CHAPTER XIX. — TO PRINCE'S RIVER AND BACK.
On February 15 we proceeded down coast to inspect the mining-lands of Prince's River valley, east of Axim; and this time it was resolved to travel by surf-boat, ignoring that lazy rogue the hammock-man. Yet even here difficulties arose. Mast and sail were to be borrowed, and paddles were to be hired at the rate of a shilling a day each. They are the life of the fishing Aximites; yet they have not the energy to make them, and must buy those made in Elmina.
The eastern coast, like that of Apollonia, is a succession of points and bays, of cool-looking emerald jungle and of 'Afric's golden sands' reeking with unkindly heat. Passing the long black tongue of Prépré, or Inkubun, and the red projection, Ponta Terceira, we sighted the important Ajámera village, so called from a tree whose young leaves show a tender pinkish-red. On the Awazán Boppo Hill, about two miles from the trial-shaft of his concession, Dr. Ross found a native 'Long Tom.' It was a hollowed palm-trunk rotten with age, closed at one end and open at the other, with a slant downwards; two forks supported it over a water-filled hollow, measuring ten feet each way by three deep. Ajámera lies a little west of the peninsula, Africanicè Madrektánah, a jutting mass of naked granite glazed red by sea-water: on either side of the sandy neck, pinned down, like Pirate's Bay, by cocoa-nuts, there is the safest landing-place. And now we sight our port, distant some nine miles from Axim.
In front rises Prince's Hill, clad in undergrowth with a topping tuft of tall figs. At its eastern base lies the townlet, showing more whitewash than usual; and, nearer still, the narrow mouth of the fiery little Yenna, Prince's or St. John's River. The view is backed by the tall and wooded ridge of Cape Threepoints, the southernmost headland of the Gold Coast, behind which is Dixcove. It is interesting to us because a syndicate has been formed, and engineers are being sent out to survey the pathless 'bush' between the sea and Tumento on the Ancobra, whose site was at the time unknown. Cameron presently discovered that the Tákwá ridge is nearer Axim than Dixcove is, and that the line would pass within easy distance of Kinyanko, one of its raisons d'être.
This wild plan has been supported by sundry concessionists whose interests lie behind Dixcove and at Kinyanko. Dixcove of the crocodile-worship has one of the worst bars on the coast. Canoes and surf-boats must run within biscuit-throw of the Rock Kum-Brenni [Footnote: In the Oji or Ashanti-Fanti tongue bro or bronni (the Ga 'blofo') means somebody or something European. It is derived from abro (blo), maize, introduced by white men; others say that when the first strangers landed upon the coast, the women, who were grinding, said, 'These men are white as maize-meal.' 'Abrokirri' (Europe) is, however, explained by the Rev. Mr. Riis as perhaps a corruption of Puto, Porto, Portugal.] ('White Man's Death'), and the surf will often shut up the landing-place for four or five successive days. The place will become important, but not in this way. The Rev. Mr. Milum, in whose pleasant society I voyaged, showed me his sketch of the station with an isolated red 'butte,' possibly an island of old, rising close behind the houses and trending north-south. Grain-gold was found in it by the native schoolmaster, who dug where he saw a thin smoke or vapour hovering over the ground: throughout the Coast this, like the presence of certain ferns, is held a sure sign that the precious ore is present. Moreover, a small nugget appeared in the swish being prepared for a house-wall. Thus 'washing' will be easy and inexpensive, and the Wesleyan mission may secure funds for extending itself into the non-maritime regions.
We turned the boat's head shorewards, and, after encountering the normal three seas, ran her upon the beach near the right jaw of Prince's River. The actual mouth is between natural piers of sea-blackened trap-rock, and the gullet behind it could at this season be cleared by an English hunter. We unloaded and warped our conveyance round the gape till she rode safe in the inner broad. And now we saw that Prince's is not the river of the hydrographic chart, but a true lagoon-stream, the remains of a much larger formation. There has been, here and on other parts of the coast, a little archipelago whose islets directed the riverine courses; the shallows between were warped up by mangrove and other swampy vegetation, and the whole has become, after a fashion, terra firma. Each holm had doubtless a core of rock, whose decay produced a rich soil. Now they are mounds and ridges of red clay standing up abruptly, and their dense growths of dark yew-like trees contrast with the yellowish produce of the adjacent miry lowlands.
The chief of Prince's Town, Eshánchi, alias 'Septimulus,' a name showing a succession of seven sons, not without a suspicion of twins, would have accompanied us up stream. Guinea-worm, however, forbade, and he sent a couple of guides, one of whom, Wafápa, alias 'Barnabas,' a stout, active freedman of the village, proved very useful.
We resolved to shoot the banks going, and to collect botanical specimens on return. The land appears poor in mammals, rich in avifauna, and exceedingly abundant in insect life. Of larger animals there are leopards, cat o' mountains and civet-cats, wild hog and fine large deer; we bought a leg weighing 11-1/2 lbs., and it was excellent eating seasoned with 'poor man's quinine,' alias garlic. Natives and strangers speak of the jungle-cow, probably the Nyaré antelope (Bos brachyceros) of the Gaboon regions, the empacasso of the Portuguese. Two small black squirrels, scampering about a white-boled tree, were cunning enough never to give a shot. We sighted only small monkeys with white beards and ruddy coats. 'He be too clever for we,' said the Kruboys when the wary mannikins hid in the bush. I saw nothing of the kontromfi, cynocephalus or dog-faced baboon, concerning whose ferocity this part of Africa is full of stories. Further north there is a still larger anthropoid, which the natives call a wild man and Europeans a gorilla. The latter describe its peculiar whoop, heard in the early night when the sexes call to each other.
Our results were two species of kingfishers (alcedo), the third and larger kind not showing; a true curlew (Numenius arquata), charming little black swallows (Wardenia nigrita), the common English swallow; a hornbill (buceros), all feathers and no flesh; a lean and lanky diver (plotus), some lovely little honeysuckers, a red oriole, a fine vulture (Gypohierax angolensis), and a grand osprey (hali[oe]tus), which even in the agonies of death would not drop his prey. Many other birds were given over to Mr. Dawson, who worked from dawn till dusk. Mr. Grant dropped from the trees three snakes, one green and two slaty-brown. The collection found its way to the British Museum after the usual extensive plunder, probably at a certain port, where it is said professional collectors keep customhouse-men in pay. Mr. R. B. Sharp was kind enough to name the birds, whose shrunken list will be found at the end of the volume.
Cameron, observing for his map, was surprised by the windings of the bed; we seemed ever within hearing of the sea. Where a holm of rock and bush splits the course its waters swarm with fish, as shown by the weirs and the baskets, large and small; some of its cat-fish (siluri) weigh 10 lbs. Every shoal bred oysters in profusion, young mangroves sprouted from the submerged mollusk-beds, and the 'forests of the sea' were peopled with land-crabs.