The northern part of this veritable 'Nigger Digger's Delight' is now comparatively deserted: some chief died there, and the people have crowded into the main body of the settlement. The village of Kwábina Angu, King of Eastern Apinto, is now joined to Tákwá. I could not distinguish the 'Palast' of King Kwámi Enimill, who rules western Wásá, and whose capital is Akropong.
M. Haillot had preceded me in a hammock, and welcomed me to his quarters. He occupied one of the three or four raised plank-houses; another lodged Dr. Burke, and a third M. Voltaire, Mr. Carlyon, another young Cornishman, who came out with us, and sundry French ouvriers. A large bamboo-house had been built for a general restaurant: it became a barrack during the 'Ashanti scare,' and now it is quite unused. Standing farther back are the very respectable tenements of the same material, with broad verandahs, occupied at times by Mr. Ex-missionary Dawson and family. The negro quarters are mostly in the Tákwá village.
The 'Father of the African Mines,' dating from 1878, lies on the northern third of the celebrated Tákwá ridge, and its concession embraces an area of 1000 x 2000 fathoms. The rich auriferous reef is the backbone of a long narrow line of hill whose diameter ranges between 1,000 feet to 600 where it is pinched. The lode strikes to the north-north-east with a dip of 47º west. The angle of underlay, I may remark, greatly varies in these Gold Coast reefs; some are nearly vertical (82º), others are moderately inclined (20º to 50º), and others run almost flat. The richest part, not including the broken-off ore, is from eighteen inches to two feet broad. It is decidedly more than 'one to two hundred years old,' as reported home by a scientific official on the spot. The 'coffins,' or abandoned native diggings, must date from at least two centuries ago. The natives scraped off the gold-bearing stone till the water drove them out. The formation is upper Silurian or lower Devonian, a transition to gneiss, but not highly metamorphic. No fossils have yet been found: if any exist they would be microscopic. Where talcose it is bluish, and shows streaks of 'black sand,' titaniferous iron. The grey sand washes to white. There are pot-holes which have been filled with either a pudding or a breccia of quartz. In places the gneiss has been so little changed by heat and pressure that it forms arenaceous flags and shales. It suggests a deposit in some ancient lagoon, alternately fresh and salt. A hard fissile slate of purple colour is based upon the ground-rock of grey granite; there is also a modern clay-slate, which lies unconformably to the older, and through it the great veins of gneiss and quartz seem to pass. The alluvial detritus, which fills up the valleys to their present level, is formed by the diluvium of the hills: in parts these bottoms show strata, from one to three feet thick, of water-rolled pebbles bedded in clay. Here and there the couch must be a hundred feet deep, and the whole should be raised for washing by machinery. These strata were apparently deposited in a lagoon of more modern date.
The gold is sometimes visible in the gneiss; and I have seen pieces whose surface is dotted with yellow spots resembling pyrites. It is often in the form of spangles called float-gold and flour-gold. Select specimens have yielded upwards of eight ounces to the ton. If the blanketings and first tailings be properly treated, it should afford an average of at least an ounce and a half per ton. Treating a hundred tons a day gives a sum of 30,000 per annum; and, assuming 6l. of gold to the ton, we have a total of 180,000l. The working of this section of the mine should not exceed 30,000l. a year, which leaves a net gain of 150,000l.
The Bergwerke consist of four tunnels driven into the lower part of the western hill-side, further down than the bottom of the abandoned native workings. They are eccentrically disposed in curves and other queer figures. All abut upon galleries running in sections along the lode-line, and intended ultimately to connect. The total length may be a thousand feet. Being cut in the gneiss, they require no timbering; but the floors are little raised above the level of the rivulet, and water percolates through roofs and walls. The latest tunnel has been driven past the new gallery, and has struck a second lode; this has never been worked by the natives, and stoping to above the springs may be found advisable. Ventilation is managed by means of the old abandoned native shafts. A very large quantity of ore is brought to bank. I found it hard to form an estimate, because it was in scattered heaps overgrown with vegetation; but I should not be surprised if it amounted to 5,000 tons. This means that want of proper machinery has resulted in a dead capital of from 20,000l. to 30,000l.
A space has been cleared on the level of the trams uniting the mouths of the tunnel, and here will be placed the 'elephant-stamps' actually on their way out. They have now two batteries, each of six head, worked by the same shaft: the steam-engine, as usual, is the Belleville. The material is bad; the gratings, on the levels of the dies, have been smashed by the stones bombarding them, and the ill-constructed foundations of native wood are eaten by white ants. Yet they have done duty for only eighteen months. The sludge was treated in fancy amalgamators, especially in one with a pan and revolving arms, probably evolved out of the inner consciousness of some gentleman in Paris. The result was discharging upwards of 1,500 lbs. of mercury into the valley below. A little amalgam was obtained, and proved that the rock does contain gold—a fact perfectly well known for centuries to the natives.
The history of the 'African Gold Coast' Mine in the hands of Franco-English shareholders has already been noticed. M. Bonnat preferred reworking the old native diggings to the virgin reefs lying north and south of them. Some of the latter can be worked for years without pumping; on the others the plant will be expensive. But the Company, instead of mining, has gone deeply into concession-mongering, and their grants are scattered broadcast over the country. One of them, the 'Mankuma,' near Aodua, the capital of Eastern Apinto, extends twenty-six miles, with a depth of 500 yards on either bank of the Ancobra River above the mouth of the Abonsá influent. These gigantic areas will give rise to many lawsuits, and no man in the country has power to make such a grant. The ownership of the land is vested in a 'squirearchy,' so to speak, and only the proprietors have a right to sell or lease. When gold is worked the 'squire' takes his royalty from the miner, and he or his chiefs must in turn pay tribute to the 'king.' Hence the money may pass through three or four hands before reaching its final destination.
These indiscriminate concessions will be very injurious to the future of the Protectorate, and should be limited by law. At present the only use is to sell them to syndicates and companies, and so to pay a fictitious dividend to the actionnaires. Evidently such a process is rather on the 'bear and bull' system of the stock-market than legitimate mining.
I was well acquainted with the late M. Bonnat, a bright, cheery little Frenchman of great energy, some knowledge of the Fanti, or rather the Ashanti, language, and perfect experience of the native character. Born at a village near Macon, he began life as a cook on board a merchant ship; he soon became agent to some small French trading firm, and then pushed his way high up the unexplored Volta River. Here the Ashantis barred his passage, and eventually took him prisoner as he attempted to cross their limits; he was carried to Kumási, where he remained in confinement for three years. When the war of 1873-1874 set him at liberty he passed through Wásá to Europe, and by his local information, and that gathered in captivity, he secured the public ear for the gold-mines. His later proceedings are well known, and some of their unfortunate results are best unrelated.
I met M. Bonnat last in June 1881; he was then going up to Tákwá in company with Messieurs Bowden and Macarthy, and I was canoeing down the Ancobra on my way home. He was suffering severely from a carbuncular boil on the thigh, which he refused to have properly opened. His death, which occurred within a fortnight, is usually attributed to pleuro-pneumonia, but I rather think it was due to blood-poisoning. He had been exposing himself recklessly for some months, and two drenchings in the rain brought him to his end; yet there are people who remember his visit to the forbidden fetish-valley of Apatim. The father of the modern gold-mines, the Frenchman who taught Englishmen how to work their own wealth, lies buried at Tákwá; I did not see his tomb.