[525] I have noticed that arrant humbug, the celebrated ‘golden axe’ which, in 1880–81, caused the last ‘Ashantee scare’ (To the Gold Coast for Gold, ii.). The thing sent to England was certainly not the great fetish which is held to be the national Palladium. Another memento of the last Ashantee war, ‘King Koffee’s umbrella, an article of prodigious proportions, and of gaudy material,’ only returned to where it was made. The type of the latter may be seen in most Italian market-places, shading the old women’s fruits and vegetables; and Manchester, I believe, had the honour of building it.
[526] Through the Dark Continent, i. 21.
[527] Described in my Mission to Dahome, passim.
[528] Across Africa, vol. i. pp. 121, 139; vol. ii. 104.
[529] The famous copper mines of the Congo region, whose yield, says Barbot, was mistaken for gold, are noticed in The Cataracts of the Congo, pp. 45, 46.
[530] Captain Cameron has brought home specimens.
[531] From O Muata Cazembe, which also contains a long and valuable description of the copper mines in South-Eastern Africa, worked by the people since olden time.
[532] According to Marco Polo (lib. iii. cap. 34), the men of Zanghibar (Zanzibar) are ‘both tall and stout, but not tall in proportion to their stoutness, for if they were, being so stout and brawny, they would be absolutely like giants; and they are so strong that they will carry for four men and eat for five.’
[533] Anthrop. Coll. p. 135.
[534] The Journ. Anthrop. Inst. (August 1883) has printed an excellent paper ‘On the Mechanical Methods of the Ancient Egyptians.’ Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie believes that they cut diorite with lathes and jewel graving-points (diamond? or corundum abundant in Midian?); and that the diamond was the ‘piercing-stone’ of early Babylonian Inscriptions.