The next morning carried us forty miles along the Bassam country and villages, Little, Piccaninny, and Great, to Grand Bassam. It is a regular lagoon-land, whose pretty rivers are the outlets of the several sweet waters and the salt-ponds. Opposite Piccaninny Bassam heads, with its stalk to the shore and spreading out a huge funnel eastward and westward, the curious formation known as the 'Bottomless Pit.' The chart shows a dot, a line, and 200 fathoms. In these days of deep-sea soundings I would recommend it to the notice of the Hydrographic Office. We know exactly as much about it in A.D. 1882 as in A.D. 1670, when Ogilvy wrote, 'Six miles beyond Jak, in Jakko, [Footnote: Bosman's Jaqui-Jaqui] is the Bottomless Pit, so called from its unfathomable deepness, for the seamen, having Sounded with their longest Lines and Plummets, could never reach the bottom.' It would be interesting to know whether it is an area of subsidence or a volcanic depression. The adjacent Gold Coast suffers from terrible earthquakes, as Accra learnt to her cost in 1862.
At 10 A.M. we made Grand Bassam, where the French have had a Résidence for many years. Here the famous Marseille house of Régis Frères first made fortune by gold-barter. The precious ore, bought by the middlemen, a peculiar race, from the wild tribes of the far interior, appears in the shape of dust with an occasional small nugget; the traders dislike bars and ingots, because they are generally half copper. We have now everywhere traced the trade from Gambia to the Gold Coast, and we may fairly conclude that all the metal comes from a single chain of Ghauts subtending the maritime region.
Grand Bassam is included in the French Côte d'Or, but not in the English Gold Coast, which begins east of the Ivory Coast. The Dutch was even narrower, according to Bosnian: 'Being a part of Guinea, it is extended about sixty miles, beginning with the Gold River (Assini) twelve miles above Axim, and ending with Ponni, seven or eight miles east of Accra.' Grand Bassam has only two European establishments. Eastward lies the 'Blockhouse' of M. Verdier, 'agent of the Government at Assini,' so called from its battlemented roof. It is the old Fort Nemours, built in 1843. The 'Poste,' abandoned during the war of 1870, was let to Messieurs Swanzy; it is a series of ridge-roofs surrounded by a whitewashed stockade. Both have been freely accused of supplying the Ashantis with arms and ammunition during the last war. Similarly the Gambia is said to have supported the revolteds of Senegal. The site is vile, liable to be flooded by sea and rain. The River Akbu or Komo (Comoe), with its spiteful little bar, drains the realms of Amatifú, King of Assini. It admits small craft, and we see the masts of a schooner amid the trees. The outlet of immense lagoons to the east and west, it winds down behind the factories, and bears the native town upon its banks. Here we discharged only trade-gin, every second surf-boat and canoe upsetting; the red cases piled upon the beach looked like a bed of rose-buds. The whole of this coast, as far as Axim, is so dangerous that men land with their lives in their hands. They disembark when outward-bound and re-embark when homeward-bound, and in the interim they never tempt surf and sharks.
The Senegal left Grand Bassam at 5.30 P.M., to cover the eighty-five miles separating us from our destination. The next important feature is the Assini River, also the outlet of enormous navigable lagoons, breaking the continuity of forest-backed sands. It lies fourteen to fifteen miles (which the chart has diminished to seven) west of the French settlement, of old Fort Joinville. The latter shows a tiled and whitewashed establishment, the property of M. Verdier, outlying the normal ant-hill of brown huts. In 1868 Winwood Reade here found a poste and stockade, a park of artillery, a commandant, a surgeon, and a detachment of tirailleurs sénégalais levied amongst the warlike Moslem tribes of Senegambia. Like Grand Bassam it was under the station admiral, who inspected the two once a year, and who periodically sent a gunboat to support French interests.
By night we passed New Town, not on the charts, but famed for owning a fine gold placer north of the town-lagoon. After my departure from the coast it was inspected by Mr. Grant, who sent home specimens of bitumen taken from the wells. Then came the two Assinis, eastern and western, both places of small present importance. The 'Assini Hills' of the chart lie to the north, not to the south of the Tando water; and by day one can easily distinguish their broken line, blue and tree-clad. The Franco-English frontier has been determined after a fashion. According to Mr. Stanford's last map, [Footnote: Gold Coast, November 20, 1873. A foot-note tells us, 'The whole coast belongs to the English, the French having withdrawn since 1870 from Grand Bassam and Assini' (Winwood Reade). This is obsolete in 1882. The limits of Ashanti-land are immensely exaggerated by this map.] the westernmost point was in west long. 2º 55' (G.) Thus our territory begins between Great Assini and New Town, the latter being included in the Protectorate. This position would reduce the old Gold Coast from 245 direct geographical miles of shore-line between the River Assini (W. long. 3º 23') and the Volta mouth (E. long. 0º 42') to some 217 or 220 in round numbers. Inland the limit should be the Tando valley, but it has been fancifully traced north from the Eyhi lagoon, the receptacle of the Tando, on a meridian of W. long. 2º 50' (G.) to a parallel of N. lat. 6º 30', or ninety-eight miles from the coast about Axim (N. lat. 4º 52'). Thence it bends east and south-east to the Ofim, or western fork of the Bosom Prah, and ascends the Prah proper, separating Ashanti-land (north) from Fanti-land (south).
It should be our object to acquire by purchase or treaty, or both, the whole territory subject to Grand Bassam and Assini. The reasons may be gathered from the preceding pages.
By night we also passed Cape Apollonia and its four hummocks, which are faintly visible from Axim. The name has nothing to do, I need hardly say, with Apollo or his feasts, the Apolloniæ, nor has it any relationship with the admirable 'Apollinaris water.' It was given by the Portuguese from the saint [Footnote: Butler's Lives gives 'S. Apollonia (not Appolonia, as the miners have it), v.m. February 9.' This admirable old maid leaped into the fire prepared for her by the heathen populace of Alexandria when she refused to worship their 'execrable divinity.' There are also an Apollonius (March 5), 'a zealous holy anchorite' of Egyptian Antinous; and Apollinaris, who about A.D. 376 began to 'broach his heresy,' denying in Christ a human soul.] who presided over the day of discovery. In the early half of the present century the King of Apollonia ruled the coast from the Assini to the Ancobra Rivers; the English built a fort by permission at his head-quarters, and carried on a large trade in gold-dust. Meredith (1800) tells us that, when his Majesty deceased, some twenty men were sacrificed on every Saturday till the 'great customs' took place six months afterwards. The underlying idea was, doubtless, that of Dahome: the potentate must not go, like a 'small boy,' alone and unattended to the shadowy realm. The 'African Cruiser' [Footnote: Journal of an African Cruiser, by an officer of the U.S. navy. Edited by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Aberdeen: Clark and Son, 1848.] speaks of the royal palace being sumptuously furnished in European style; of gold cups, pitchers, and plates, and of vast treasures in bullion. When the King died sixty victims were slain and buried with their liege lord; besides a knife, plate, and cup; swords, guns, cloths, and goods of various kinds. The corpse, smeared with oil and powdered cap-à-pié with gold-dust, looked like a statue of the noble ore.
As the Senegal advanced under easy steam, we had no rolling off this roller-coast, and we greatly and regretfully enjoyed the glorious Harmatan weather, so soon about to cease. The mornings and evenings were cool and dewy, and the pale, round-faced sun seemed to look down upon us through an honest northern fog. There was no heat even during the afternoons, usually so close and oppressive in this section of the tropics. I only wished that those who marvelled at my preferring to the blustering, boisterous weather of the Northern Adriatic the genial and congenial climate of West Africa could have passed a day with me.