Beyond this settlement is a fine quartz hill, round the northern edge of which the path winds to the little Kwansakru. This is a woman's village, where the wives of chiefs who have mining-rights, accompanied by their slaves, are stationed, to pan gold for their lazy husbands. In this way may have arisen the vulgar African story of Amazon settlements. Messieurs Zweifel and Moustier [Footnote: Voyage, &c., p. 115.] were told by a Kissi man that twelve marches behind their country is a large town called Nahalo, occupied only by the weaker sex. A man showing himself in the streets, or met on the road, is at once put to death; however, some of the softer-hearted have kept them prisoners, and the result may easily be divined. All the male issue is killed and only the girls are kept.
Many large 'women's washings' of old date give us a hint how the country should be worked. All along the line of the Aunábé white sands, the tailings of natural sluices, have been deposited; the black sand sinking by its own weight. I was unable to find out the extent of the French concessions, and look forward to the coming day of compulsory definition of boundaries and registration in Government offices. These grants are mingled in inextricable confusion with those secured by 'Surgeon-Major Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton, Esq.'
Soon after Kwansakru we exchanged the ordinary path for a mere thread in the bush, leading to the southern end of Tebribi Hill. The name, according to Mr. Sam, means 'when you hear, it shakes,' signifying that the thunder reverberates from the heights owing to its steep side and gives it a tremulous motion. This abrupt, cliff-like side is the western, where the schistose gneiss is exposed for a thickness of 60 feet and more: the stone is talcose, puddinged in places with quartz pebbles, and everywhere showing laminations of black sand. The long oval mound of red clay, overgrown with trees, and rising 295 feet above sea-level, is all auriferous; but there are placers richer than their neighbours. Tebribi was the favourite washing-ground of the Apinto Wásás; but the old shafts were all neglected after the Dutch left, and no deep sinking was known within the memory of man until the last twelve years. I passed a pit on the western flank; the winch had been removed, and my people found it impracticable: we descended to it by cut steps and followed a cornice, mainly artificial, for a short distance to where its mouth opened. This hole had been sunk 70 to 80 feet deep in the talcose stone; and it would have been far easier and better to have driven galleries and adits into the face of the rock.
We took fourteen minutes to clamber up the stiff side in the pelting rain, with a tornado making ready to break. Ten minutes more, along the level, and a total of three hours, placed us at Mr. Crocker's Bellevue House. I had been asked to baptise it, and gave the name after a place in Sevenoaks which overlooks the wooded expanse of the Kentish weald. The place being locked up, we at once committed burglary; I occupied one of the two boarded bedrooms with plank walls, and my men established themselves in the broad and well-thatched verandah. When the view cleared we saw various outliers of hill, all running nearly parallel and striking north with more or less easting; the temperature was delightful, and between the showers the breezes were most refreshing. At night a persistent rain set in and ruined all chance of getting sights.
The next morning broke dull and grey with curtains of smoky fog and mist hanging to the hills; and the heavy wet made the paths greasy and slippery. Leaving Bellevue House, we walked along the whole length of the ridge in half an hour; and, descending the north-western slope, we struck the main thoroughfare—such as it is. Reaching the level, we found more 'women's washings,' and the highly auriferous ground looked as if made for the purpose of hydraulic mining.
Another half-hour along the lower flat led us to Burnettville, Crocker's Ruhe No. 3. It is a large native-built house fronted by long narrow quarters for negroes on the other side of the road. The path crossed several streamlets trending north to the Aunábé, and a bad mud which had seen corduroy in its better days. Blocks of quartz and slate protruded between the patches of bog. We then traversed fairly undulating and well-wooded ground, clay-stone coated with oxide of iron; we crossed another small stream flowing northwards, and we began the ascent leading to 'Government House, Tákwá.' It is also known as Mount Pleasant, Prospect Mount, and Vinegar Hill.
The site facing the Effuenta mine is the summit of a long thin line about 275 feet high. This queer specimen of official head-quarters was built by the united genius of the owners of the ground, Mr. Commissioner Cascaden and Dr. Duke. As before said the really comfortable house of boarding has been bequeathed to the white ants at Axim by the Government of the Golden Land, too poor to pay transport. Commissioner and doctor receive no house-allowance, and according to popular rumour, which is probably untrue, were graciously told that they might pig in a native hut in or about Tákwá. Consequently they built this place and charge a heavy rent for it.
Government House is a large parallelogram of bamboo. The roof is an intricate mass of branches and tree-trunks, with a pitch so flat that it admits every shower. Mr. Higgins was at once obliged to expend 10l.-12l. in removing and restoring the house-cover. Under it are built two separate and independent squares of wattle with plank floors raised a foot or so off the ground; these dull and dismal holes, which have doors but no windows, serve as sleeping-places. The rest of the interior goes by the name of a sitting-room. The outer walls are whitewashed on both sides, and between them and the two wattle squares is a space of 6 to 8 feet, adding to the disproportionate appearance of the interior. Had it been divided off in the usual way the tenement would have been much more comfortable. There is a scatter of ragged huts, grandiosely designated as the barracks, on the level space where the Haussas parade. When Mr. Higgins was making himself water-tight, these lazy loons had the impudence to ask that he would either have their lines mended or order new ones to be built. I would have made them throw down their ramshackle cabins, knock up decent huts, and keep them in good order.
Leaving Government House, I descended the steep incline of Vinegar Hill, passed through the little Esanuma village, and crossed two streams flowing south. One is easily forded; the eastern has a corduroy bridge 176 ft. long, built to clear the muds on either side. I shall call this double water the Tákwá rivulet, and shall have more to say about it on my return.
Another steep ascent placed me at the Effuenta establishment. I was now paying my second visit to the far-famed Tákwá Ridge. It is a long line running parallel with Vinegar Hill, but instead of being regular, like its neighbour, it is broken into a series of small crests looking on the map like vertebræ; these heights being parted by secondary valleys, some of which descend almost to the level of the flowing water. Westward the hog's-back is bounded by the Tákwá rivulet, rising in the northern part of the valley. Eastwards there is a corresponding feature called by the English 'Quartz Creek:' it breaks through the ridge in the southern section of the Effuenta property and unites with the Tákwá. My aneroid showed the height of the crest to be 260 feet above sea-level, and about 160 above the valley. Mr. Wyatt has raised it to 1,400 feet—a curious miscalculation.