threat, 'The King said, if the Governor would not order the return of Owusu to Kumasi, he would attack the Assins.' He further explained that these Assins were the people who always caused 'palavers' between the Ashantis and the Protectorate, to which they belonged.
Naturally the ignominious demand was refused. The messengers left for Kumasi, and Lieutenant-Governor Griffith telegraphed from Madeira to England (January 25), 'War imminent with Ashanti.' It was considered suspicious that all the inlanders were disappearing from the coast. This was afterwards explained: they were flocking north for the 'native Christmas,' the Yam-custom, or great festival of the year.
Our preparations were pushed forward the more energetically as time appeared to be tight. The Ashantis were buying up all the weapons they could find when the sale of arms, ammunition, and salt was prohibited. Detachments were despatched to the Mansu and Prahsu stations; the latter is upon the Bosom (Abosom, or Sacred) Prah, the frontier between Ashanti and the Protectorate, to cross which is to 'pass the Rubicon.' Here, as at other main fords and ferries, defensive works were laid out. Arrangements were made for holding nine out of the eighteen forts, abandoning the rest; and Accra was strengthened as the central place. The 'companies,' or 'native levies,' who, with a suspicious unanimity, applied for guns and gunpowder, lead and flints, were urged to the 'duty of defence.' Five cruisers, under Commander (now Captain, R.N.) J. W. Brackenbury, were stationed off the three chief castles, Elmina, Cape Coast, and Anamabo, and the naval contingent was drilled daily on shore. The Haussa constabulary was reinforced. The First West India Regiment sent down men from Sierra Leone, and the Second 500 rank and file from Barbadoes. In fact, such ardour was shown that the Ashantis, scared out of their intentions of scaring, began to fear another English invasion. 'The white men intend to take Kumasi again!' they said; and perhaps the reflection that 48,000 ounces of gold were still due to us suggested a motive. They had been making ready for offence; now they prepared for defence.
About mid-February the 'situation' notably changed. Messieurs Buck and Huppenbauer, two German missionaries who were making a 'preaching-tour,' reported from Kumasi that King Mensah was afraid of war, and that his kingdom was 'on the point to go asunder.' The despot, with African wiliness, at once threw the blame of threatening Assin upon his confidant, Saibi Enkwiá. No one believed that an Ashantiman would thus expose himself to certain death; but the explanation served for an excuse. The King also asserted that his 'Gold Axe' meant simply nothing. Thereupon the officials of the Protectorate began looking forward to an ample apology, and to a fine of gold-dust for the disturbing of their quiet days. In fact, they foresaw 'peace with honour.'
Governor Sir Samuel Rowe, with his usual good fortune, landed at Elmina on March 9, exactly the right time. The attempt to intimidate had ignobly failed, and had recoiled upon the attempter. King Mensah, in order to remove all suspicions of intending a campaign, had resolved to send coastwards the most important and ceremonious mission of the age. It was to conclude a kind of _Paix des Dames_. Queen Kokofu had threatened that in case of hostilities she would go over to the British. The Queen-mother, a power in the country, which has often kept the peace for it and plunged it into war, threatened to take her own life--and here such threats are always followed by action. In fact, the peace-party had utterly overthrown the war-party.
The mission left Kumasi in May. It was headed by Prince Bwáki, step-father to the two royal brothers, Kofi Kalkali and Kwábina Osai Mensah, and the number as well as the high rank of the retinue made it remarkable. At Prahsu, where the envoys were met by Governor Rowe, a preliminary conversation took place. Despite the usual African and barbarian fencing and foiling, the Englishman carried the day; the message must be delivered with all publicity and proper ceremony in the old 'palaver-hall' of historic Elmina Castle.
A conclusive interview took place on May 30. Prince Bwáki explained that 'mistakes had been made, but that the mistakes had not been alone those of his king and son-in-law.' He declared that the messenger, Saibi Enkwiá, had exceeded his powers in threatening Assin. The King, he said, had sworn by 'God and earth,' that is, by the 'spirits' above and by the ghosts below, that he had sent no such message. At the same time the King confessed being partly to blame, as the message had been delivered by his own servant. In the matter of the 'Gold Axe,' however, the mistake was the mistake of the Lieutenant-Governor (Griffith).
The Prince further explained that Ashanti has two symbols of war, a peculiar sword and a certain cap; whereas the 'Gold Axe' being 'fetish' and endowed with some magical and mysterious power, is never sent on a hostile errand. He offered, in the King's name, as further evidence of friendly feeling, to surrender the 'so-called Golden Axe,' which important symbol of Ashanti power had been forwarded from head-quarters with an especial mission. It was delivered on the express understanding that it should be despatched to England for the acceptance of H.B. Majesty, and not be kept upon the coast, exposed to the ribaldry of the hostile Fantis. The weapon, said Prince Bwáki, is so old that no one knows its origin, and it is held so precious that in processions it precedes the Great Royal Stool, or throne, of Ashanti. The leopard-skin, bound with gold upon the handle, symbolises courage in the field; the gold is wealth, and the iron is strength.
Finally, the unhappy 'Gold Axe,' after being publicly paraded upon a velvet cushion through the streets of Elmina, was entrusted to Captain Knapp Barrow, who returned to England by the next steamer. It was duly presented, and found its way to the South Kensington Museum, after faring very badly at the hands of the 'society journals' and other members of the fourth estate. [Footnote: For instance: 'The gold axe of King Koffee of Ashantee, lately sent, for an unexplained reason, to the Queen, is described as a triangular blade of iron, apparently out from a piece of boiler-plate, roughly stuck into a clumsy handle of African oak. The handle is covered with leopard-skin, part of which, immediately above the blade, is deeply soiled, apparently with blood. Bands of thin gold, enriched with uncouth chevrons and lunettes _en repoussé_, are placed round the handle. The sheath of the blade, which is of tiger (leopard) skin, accompanies this hideous implement, and attached to it is the sole element which has anything like artistic merit. This is a nondescript object of beaten gold, in shape something like a large cockle-shell with curved horns extending from the hinge, and not inelegantly decorated with lines and punctures, _en repoussé_ and open work of quasi-scrolls.'] Needless to say it was an utter impostor. The real Golden Axe is great 'fetish,' and never leaves either Kumasi or, indeed, the presence of the King.
The ceremony of delivering the message in the palaver-hall was satisfactory. Prince Bwáki grasped the knees of Governor Rowe, the official sign of kneeling. He expressed the devotion of his liege lord to the Majesty of England; and finally he offered to pay down at once two thousand ounces of gold in proof of Ashantian sincerity. All these transactions were duly recorded; the promises in the form of a bond.
The play was now played out; cruisers and troops dispersed, and golden Peace reigned once more supreme. Prince Owusu, a drunken, dissolute Eupatrid, who had caused the flutter, when ordered on board a man-of-war for transportation to a place of safety, relieved the Gold Coast from further trouble. He was found hanging in the 'bush' behind Elmina Castle. Most men supposed it to be a case of suicide; a few of course surmised that he had been kidnapped and murdered by orders from Kumasi.
Since that time to the present day our Protectorate has been free from 'scare.' The affair, as it happened, did abundant good by banishing all fear for the safety of the Wásá (Wassaw) diggings. During the worst times not a single English employé of the mines had left his post to take refuge in the Axim fort. This does them honour, as some of the establishments lay within handy distance of the ferocious black barbarians.
The native chiefs, especially 'King Blay,' proved themselves able and willing to aid us in whatever difficulties might occur. The kingdom of Gyáman further showed that it can hold its own against shorn Ashanti, or rather that it is becoming the more powerful of the two. The utter failure of the scare is an earnest that, under normal circumstances, while King Mensah, a middle-aged man, occupies the 'stool,' we shall hear no more of 'threatened Ashanti invasions.'
But the true way to pacify the despotism is to allow Ashanti to 'make a beach'--in other words, to establish a port. This measure I have supported for the last score of years, but to very little purpose. The lines of objection are two. The first is in the mercantile. As all the world knows, commercial interests are sure to be supported against almost any other in a reformed House of Commons; and, in the long run, they gain the day. The Coast-tribes under our protection are mere brokers and go-betweens, backed up and supported by the wholesale merchant, because he prefers _quieta non movere_, and he fears lest the change be from good to bad. I, on the other hand, contend that both our commerce and customs would gain, in quantity as well as in quality, by direct dealings with the peoples of the interior. The second, or sentimental, line belongs to certain newspapers; and even _their_ intelligence can hardly believe the _ad captandum_ farrago which they indite. The favourite 'bunkum' is about 'baring the Christian negro's throat to the Ashanti knife.' But the Fantis and other Coast-tribes were originally as murderous and bloodthirsty in their battles and religious rites as their northern neighbours: if there be any improvement it is wholly due to the presence and the pressure, physical as well as moral, of Europeans--of Christians, if you like. Even Whydah is not blood-stained like Agbóme, because it has been occupied by a few slavers, white and brown. Why, then, should the Ashantis be refused the opportunity and the means of amendment? Ten years' experience in Africa teaches me that they would be as easily reformed as the maritime peoples; and it is evident that the sentimentalist, if he added honesty and common sense to the higher quality, should be the first to advocate the trial.
But I would not allow the Ashantis to hold a harbour anywhere near Elmina. They should have their 'mile' and beach east of the Volta River, where they would soon effect a lodgment, despite all the opposition of their sanguinary friends and our ferocious enemies the Awunah and the Krepi (Crepee) savages.
I will end this paper with a short notice of the kingdom of Gyáman, generally written Gaman and too often pronounced 'Gammon.' Its strength and vigour are clearly increasing; it is one of the richest of gold-fields, and it lies directly upon the route to the interior. Of late years it has almost faded from the map, but it is described at full length in the pages of Barbot (1700) and Bosman (1727), of Bowdich (1818), and of Dupuis (1824). They assign to it for limits Mandenga-land to the north and west; to the south, Aowin and Bassam, and the Tando or eastern fork of the Assini to the east. This Tando, which some moderns have represented as an independent stream, divides it from Ashanti-land, lying to the south and the south-east. Dupuis places the old capital, Bontuko, whence the Gyámans were formerly called 'Bontukos,' eight stages north-west of Kumasi; and the new capital, Huraboh, five marches beyond Bontuko. The country, level and grassy, begins the region north of the great forest-zone which subtends the maritime mangrove swamps. It breeds horses and can command Moslem allies, equestrian races feared by the Ashantis.
The Gyámans, according to their tradition, migrated, or rather were driven, southwards from their northern homes. This was also, as I have said, the case with the Fantis and Ashantis; the latter occupied their present habitat about 1640, and at once became the foes of all their neighbours. King Osai Tutu, 'the Great,' first of Ashanti despot-kings (1719), made Gyáman tributary. The conquest was completed by his brother-successor, Osai Apoko (1731), who fined Abo, the neighbour-king, in large sums of gold and fixed an annual subsidy. Gyáman, however, rebelled against Osai Kwájo (Cudjoe), the fourth of the dynasty (1752), and twice defeated him with prodigious slaughter. The Ashanti invader brought to his aid Moslem cavalry, and succeeded in again subjugating the insurgents. The conquered took no action against the fifth king, but they struck for independence under Osai Apoko II (1797). Aided by Moslem and other allies, they crossed the Tando and fought so sturdily that the enemy 'liberally bestowed upon them the titles of warlike and courageous.' The Ashantis at length compelled the Moslems of their country to join them, and ended by inflicting a crushing defeat upon the invaders.
Osai Tutu Kwámina, on coming to the throne (1800), engaged in the campaign against Gyáman called, for distinction, the 'first Bontuko war.' He demanded from King Adinkara his ancestral and royal stool, which was thickly studded and embossed with precious metal. The craven yielded it and purchased peace. His brave sister presently replaced it by a seat of solid gold: this the Ashanti again requisitioned, together with a large gold ornament in the shape of an elephant, said to have been dug from some ruins. The Amazon replied, with some detail and in the 'spade' language, that she and her brother should exchange sexes, and that she would fight _à l'outrance_; whereupon the Ashanti, with many compliments about her bravery, gave her twelve months to prepare for a campaign.
In 1818 Dupuis found Ashanti engaged in the 'second Bontuko war' with Adinkara, who had again thrown off his allegiance. But small-pox was raging in the capital, and this campaign ended (1819-20) with the defeat and death of the womanly monarch, with a massacre of 10,000 prisoners, and with the sale of 20,000 captives. Thus Gyáman was again annexed to Ashanti-land as a province, instead of enjoying the rank of a tributary kingdom; and the conqueror's dominions extended from Cape Lahou (W. long. 4º 36') through Gyáman to the Volta River (E. long. 0º 42' 18"), a coast-line of some 318 direct geographical miles.
Gyáman, however, seems to have had a passion for liberty. She fought again and again to recover what she had lost in 1820; and, on more occasions than one, she was successful in battle. During the 'Ashanti scare' the sturdy kingdom was preparing for serious hostilities; and a little war of six or seven months had already been waged between the neighbours. The late Prince Owusu, before mentioned, deposed before the authorities of our Protectorate as follows: 'At Kumasi I was ordered to eat the skull of the late King of Gyáman, which was kept there as a trophy from the conquest of Gyáman; but I did not do it.' He also asserted that, in 1879, a white man, Nielson, and his interpreter, Huydecooper, had been sent by an intriguer to Gyáman, bearing a pretended message from the British Government and the Fanti chiefs, enjoining the King to conclude peace with the Ashantis, and to restore their 3,700 captives. Neither of these men saw the ruler of Gyáman, and it is believed that Nielson, having begun a quarrel by firing upon the people, was killed in the fray.
At this moment Gyáman is battling with her old enemies, and threatens to be a dangerous rival, if not a conqueror. Here, then, we may raise a strong barrier against future threats of Ashanti invasion, and make security more secure. The political officers of the Protectorate will be the best judges of the steps to be taken; and, if they are active and prudent, we shall hear no more of the Kumasi bugbear.
* * * * *
§2. THE LABOUR-QUESTION IN WESTERN AFRICA.
In their present condition our African colonies are colonies only because they are administered by the Colonial Office.
Most of these stations--for such they should be termed--were established, for slaving purposes, by the Portuguese, and were conquered by the Dutch. Thence they passed into the hands of England, who vigorously worked the black _traite_ for the benefit of her West Indian possessions.
The 'colonies' in question, however, saw their occupation gone with negro emancipation, and they became mere trading-ports and posts for collecting ground-nuts, palm-oil, and gold-dust. Philanthropy and freedom expected from them great things; but instead of progressing they have gradually and surely declined. The public calls them 'pest-houses,' and the Government pronounces them a 'bore.' Travellers propose to make them over to Liberia or to any Power that will accept such white elephants.
Remains now the task of placing upon the path of progress these wretched West African 'colonies,' and of making them a credit and a profit to England, instead of a burden and an opprobrium.
Immigration, I find, is _le mot de l'énigme_.
Between 1860 and 1865 I studied the labour-question in West Africa, and my short visit in 1882 has convinced me that it is becoming a vital matter for our four unfortunate establishments, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos.
A score of years ago many agreed with me that there was only one solution for our difficulties, a system of extensive coolie-importation. But in those days of excited passions and divided interests, when the export slave-trade and the _émigration libre_ were still rampant on either coast, it was by no means easy to secure a fair hearing from the public. Not a small nor an uninfluential section, the philanthropic and the missionary, raised and maintained the cuckoo-cry, 'Africa for the Africans!'--worthy of its successor, 'Ireland for the Irish!' Others believed in imported labour, which has raised so many regions to the height of prosperity; but they did not see how to import it. And the general _vis inertiæ_, peculiar to hepatic tropical settlements, together with the unwillingness, or rather the inability, to undertake anything not absolutely necessary, made many of the colonists look upon the proposal rather as a weariness to the flesh than a benefit. A chosen few steadily looked forward to it; but they contented themselves with a theoretical prospect, and, perhaps wisely, did not attempt action.
The condition of the Coast, however, has radically changed during the last two decades. The export slave-trade has died the death, never to 'resurrect.' The immense benefits of immigration are known to all men, theoretically and practically. India and China have thrown open their labour-markets. And, finally, the difficulty of finding hands, for agriculture especially, in Western Africa has now come to a crisis.
Here I must be allowed a few words of preliminary explanation. In this matter, the reverse of Europe, Africa, whose social system is built upon slavery, holds field-work, and indeed all manual labour, degrading to the free man. The idea of a 'bold peasantry, its country's pride,' is utterly alien to Nigritia. The husband hunts, fights, and trades--that is to say, peddles--he leaves sowing and reaping to his wives and his chattels. Even a slave will rather buy him a slave than buy his own liberty. 'I am free enough,' he says; 'all I want is a fellow to serve me.' The natives of the Dark Continent are perfectly prepared to acknowledge that work is a curse; and, so far scripturally, they deem
Labour the symbol of man's punishment.
No Spaniard of the old school would despise more than a negro those new-fangled notions glorifying work now familiar to stirring and bustling North Europe. Nor will these people exert themselves until, like the Barbadians, they must either sweat or starve. Example may do something to stir them, but the mere preaching of industry is hopeless. I repeat: their _beau idéal_ of life is to do nothing for six days in the week and to rest on the seventh. They are quite prepared to keep, after their fashion, 365 sabbaths per annum.
In the depths of Central Africa, where a European shows a white face for the first time, the wildest tribes hold markets once or twice a week; these meetings on the hillside or the lake-bank are crowded, and the din and excitement are extreme. Armed men, women, and children may be seen dragging sheep and goats, or sitting under a mat-shade through the livelong days before their baskets and bits of native home-spun, the whole stock in trade consisting perhaps of a few peppers, a heap of palm-nuts, or strips of manioc, like pipe-clay. This savage scene is reflected in the comparatively civilised stations all down the West African coast, where the inexperienced and ardent philanthrope is apt to suppose that the lazy, feckless habits are not nature-implanted but contracted by contact with a more advanced stage of society.
Again, in many parts of Africa the richest lands, and those most favourably situated, are either uninhabited or thinly peopled, the result of intestine wars or of the export slave-trade. Mr. Administrator Goulsbury, of Bathurst, during his adventurous march from the Gambia to the Sierra Leone River, crossed league after league of luxuriant ground and found it all desert. He says, [Footnote: Blue Book of 1882, quoted in Chap. X.] 'I think the fact has never been sufficiently recognised that Africa, and especially the west coast of the continent, is but very sparsely populated.... It is not only very limited, but is, I believe, if not stationary, actually decreasing in numbers.... I commend this fact to the consideration of those who indulge in day-dreams as to the almost unlimited increase of commerce which they fondly imagine is to be the result and reward of opening up the interior of the country.'
In regions richer than the Upper Gambia the disappearance of man is ever followed by a springing of bush and forest so portentous that a few hands are helpless and hopeless. Such is the case with the great wooded belt north of the Gold Coast, where even the second-growth becomes impenetrable without the matchet, and where the swamps and muds, bred and fed by torrential rains, bar the transit of travellers. The Whydah and Gaboon countries are notable specimens of once populous regions now all but deserted.
Nothing more surprising, to men who visit Africa for the first time, than the over-wealth of labour in Madeira and its penury on the Western Coast. At Bathurst they find ships loading or unloading by the work of the Golah women, whose lazy husbands live upon the hardly-earned wage. They see the mail-steamers landing ton after ton of Chinese rice shipped _viâ_ England. The whole country with its humid surface and its reeking, damp-hot climate is a natural rice-bed. The little grain produced by it is far better than the imported, but there are no hands to work the ground. It is the same with salt, which is cheaper when brought from England: no man has the energy to lay out a salina; and, if he did, its outlay, under 'Free Trade,' would be greater than its income.
Steaming along the picturesque face of the Sierra Leone peninsula, the stranger remarks with surprise that its most fertile ridges and slopes hardly show a field, much less a farm, and that agriculture is confined to raising a little garden-stuff for the town-market. The peasant, the hand, is at a discount. The Sierra Leonite is a peddler-born who aspires to be a trader, a merchant; or he looks to a learned profession, especially the law. The term 'gentleman-farmer' has no meaning for him. Of late years a forcing process has been tried, and a few plantations have been laid out, chiefly for the purpose, it would appear, of boasting and of vaunting the new-grown industry at home. Mr. Henry M. Stanley remarks [Footnote: _Coomassie and Magdala_, p. 8], 'In almost every street in Sierra Leone I heard the voice of praise and local prayer from the numerous aspirants to clerkships and civil service employ; but I am compelled to deny that I ever heard the sound of mallet and chisel, of mortar, pestle, and trowel, the ringing sound of hammer on anvil, or roar of forge, which, to my practical mind, would have had a far sweeter sound. There is virgin land in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone yet untilled; there are buildings in the town yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce yet to be made; the trade of the African interior yet waits to be admitted into the capacious harbour of Sierra Leone for the enrichment of the fond nursing-mother of races who sits dreamily teaching her children how to cackle instead of how to work.'
The same apathy to agriculture prevails in Liberia. For the last forty years large plantations have been laid out on the noble St. Paul River between Cape Mount and Mount Mesurado. The coffee-shrub, like the copal-tree, belts Africa from east to west--from Harar, where I saw it, through Karagué, where it grows wild, the bean not being larger than a pin's head, to Manywema, in the Congo valley, and to the West Coast, especially about the Rio Nunez, north of Sierra Leone. It is of the finest quality, second only to the Mocha; but what hope is there of its development? The Váy tribe, which holds the land, is useless; the rare new comers from America will work, but the older settlers will not; and there is hardly money enough to pay Krumen.
On the Gold Coast there is no exceptional scarcity of population: under normal circumstances, the labour-market is sufficiently supplied, but a strain soon exhausts it. Sir Garnet Wolseley found his greatest difficulty in the want of workmen: he was obliged to apply for 500 British navvies; and, at one time, he thought of converting the first and second West India Regiments, with Wood's and Russell's men, into carriers. On the other hand, the conduct of the women was admirable; as the conqueror said in the Mansion House, he hardly wondered at the King of Dahome keeping up a corps of 'Amazons.' I shall presently return to the gold-mines.
At Lagos M. Colonna, Consular Agent for France, informs me that by his firm alone 600 hands are wanted for field-service, and that the number might rise to a thousand. He would also be glad to hire artisans, blacksmiths and carpenters, masons and market-gardeners. The Yorubas from the upper country, who will engage for three years, demand from a franc to a shilling per diem, rations not given. Labour ranges from sixteen to twenty-four francs per mensem; and coolies could not command more than twenty-five francs, including 'subsistence.' Here Kruboys are much used. M. Colonna pays his first-class per mensem $5 (each =5 francs 20 centimes), his second class $4, and his third $3. Returning to the Gold Coast, I find two classes of working men, the country-people and the Kruboys: the Sierra Leonites are too few to be taken into consideration. At present, when there are only five working mines, none of which are properly manned, labour is plentiful and cheap. It will be otherwise when the number increases, as it will soon do, to fifty and a hundred. Upwards of seventy concessions have already been granted, and I know one house which has, or soon will have, half a dozen ready for market. Then natives and Kruboys will strike for increased wages till even diamond-mines would not pay. The Gold Coast contains rich placers in abundance: if they fail it will be for want of hands, or because the cost of labour will swallow up profits.
The country-people, Fantis, Accra-men, Apollonians of Béin, and others, will work, and are well acquainted with gold-working. But they work in their own way; and, save under exceptional conditions, they are incapable of regular and continuous labour. It gives one the heart-ache to see their dawdling, idling, shuffling, shiftless style of spoiling time. They are now taking to tribute, piece and contract work. The French mines supply them with tools and powder, and, by way of pay and provisions, allow them to keep two-thirds of the produce. It is evident that such an arrangement will be highly profitable to the hands who will 'pick the eyes out of the mine,' and who will secrete all the richest stuff, leaving the poorest to their employers. No amount of European surveillance will suffice to prevent free gold in stone being stolen. Hence the question will arise whether, despite the price of transport, reduction in England will not pay better.
The Kruboys in the north and the Kabinda boys in the south have been described as the Irishmen of West Africa: they certainly do the most work; and trading-ships would find it almost impossible to trade without them. During the last twenty years they have not improved in efficiency even on board men-of-war. In 1861-65 the gangs with their headmen willingly engaged for three years. Now they enlist only for a year; they carefully keep tallies, and after the tenth monthly cut they begin to apply for leave. Thus the men's services are lost just as they are becoming valuable. It is the same with the Accra-men. When the mines learn the simple lesson _l'union fait la force_ they will combine not to engage Krumen for less than two years.
There are two great centres at which Kruboys are hired. The first is Sierra Leone, where they demand from all employers what the mail-steamers pay--the headmen half-a-crown and the hands a shilling a day besides rations. The second is the Kru coast. In 1850 the 'boys' received 5_s._ per mensem in goods, which reduced it to 3_s._ They had also daily rice-rations, 'Sunday beef,' and, at times, a dash of tobacco, a cap, a blanket or a waist-cloth. In 1860 the hire rose to 9_s._ in kind, or 4_s._ 6_d._ in coin. About this time cruisers began to pay them the monthly wages of ordinary seamen, 1_l._ 10s., with white man's rations or compensation-money, amounting to another 12_l._ a year. In 1882 headmen engage for the Oil Rivers at 1_l._, and 'boys' for 10_s._ to 12_s._ For the gold-mines of Wásá they have learned to demand 1_s._ 3_d._ per diem, and at the cheapest 1_l._ a month, the headmen receiving double.
The Kru-market does not supply more than 4,000 hands, and yet it is already becoming 'tight.' In a few years demand will be excessive.
[Footnote: The usual estimate of the Kru-hands employed out of their own country is as follows:-- For the Oil Rivers: 150 each for Brass and Bonny, New Calabar and Camarones; 150-200 for the Niger, and 150 for Fernando Po and the Portuguese Islands 1200-1500 At Lagos 1000 On board the 25 Bristol ships, at 20 each 500 For nine to ten ships of war 200 For ten mail-steamers 200 In the mines: (May, 1882) Izrah 7, Akankon 14, Effuenta 120, the two French companies 200, the Gold Coast 100, and Crockerville 20 461 ---- Total 3861; say 4000]
The following notes were given to me by the managers of mines, whom I consulted upon the subject.
Mr. Crocker prefers Fantis, Elminas, and others; and he can hire as many as he wants; at Cape Coast Castle alone there are some eighty hands now unemployed. He pays 36_s._, without rations, per month of four weeks. He has about a score of Kruboys, picked up 'on the beach;' these are fellows who have lost all their money, and who dare not go home penniless. Their headman receives per mens. $3.50, and in exceptional cases $4. The better class of 'boys' get from $2.50 to $3; and lesser sums are given to the 'small boys,' whose principal work is stealing, skulking.
Mr. Creswick has a high opinion of Krumen working in the mines, and has found sundry of them to develop into excellent mechanics. The men want only good management. Under six Europeans, himself included, he employs a hundred hands, and from eight to ten mechanics. The first headman draws 37_s_. 6_d_., the second 22_s_., full-grown labourers 18_s_., and 'small boys' from 4_s_. to 6_s_. and 9_s_.
Mechanics' wages range between 1_l_. 5_s_. and 4_l_. All have rations or 'subsistence,' which here means 3_d_. a day.
Mr. MacLennan has a few Fanti miners, whom he pays at the rate of 6_d_. per half-day. His full muster of Krumen is 120; the headmen receive 27_s_. 6_d_., rising, after six months, to 35_s_. The first class of common boys get 20_s_.; the second from 13_s_. 6_d_. to 15_s_.; and the third, mostly 'small boys,' between 5_s_. and 10_s_. His carpenters and blacksmiths, who are Gold Coasters and Sierra Leonites, draw from 2_l_. 10_s_. to 3_l_. The rations are, as usual, 1-1/2 lb. of rice per day, with 1 lb. of 'Sunday beef,' whose brine is converted into salt.
Mr. A. Bowden, manager of the Tákwá and Abosu Mines, also employs a 'mixed multitude.' His Sierra Leone carpenters and blacksmiths draw 3_l._ 10_s._ to 4_l._ 10_s._ per month without rations, and his native mechanics 3_l._ to 3_l._ 10_s._ The Fanti labourers are paid, as usual, a shilling per diem and find themselves. The Kruboys, besides being lodged and fed (1-1/2 lb. rice per day and 1 lb. beef or fish per week), draw in money as follows: headman, 2_l_.; second ditto, 1_l_. 7s. to 1_l_. 12_s._; miners, 18_s._ to 20_s._ and labourers 9_s._ to 16_s._
This state of the labour-market is, I have said, purely provisional. It will not outlast the time when the present concessions are in full exploitation; and this condition of things I hope soon to see. We can then draw from the neighbouring countries, from Yoruba to the north-east, and perhaps, but this is doubtful, from the Baasás [Footnote: A manly and powerful race, who call themselves Americans and will have nothing to do with the English.] and the Drewins to the west. But we must come, sooner or later, and the sooner the better, to a regular coolie-immigration, East African, Indian, and Chinese.
The benefit of such an influx must not be measured merely by the additional work of a few thousand hands. It will at once create jealousy, competition, rivalry. It will teach by example--the only way of teaching Africans--that work is not ignoble, but that it is ignoble to earn a shilling and to live idle on three-pence a day till the pence are exhausted. Its advantages will presently be felt along the whole western coast, and men will wonder why it was not thought of before. The French, as they are wont to do in these days, have set us an example. Already in early 1882 the papers announced that a first cargo of 178 Chinese--probably from Cochin-China--had been landed at Saint-Louis de Senegal for the proposed Senegambian railway.
The details of such an immigration and the measures which it will require do not belong to this place. Suffice it to say that we can draw freely upon the labour-banks of Macáo, Bombay, and Zanzibar. The intelligent, thrifty, and industrious Chinese will learn mining here, as they have learnt it elsewhere, with the utmost readiness. The 'East Indian' will be well adapted for lighter work of the garden and the mines. Finally, the sturdy Wásawahili of the East African coast will do, as carriers and labourers, three times the work of Pantis and Apollonians.
I need hardly say that Captain Cameron and I would like nothing better than to organise a movement of this kind; we would willingly do more good to the West African coast than the whole tribe of its so-called benefactors.
§3. GOLD-DIGGING IN NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA.
_a. Sketch of its Origin_.
The mineral wealth of Central Africa has still to be studied; at present we are almost wholly ignorant of it. We know, however, that the outlying portions of the Continent contain three distinct and grand centres of mining-industry. The first worked is the north-eastern corner--in fact, the Nile-valley and its adjacencies, where Fayzoghlú still supplies the noble metal. The second, also dating from immense antiquity, is the whole West African coast from Morocco to the Guinea Gulf, both included. The third and last, the south-eastern gold-fields, have been discovered by the Portuguese in comparatively modern days.
In this paper I propose to treat only of the western field. Its exploitation began early enough to be noticed by Herodotus, the oldest of Greek prose-writers. He tells us (lib. iv. 196, &c.) that the Carthaginians received gold from a black people, whose caravans crossed the Sahará, or Great Desert, and that they traded for it with the wild tribes of the West Coast. His words are as follows:--'There is a land in Libya, and a nation beyond the Pillars of Hercules [the Straits of 'Gib.'], which they [the Carthaginians] are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith they break cargo; and, having disposed their wares in an orderly way along the beach, leave them, and, returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke.
'The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the shore, and, laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw themselves afar. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If they deem the gold sufficient they take it and wend their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard once more and wait patiently. Then the others draw near and add to their gold till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly by the other; for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away.'
Plato ('Critias' [Footnote: The celebrated Dialogue which treats of Altantis and describes cocoas as the 'fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments.']) may refer to this dumb trade when he tells us, 'Never was prince more wealthy than Atlas [eldest son of Poseidon by Cleito]. His land was fertile, healthy, beautiful, marvellous; it was terminated by a range of gold-yielding mountains.' Lyon, speaking of the western Sudán, uses almost the very words of Herodotus. 'An invisible nation, according to our informant, inhabit near this place, and are said to trade by night. Those who come to traffic for their gold lay their merchandise in heaps and retire. In the morning they find a certain quantity of gold-dust placed against every heap, which if they think sufficient they leave the goods; if not, they let both remain till more of the precious ore is added' (p. 149). [Footnote: Shaw gives a similar account (_Travels_, p. 302).]
The classical trade in gold and slaves was diligently prosecuted by the Arabs or Saracens after Mohammed's day. Their caravans traversed the great wilderness which lies behind the fertile Mediterranean shore, and founded negroid empires in the western Sudán, or Blackland. Gháná, whence, perhaps, the Portuguese Guiné and our Guinea of 'the dreadful mortal name,' became the great gold-mart of the day. Famous in history is its throne, a worked nugget of solid gold, weighing 30 lbs. It has been rivalled in modern times by the 'stool' of Bontuko (Gyáman), and by the 'Hundredweight of gold' produced by New South Wales. Most of the wealth came from a district to the south-west, Wangara, Ungura, or Unguru, bordering on the Niger, and supposed to correspond with modern Mandenga-land. In the lowlands, after the annual floods, the natives dug and washed the diluvial deposits for the precious metal exactly as is now done upon the Gold Coast; and they burrowed into the highlands which surround in crescent-form the head-waters of the great River Joliba. Presently Tinbukhtu succeeded, according to Leo Africanus (1500), Gháná as the converging point of the trade, and made the name for wealth which endures even to the present day. Its princes and nobles lavishly employed the precious ore in ornaments, some weighing 1,300 ounces.
In due time the Moroccan Arabs were succeeded by their doughty rivals, the Portuguese of the heroic ages of D. D. João II. and Manoel. I here pass over the disputed claim of the French, who declare that they imported the metal from 'Elmina' as early as 1382. [Footnote: See