There were two big rough pits called shafts. I descended into the deeper one, which was fourteen to fifteen feet below ground. The walls would repay washing on a large scale; and the look of the top soil reminded me of the descriptions of old California and Australia when there were rushes of miners to the gold-fields, carrying for all machinery a pick, a pan, and a tin 'billy.'
The Insimankáo concession contains 1,000 fathoms square; the measurements being taken from a 'marked tree' on the north-western slope of the hill with the long name. The position is N. lat. 5º 18' 15" and the long. W. (Gr.) 2º 14' 03". West of the centre the Fura Creek receives a small tributary. Mr. Walker took fair samples from the well-defined reef and the outcropping boulders, whose strike is from north-north-east to south-south-west. He notes that the land Egwira, which lies between Wásá and Aowin, was long famous for its mining-industry, and that it appears in old maps as a 'Republick rich in gold.' We heard of the Abenje mine on the same reef, four to five miles east of Insimankáo; and he declares that it has been abandoned because the population is too scanty.
I left this mining property convinced that working it will pay well. The only thing to be guarded against is overlapping the French concession of Mankuma, which lies immediately to the east.
From the mine I walked back to the village, breakfasted, and returned in the canoes to the sluice-like mouth of the Fura Greek. I then ascended the Ancobra, in order to inspect the Butabué rapids, said to be the end of canoe-navigation. We passed on the right a reef and a shallow of conglomerate, washed out of the banks and forming a race; there is another reef with its rip at Aroásu. In the early part of the afternoon we got to the village of Ebiásu, which means 'not dark.' Here the equinoctial showers began to fall heavily, and I was again obliged to sleep without observations. The village is built upon a steep bank of yellow clay, with rich red oxides; it stands forty feet above the present level, and yet at times it is flooded out.
Leaving Ebiásu next morning, I found the banks of sand, clay, and small pebbles beginning to shelve. We passed over slaty rocks in the bed; and the depth of water was often not more than three feet. Women's washings were seen on the left bank, and the river had risen after they had been worked. We could not approach them on account of the reefs and the current. The opposite bank, about five minutes further up, is of soft sandstone; and here a native tunnel of forty to fifty feet had been run in from the river to communicate with a shaft. My men were nervous about leopards, and I had to encourage them by firing my rifle into the hole. The normal formation continued, and here the land is evidently built by the river; there are few hills, and the present direction of the bed has been determined by the rocks and reefs, the outliers of the old true coast. These features may have been lower than they are now, and owe their present elevation to upheaval. Immature conglomerate—that is, a pudding of pebbles and hardened clay—seems to have been deposited in the synclinal curve of the bed-rock, principally slate. Overlying both are the top soil and the sands, the latter often resembling the washed out tailings of stamped rock.
Passing the village Abanfokru, I found myself amongst the extensive concessions of the French, who have taken the alluvial grounds for washing and working. M. Bonnat's map gives the approximate positions and dimensions; and the several sites are laid down by M. Dahse. I shall have more to say about this section on my return.
Navigation now becomes more intricate and difficult, owing to rocks and reefs, rips and rapids. A large stony holm about mid-stream is called Eduásim, meaning 'thief in river.' I need not repeat from my map the names of the unimportant settlements. At the mouth of the Abonsá the bed widens to nearly double, and the north-easterly direction shifts to due north. This great drain, falling into the left bank, lies between five and six miles above the Fura Creek. I shall have more to say about it when describing my descent. Two miles further north brought us to the beginning of the rapids, which apparently end the boat-navigation. The only canoes are used for ferrying; I saw no water-traffic, and there were no longer any fish-weirs. Moreover, the country has been deserted, I was told, since the arrival of strangers. The natives have probably been treated with little consideration. A quarter of an hour's hauling, all hands being applied to the canoe, took us about fifty yards over the Impayim rapid, whose fall is from four to five feet deep. Immediately after the Butabué influent on the right bank the bed bends abruptly east, and we reached the far-famed rapids of that name. Here the whole surface, as far up as the eye can see, is a mass of rocks and of broken, surging water. The vegetation of the banks, bound together by creepers, llianas, and rattans, is peculiarly fine. I landed upon one of the rocks, sketched the Butabué, whose name none could explain, and returned down stream to the 'great central Depôt,' Tumento.
I can say little about the River Ancobra above the rapids, except that it resumes its course from the north-north-east and the north, apparently guided by the hills. The sources are now only a few miles distant, but the stream is unnavigable, and they must be reached on foot. The late M. Bonnat walked up by a hunter's path, now killed out, to the ruins of Bush Castle, which Jeekel calls Fort Ruyghaver. He there secured possession of the rich Asamán mines, which the work was intended to defend. There is some fetish there, and the place is known as the burial-ground of the kings. I was also told that four or five marches off a cache of treasure, described to be large, had been made during the Ashanti-Gyáman war, and had been defended by the usual superstitions. Fetish may have lost much of its power on the coast; in the interior, however, it is still strong, and few white men live long after being placed under its ban.