§3. GOLD-DIGGING IN NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA.
a. Sketch of its Origin.
The mineral wealth of Central Africa has still to be studied; at present we are almost wholly ignorant of it. We know, however, that the outlying portions of the Continent contain three distinct and grand centres of mining-industry. The first worked is the north-eastern corner—in fact, the Nile-valley and its adjacencies, where Fayzoghlú still supplies the noble metal. The second, also dating from immense antiquity, is the whole West African coast from Morocco to the Guinea Gulf, both included. The third and last, the south-eastern gold-fields, have been discovered by the Portuguese in comparatively modern days.
In this paper I propose to treat only of the western field. Its exploitation began early enough to be noticed by Herodotus, the oldest of Greek prose-writers. He tells us (lib. iv. 196, &c.) that the Carthaginians received gold from a black people, whose caravans crossed the Sahará, or Great Desert, and that they traded for it with the wild tribes of the West Coast. His words are as follows:—'There is a land in Libya, and a nation beyond the Pillars of Hercules [the Straits of 'Gib.'], which they [the Carthaginians] are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith they break cargo; and, having disposed their wares in an orderly way along the beach, leave them, and, returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke.
'The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the shore, and, laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw themselves afar. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If they deem the gold sufficient they take it and wend their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard once more and wait patiently. Then the others draw near and add to their gold till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly by the other; for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away.'
Plato ('Critias' [Footnote: The celebrated Dialogue which treats of Altantis and describes cocoas as the 'fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments.']) may refer to this dumb trade when he tells us, 'Never was prince more wealthy than Atlas [eldest son of Poseidon by Cleito]. His land was fertile, healthy, beautiful, marvellous; it was terminated by a range of gold-yielding mountains.' Lyon, speaking of the western Sudán, uses almost the very words of Herodotus. 'An invisible nation, according to our informant, inhabit near this place, and are said to trade by night. Those who come to traffic for their gold lay their merchandise in heaps and retire. In the morning they find a certain quantity of gold-dust placed against every heap, which if they think sufficient they leave the goods; if not, they let both remain till more of the precious ore is added' (p. 149). [Footnote: Shaw gives a similar account (Travels, p. 302).]
The classical trade in gold and slaves was diligently prosecuted by the Arabs or Saracens after Mohammed's day. Their caravans traversed the great wilderness which lies behind the fertile Mediterranean shore, and founded negroid empires in the western Sudán, or Blackland. Gháná, whence, perhaps, the Portuguese Guiné and our Guinea of 'the dreadful mortal name,' became the great gold-mart of the day. Famous in history is its throne, a worked nugget of solid gold, weighing 30 lbs. It has been rivalled in modern times by the 'stool' of Bontuko (Gyáman), and by the 'Hundredweight of gold' produced by New South Wales. Most of the wealth came from a district to the south-west, Wangara, Ungura, or Unguru, bordering on the Niger, and supposed to correspond with modern Mandenga-land. In the lowlands, after the annual floods, the natives dug and washed the diluvial deposits for the precious metal exactly as is now done upon the Gold Coast; and they burrowed into the highlands which surround in crescent-form the head-waters of the great River Joliba. Presently Tinbukhtu succeeded, according to Leo Africanus (1500), Gháná as the converging point of the trade, and made the name for wealth which endures even to the present day. Its princes and nobles lavishly employed the precious ore in ornaments, some weighing 1,300 ounces.
In due time the Moroccan Arabs were succeeded by their doughty rivals, the Portuguese of the heroic ages of D. D. João II. and Manoel. I here pass over the disputed claim of the French, who declare that they imported the metal from 'Elmina' as early as 1382. [Footnote: See Chapter II.] The first gold was discovered on his second voyage by Gonçalo Baldeza (1442) at the Rio de Ouro, the classical Lixus and the modern El-Kus, famed for the defeat and death of Dom Sebastiam. [Footnote: I have noticed it in Camoens, his Life and his Lusiads, vol ii. chapter iii. The identification with the Rio de Onro is that of Bowdich (p. 505). Another Rio de Ouro was visited in 1860 by Captain George Peacock (before alluded to), 'having a French frigate under his orders.' The 'River of Gold' of course would become a favourite and a banal name.]
In 1470 João de Santarem and Pero d'Escobar, knights of the King, sailed past Cape Falmas, discovered the islands of São Thomé and Annobom (January 1, 1471); and, on their return homewards, found a trade in gold-dust at the village of Sama (Chamah) and on the site which we miscall 'Elmina.' [Footnote: This form of the word, a masculine article with a feminine noun, cannot exist in any of the neo-Latin languages. In Italian and Spanish it would be La Mina, in Portuguese A Mina. The native name is Dina or Edina.] During the same year Fernan' Gomez, a worthy of Lisbon, bought a five years' monopoly of the gold-trade from the King, paying 44l. 9s. par annum, and binding himself to explore, every year, 300 miles down coast from Sierra Leone. One of these expeditions landed at 'Elmina' and discovered Cape Catherine in south latitude 1º 50' and west longitude (Gr.) 9º 2'. The rich mines opened at Little Kommenda, or Aprobi, led to the building of the Fort São Jorje da Mina, by Diego d'Azembuja, sent out (A.D. 1481) to superintend the construction. But about 1622 the falling in of some unbraced and untimbered shafts and the deaths of many miners induced Gweffa, the King, to 'put gold in Fetish,' making it an accursed thing; and it has not been worked since that time.
Thus Portugal secured to herself the treasures which made her the wealthiest of European kingdoms. But when she became a province of Spain, under D. Philip II., her Eastern conquests were systematically neglected in favour of the Castilian colonies that studded the New World. The weak Lusitanian garrisons were massacred on the Gold Coast, as in other parts of Africa; and the Hollanders, the 'Water-beggars,' who had conquered their independence from Spain, proceeded to absorb the richest possessions of their quondam rivals. 'Elmina,' the capital, fell into Dutch hands (1637), and till 1868 Holland retained her forts and factories on the Gold Coast.