I stored my goods in the surf-boat, and set out in our big canoe early next morning. A string of dug-outs was next passed, loaded with palm-kernels, maize, and bananas; it appeared as if they were all bound for the market at Axim. I took specimens of swish and stone from 'Ross's Hill.' The top soil showed good signs of gold, and the grains were tolerably coarse. Here a floating power-engine would soon bare the reefs and warp up the swamp. Messieurs Allan and Plisson, who were floating down in a surf-boat, gave me the news that the steam-launch Effuenta had at last succumbed in the struggle for life.
I landed at Akromási, a village where the true bamboo-cane grows, and found the soil to be a grey sandy clay; there were many 'women's washings' near the settlement. Shortly before reaching the Ahenia River we saw the landing-place for the valuable 'Apatim concession.' They told me on enquiry that the stream is deep and has been followed up in a surf-boat for a mile or two. It may therefore prove of use to Mr. Irvine's property, Apatim.
At half-past five that evening I reached Akankon, and slept well at 'Riverside House.' Mr. Morris had begun levelling the ground and building new quarters for general use. I gave him some slips of bamboo and roots of Bahama-grass, as that planted had grown so well.
Next morning we got under way early (6.50) and proceeded up the river. The canoe-men, seeing pots of palm-wine on the banks, insisted upon landing to slake their eternal thirst. The mode in which the liquor is sold shows a trustfulness on the part of the seller which may result from firm belief in his 'fetish.' Any passer-by can drink wine à discrétion, and is expected to put the price in a calabash standing hard by. Beyond the Yengéni River I saw for the first and only time purple clay-slate overlying quartz. Collecting here and there specimens of geology, and suffering much from the sun, for I still was slightly feverish, I reached the 'great central depôt' at 4 P.M.
Tumento was found by observation to lie in N. lat. 4º 12' 20" and in W. long. (Gr.) 2º 12' 25". Consequently it is only eighteen direct geographical miles from the sea, the mouth of the Ancobra being in W. lat. 2º 54'. Some make the distance thirty and others sixty miles. The latter figure would apply only by doubling the windings of the bed.
This ascent of the river convinced me more than ever that Enfrámadié is the proper terminus of its navigation. I passed the next day at Tumento, which proved to be only half the distance usually supposed along the Ancobra bed from its mouth. The time was spent mainly in resting and doctoring myself. At night the rats, holding high carnival, kept me awake till 3 A.M.; and I heard shots being continually fired from a native mine whose position was unknown. The natives now know how to bore and blast; consequently thefts of powder, drills, and fuses become every day more common. My first visit (March 20) was to the Insimankáo concession. I left the surf-boat behind, and put my luggage into small canoes hired at Tumento, myself proceeding in the large canoe. We shoved off from the beach at 8.50 A.M. The Ancobra had now, after the late rains, a fair current instead of being almost dead water; otherwise it maintained the same appearance. The banks are conglomerate, grey clay and slate; gravel, sand, shingle, and pebbles of reddish quartz, bedded in earth of the same colour, succeeding one another in ever-varying succession. Only two reefs, neither of them important, projected from the sides.
After an hour and a half paddling we reached the Fura, which I should call a creek; it is not out of the mangrove-region. The bed is set in high, steep banks submerged during the rains; and the narrowness of the mouth, compared with the upper part, made it run, after the late showers, into the Ancobra like a mill-race. In fact, the paddlers were compelled to track in order to make headway. After ten minutes (=200 yards) we reached a landing-place, all jungle with rotting vegetation below. I do not think that as a waterway the Fura Creek can be made of any practical use; but it will be very valuable for 'hydraulicking.' Canoes and small surf-boats may run down it at certain seasons, but the flow is too fast and the bed is too full of snags and sawyers to be easily ascended.
At the landing-place I mounted my hammock and struck the path which runs over level ground pretty thick with second-growth. The chief Bimfú, who met me at Tumento, had broken his promise to guide me, and had neglected to clear the way. On a largish creek which was nearly dry I saw a number of 'women's washings.' Then we passed on the right a hillock seventy to eighty feet high, where quartz showed in detached and weathered blocks. Beyond it were native shafts striking the auriferous drift at a depth of eight to ten feet. A few yards further on the usual washings showed that the top soil is also worth working.
Another half-hour brought us to about a dozen native shafts in the usual chimney shape. They were quite new and had been temporarily left on account of the rise of the water, which was here twenty-four feet below the surface. The top soil is of sandy clay, and the gold-containing drifts, varying in thickness, they told me, from two to four feet, consisted of quartz pebbles bedded in red loam. The general look of the stratum and the country suggested an old lagoon.
An hour and a half of hammock brought me from the landing-place of the Fura Creek to the village of Insimankáo. Rain was falling heavily and prevented all attempts at observation. The settlement is the usual group of swish and bamboo box-huts nestling in the bush. A small clean bird-cage, divided into two compartments, with standing bedstead, was assigned to me. Next morning I walked to the Insimankáo mine by a path leading along, and in places touching, the bank of the Fura Creek, which runs through the whole property. After thirty-three minutes we reached the 'marked tree.' Here the land begins to rise and forms the Insimankáo Hill, whose trend is to north-north-east. Mr. Walker calls it Etia-Kaah, or Echia-Karah, meaning 'when you hear (of its fame) you will come.' It is the usual mound of red clay, fairly wooded, and about 150 feet high; the creek runs about 100 yards west of the pits. The reefs seemed to be almost vertical, with a strike to the north-north-east; and the walls showed slate, iron-oxide, and decomposed quartz. The main reef [Footnote: Mr. O. Pegler (A.R.S.M.) describes it as a 'very powerful reef outcropping boldly from a hill at a short distance from the native village, the strike being north-north-east to south-south-west, and the vein having a great inclination. At the crest of the hill it presents a massive appearance, and is many feet in width—in some places between twenty and thirty feet. This diminishes towards the native pits, and there the vein diverges into two portions, both presenting a decomposed appearance, the casing on both foot and hanging wall having a highly talcose character.' This engineer also washed gold specks from the loose soil. Finally, he notes that the massive quartz-outcrop is homogeneous and crystalline, giving only traces of gold, but that the stone improves rapidly with depth.] was from eight to ten feet thick, and I believe that there are other and parallel formations. But the ground is very complicated, and for proper study I should have required borings and cross-cuts.