Gold-dust is the only coin of the realm; and travellers who would pass
north of the Protectorate must buy it on the coast. It is handier than one
would suppose; even a farthing can be paid in it by putting one or two
grains upon a knife-tip, and there is a name, peseha (Port. peso?),
for a pennyworth. Larger values go by weight; the aki (ackie),
[Footnote: The word aki sounds much like the Arab roukkah or
roukkiyah. Its weight, the 16th of an ounce, never varies; but the value
ranges from 4s. 6d. to 5s., according as the ounce is worth 3l.
12s. to 4l. 10s., the average being assumed at 4l. Other
proportions are:—
The toku (carat-seed) = 5d.
The benna = 2 akis.
The periquen, pereguen, or peredroano = 32 akis, or two ounces in
weight; and ranging in value from 9l. to 10l. (Bowdich, p. 283). The
word is Ashanti, little used by the Fantis.
For a list of these complicated gold weights, of which Mr. Grant has promised me a set, see Appendix B, A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language, Rev. Christaller, Basel, 1881.] or sixteenth of an ounce, being the unit of value. The people may be persuaded to take an English sovereign, but they spurn a French napoleon. Amongst the many desiderata of the Coast is a law making all our silver coins legal tenders. At present the natives will scarcely take anything but threepenny-bits, new and bright and bearing H.B.M.'s 'counterfeit presentment.' Copper has been tried, but was made to fail by a clever District-commissioner, who refused to take the metal in payment of Government dues. The old cowrie-currency, of which the tapo, or score, represented two farthings, is all but extinct. Its name will be preserved in the proverb, 'There is no market wherein the dove with the pouting breast (the cypraea) has not traded.' The same is the case with the oldest money, round and perforated quartz-stones, which suggest the ring-coinage of ancient Egypt. From Inyenápoli, preceded by King Blay, who so managed that a fair path had been hastily cut through the bush, we struck inland, the course being northwards, bending to the north-east and east. The first hour, covering some three miles, lay partly over a flat plain of grass used for thatch, pimpled with red anthills and broken by lines and patches of dense jungle. These savannahs are common near the sea; we had already remarked one behind Béin. They denote the 'false coast,' and they become during the wet season almost impassable swamps and mud-fields.
Then we struck the valley of 'Ebumesu, winding water,' whose approach, rank with mire and corded with roots, is the Great Dismal Swamp of Dahome in miniature. Here, seven and a quarter miles from the mouth, the stream measures about twenty yards broad, the thalweg is deep and navigable, and the water, bitumen-coloured with vegetable matter, tastes brackish. There is the usual wasteful profusion of growth. Ferns ramp upon the trees; Cameron counted at Akankon two dozen different species within a few hundred yards. Orchids bunch the boughs and boles of dead forest-giants; and llianas, the African 'tie-tie,' varying in growth from a packthread to a cable, act as cordage to connect the growths.
There is evidently a shorter cut up the river, at whose lagoon-mouth craft can be hired. Our ferryman with his single canoe wasted a good hour over the work of a few minutes. We then remounted hammock and struck the 'true coast,' a charming bit of country, gradually upsloping to the north and east. The path passed through the plantation-villages, Benyá and Arábo, growing bananas and maize, cassava and groundnuts, peppers and papaws, cocoas and bamboo-palms (Raphia vinifera). The latter not only build the houses, they also yield wine of two kinds, both, however, inferior to the produce of the oil-palm (Elais guineënsis). The adúbé, drawn from the cut spathe, which continues to yield for two or three months, is held to be wholesome, diuretic, and laxative. The inséfu is produced in mortice-like holes cut along the felled trunk; they fill freely for a fortnight to three weeks, when fires must be lighted below to make the juice run into the pots. It is sweeter and better flavoured than the former, but it is accused of being unwholesome. The people drink palm-wine at different hours of the day, according to taste. The beverage is mild as milk in the morning; after noon it becomes heady, and rough as the sourest cider. The useful palm bears a huge bolster-like roll of fruit, which should be tried for oil: Cameron brought home a fine specimen for Kew. Here the land is evidently most fertile, and will form good farms for the Company. Leaving Arábo, we forded the double stream called the Bilá, which runs a few yards west of the concession. The banks are grown with rice, showing how easily they will produce all the food necessary for the labourers. The quality, moreover, is better, and the grain more nutritious than the Chinese import. The bed of bright sand, supplying the sweetest water, has in places been worked for gold by the women, but much remains to be done.
In another hour, making a total of six miles from Inyenápoli, we reached our destination, Arábokasu, or 'One Stone for Top.' We lodged our belongings in the bamboo-house newly built by Mr. Grant, finding it perfectly fit for temporary use. Before I left Axim Mr. C. C. Robertson landed there, instructed by the Izrah Company to choose a fair site for a frame-house mounted on piles. It was presently made in England, but unfortunately not after the Lagos fashion, with the bed-rooms opening upon a verandah seven to nine feet broad, and a double roof of wood with air-space between, instead of thatch and corrugated iron. The house measures 52 x 32 feet, and contains four bed-rooms, a dining-room, and the manager's office. A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300l. to 500l., an exceptional article 700l.
We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is properly Izíá, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the spot. This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion.' Apparently Izíá became Izrah to assume a 'Scriptural' sound; if so, why not 'go the whole animal' and call it the Isaiah?
This fine concession is a rectangular parallelogram, whose dimensions are 2,000 yards long from north to south, by a breadth of half. The village stands outside the south-western angle, and the Fía rivulet runs through the south-eastern corner. The surface is rolling ground, with a rise and a depression trending from south-west to north-east. The whole extent, except where 'bush' lingers, is an old plantation of bananas, manioc, and ground-nuts. There is an ample supply of good hard timber, but red pitch-pine or creosoted teak from England would last much longer. Amongst the trees are especially noted the copal, the gamboge, rich in sticky juice, the brovi, said to be the hardest wood, and the dum, or African mahogany (Oldfieldia africana), well known in Ceylon as excellent material for boat-building. There was an abundance of the Calabar-bean (Physostigma venenosum), once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints. The 'tie-tie,' as Anglo-Africans call the rope-like creepers, was also plentiful; it may prove valuable for cordage, and possibly for paper-making. I was pleased to see the ease with which the heaped-up jungle-growth is burnt at this season and the facility of road-making. Half a dozen Kru-boys with their matchets can open, at the rate of some miles a day, a path fit to carry a 'sulky;' and the ground wants only metalling with the stone which lines every stream. At the same time I hold that here, as in Mexico, we should begin with railways and tramways. Nor will there be any difficulty in keeping down the jungle. The soft and silky Bahama-grass has been brought from Sá Leone to Axim, where it covers the open spaces, and it grows well at Akankon. There is no trouble except to plant a few roots, which extend themselves afar; and the carpet when thick allows, like the orange-tree, no undergrowth.
The 'Izrah' concession is due to the energy and activity of Mr. R. B. N. Walker, who has told its history. In March 1881, when he first visited it, there had been a black 'rush;' the din and clamour of human voices were audible from afar, and on reaching the mine he found some 300 natives hard at work. I was told that the greatest number at one time was 2,000. The account reminds us exactly of the human floods so famous in other parts of the mining world. The men were sinking pits of unusual size along the south-eastern slope of the hillock, where the great clearing now is. The excitement was remarkable; and, negroes not being given to hard and continuous labour without adequate inducement, the bustle and the uproar, and the daily increasing numbers of miners flocking from considerable distances, were evidence sufficient that there was an unusually good 'find.' Their pits, attaining a maximum of 12 feet square by 55 deep, extended over some 150 yards from NN.E. to SS.W., with a breadth of about 20. From some of these holes rich quartz had been taken, one piece, the size of a 32-pounder cannon-ball, yielding more than ten ounces of gold. A shaft, however, soon caved in, for the usual reason: it had been inadequately timbered and incautiously widened at the bottom to the shape of a sodawater-bottle. All these works owed a royalty to Ahin Blay; but his dues were irregularly paid, and consequently he preferred to them a fixed rental of 100l. per annum.
The following anecdote will show how limited is the power of these 'kings.' He of Apollonia wished to sell this southern patch of ground, worked by the natives, it being, in fact, the terminal tail of the Izrah reef and the key of the property. But one Etié, head-man of Kikam, bluntly refused. Presently this chieflet agreed to sell to Mr. Grant the whole tract, a length of one thousand fathoms from north to south, the breadth being left undetermined. But Etié was deep in Messieurs Swanzy's books, and he wanted ready money. The tempter came in the shape of Mr. Dawson, a native missionary whom I met a score of years ago at Agbóme, and whose name appears in all narratives of the last Ashanti war. Although an employé of the Tákwá or French mine, he bought for himself, paying 200l., the best part of the reef (100 fathoms), leaving the butt-end, of inferior value, to Mr. Grant. This was a direct breach of contract, and might be brought into the local law-courts. I advised, however, an arrangement à l'aimable, and I still hope to see it carried out.
Life at Arábokasu was pleasant enough. The site, rising about 120 feet above ocean-level, permits the 'Doctor,' alias the sea-breeze, to blow freshly, and we distinctly heard the sough of the surf. Mornings and evenings were exceedingly fine, and during the cool nights we found blankets advisable. These 'small countries' (little villages) are remarkably clean, and so are the villagers, who, unlike certain white-skins, bathe at least once a day. At this season we had nothing to complain of mosquitoes or sand-flies, nor was 'Insektenpulver' wanted inside the house. The only physiological curiosity in the settlement was a spotted boy, a regular piebald, like a circus-pony; even his head grew a triangular patch of white hair. We wanted him for the London Aquarium, but there were difficulties in the way. Amongst the Apollonians albinoes are not uncommon; nor are the children put to death, as by the Ashantis. Both races cut the boss from hunchbacks after decease, and 'make fetish' over it to free the future family from similar distortion. Our villagers told us strange tales of a magician near Assini who can decapitate a man and restore him to life, and who lately had placed a dog's head on a boy's body. Who can 'doubt the fact'? the boy was there!