Chapter XVI (1)

WEST COAST OF AFRICA--RICHARD'S FIRST CONSULATE.

In his "Wanderings in West Africa" (2 vols., 1863), Richard describes the whole of his jurisdiction, which was several hundred miles of coast. The ship, after leaving Madeira and Teneriffe, goes to Bathurst on the West Coast, to Sierra Leone, Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Cape Palmas, Half Jack, Grand Baltam, Axim, Elmina, Cape Coast Castle, Salt Pond, Winnebah, Accra, Addah, Quitta, Bagadah, Agwey, Whydah, Lagos, Bonny, Fernando Po, and Old Calabar, one station beyond. He ends up with--"Arriving in these outer places is the very abomination of desolation. I drop, for a time, my pen, in the distinct memory of having felt uncommonly suicidal through that first night at Fernando Po."

It would not suit this book to have large copyings from his works, but I think I should give two which are especially useful--one a description of the Sierra Leone negro, and another on the richness of the Guinea Coast, about which I shall have something to say later on in 1881.

[Sidenote: _The West African Negroes._]

"We parted with our consumptives at Madeira; we leave our Africans at Sierra Leone. For this race there is a descending scale of terminology: 1, European; 2, civilized man; 3, African; 4, man--the Anglo-Americans say, 'pussum'--of colour; 5, negro; 6, darkie; 7, nigger, which last, is actionable. Many a £5 has been paid for the indulgence of _lèse majesté_ against the 'man and a brother;' and not a few £50 where the case has been brought into the civil courts. Captain Philip Beaver was justified in declaring that he would 'rather carry a rattlesnake than a negro--who has been in London.' Not so Mr. Hazelface, into whose soul or countenance _soggezzione_, or shame, never entered--for was he not of the Almighty Negroes? And shall not the most dishonest of Negroes in these days stand before Kings? The second, our Gorilla, or Missing Link, was the son of an emancipated slave, who afterwards distinguished himself as a Missionary and a Minister. His--the sire's--name has appeared in many books, and he wrote one himself, pitying his own 'poor lost father,' because, forsooth, he died in the religion of his ancestors, an honest Fetishist. Our excellent warm-hearted, ignorant souls at home were so delighted with the report of this Lion of the Pulpit, that it was much debated whether the boy Ajáí had not been providentially preserved for the Episcopate of Western Africa.

"These individuals are out of their _assiettes_. At home they will devour, perforce, _Kankey_ and bad fish, washing them down with _Mimbo_ and _Pitta_--native and palm wine, and hop-less beer--here they abuse the best of beef, long openly for 'palaver sauce' and 'palm-oil chop,' and find fault with their champagne. At home they will wear breech-clouts and Nature's stockings, only. Here their coats are superfine Saxony, with broadest of silk velvet collars. The elongated cocoa-nut head bears jauntily a black pork-pie felt, with bright azure ribbons, and a rainbow necktie vies in splendour with the loudest of waistcoats from the land of Moses and Son; the pants are tightly strapped down to show the grand formation of the knee, the delicate slimness of the calf, the manly purchase of the heel, and the waving line of beauty that distinguishes the shin-bone.[1] There are portentous studs upon a glorious breadth of shirt, a small investment of cheap, gaudy, tawdry rings sets off the chimpanzee-like fingers, and when in the open air, lemon-coloured gloves invest the hands, whose horny reticulated skin reminds me of the scaly feet of those cranes which pace at ease over the burning sand, for which strong slippers are not strong enough for us; whilst feet of the same order, but slightly superior in point of proportional size, are tightly packed into patent-leather boats, the latter looking as if they had been stuffed with some inanimate substance, say the halves of a calf's head.

"It is hardly fair to deride a man's hideousness, but it is where personal deformity is accompanied by conceit. Once upon a time we all pitied an individual who by acclamation was proclaimed the ugliest man in the B---- army, which is not saying a little. 'Poor E----!' his friends would exclaim; 'it's no matter if a chap's plain, but _he_ is revolting,' and they commiserated him accordingly. Once, however, he was detected by his chums looking into a shaving-glass, and thus soliloquizing: 'Well, E----, I declare you'd be a deuced handsome fellow if you had but a better nose.' The discreet chum, of course, spread the story, and from that moment our compassion departed.

"No one, also, is more hopeless about the civilization of Africa than the semi-civilized African returning to the 'home of his fathers.' One feels how hard has been his own struggle to emerge from barbarism. He acknowledges in his own case a selection of species, and he sees no end to the centuries before there can be a nation equal even to himself. Yet in _England_, and in _books_, he will cry up the Majesty of African kings; he will give the people whom he thoroughly despises a thousand grand gifts of morals and industry, and extenuate, or rather ignore, all their faults and shortcomings. I have heard a negro assert, with the unblushing effrontery which animates the negro speechifying in Exeter Hall, or before some learned society, that--for instance, at Lagos, a den of thieves--theft is unknown, and that men leave their money with impunity in the store-house, or on the highway. After which, he goes home, 'tongue in cheek,' despising the facility with which an Englishman and his money are parted.

"Our Africans left the ship without, on our part, or probably on theirs, a single regret. Not so with the Mandengas. The honest and manly bearing of these Moslems--so wonderful a contrast with those caricatures in pork-pie and peg-topped broadcloth--had prepossessed me strongly in their favour. We shook hands, and in broken Arabic bade each other a kindly Allah-speed.

[Sidenote: _The Black Man is raised above the White Man._]

"The white man's position is rendered far more precarious on the coast than it might be, _if the black man were always kept in his proper place_. A European without stockings or waistcoat, and with ragged slops hanging about his limbs, would not be admitted into the cuddy; an African will. Many of the fellows come on board to make money by picking a quarrel. And what does one think of a dusky belle, after dropping her napkin at Government House, saying to her neighbour, 'Please, Mr. Officer-man, pick up my towel'? Or of such a dialogue as this? The steward has neglected to supply soup to some negro, who at every meal has edged himself higher up towards the top of the table, and whose conversation consists of whispering into the ears of an adjacent negro, and of hyæna-like guffaws.

"'I say, daddee, I want _my_ soop; all de passengers, he drink 'im soop; _me_ no drink _my_ soop: what he mean, dis palaver?'

"The words are uttered in a kind of scream; the steward cannot help smiling, and the nigger resumes--

"'Ah, you laff! And for why you laff? I no laff; no drinkee soop!'

"Here the dialogue ends, and the ladies look their acknowledgments that travelling does throw us into strange society.

"From the moment of our arrival, 'negro palaver' began. A _cause célèbre_, which will be referred home, had just been brought to a close. Mr. M----, a civilian official in the colony, after thrice warning out of his compound a troublesome negro and a suspected thief, had applied a certain _vis à tergo_, and had ejected the trespasser, not, however, with unnecessary violence. In England the case would have been settled by a police magistrate, and the fine, if any, would have been half a crown. At Freetown the negro, assisted by his friends or 'company,' betakes himself to a lawyer. The latter may be a mulatto, possibly a pettifogger, certainly a moneyless man who lives in a wretched climate for the pure purposes of lucre; his interest is of course to promote litigation, and he fills his pockets by what is called 'sharp practice.' After receiving the preliminary fee of £5, he demands exemplary damages. The consequence was that Mr. M---- was lightened of £50.

"These vindictive cases are endless; half an hour's chat will bring out a dozen, and, as at Aden, the Sons of the White Cliff have nothing to do but to quarrel and to recount their grievances. A purser of the African S.S. Company, finding a West Indian negro substituting dead for live turkeys, called him a 'tief.' The 'tief' laid an action for £1000, and the officer was only too happy to escape with the retainer, three guineas. The same, when a black came on board for a package, sent him off to the quarter-deck; the fellow became insolent, when a military man present exclaimed, 'If you gave _me_ that cheek, I'd have you overboard!' The negro put off, took two of his friends as witnesses, procured an affidavit that the white man had threatened him, and laid an action for defamation of character, etc.; damages £50--a favourite sum. Despite a counter oath, signed by two or three English officers, one of them a colonel, to the effect that no bad language had been used except by the plaintiff, whose insolence had been unbearable, the defendant was compelled to make an apology, and to pay £15 costs. Another told me that for raising a stick to an insolent servant, he was 'actioned' for £50, and escaped by compromise for £12. When the defendant is likely to leave the station, the _modus operanda_ is as follows:--A writ of summons is issued. The lawyer strongly recommends an apology for the alleged offence and a promise to pay costs, warning the offender at the same time that judgment will go against him if absent by default. Should the defendant prudently 'stump up,' the thing ends; if not, a _capias_ is taken out, and the law runs its course. A jury is chosen. The British Constitution determines that a man must be tried by his peers. His peers at Sierra Leone are perhaps a dozen full-blooded blacks, liberated slaves, half-reformed fetishmen, sometimes with a sneaking fondness for the worship of Shángo, and if not criminals in their own country, at least pauper-clad in dish-clouts and palm oil. To see such peers certainly 'takes pride down a peg,' as the phrase is; no use to think of that ancestor who 'came over' with the Conqueror, or that Barony lost in the days of the Rebellion.

"No one raises the constitutional question, 'Are these half-reclaimed barbarians my peers?' And if he did, justice would sternly answer 'Yes!' The witnesses will forswear themselves--not like our porters, for half a crown, but _gratis_, because the plaintiff is a fellow-tribesman. The judge may be 'touched with the tar-brush,' but be he white as milk, he must pass judgment according to verdict, and when damages are under £200, there is no appeal.

"Sierra Leone contains many sable families--Lumpkins, Lewis, Pratt, Ezidio, Nicols, Macarthy, are a few of their patronymics,--against whom it is useless for a stranger to contend and come off scot and lot free. Besides these, there are seventeen chief and two hundred minor tribes, whilst a hundred languages, according to M. Koelle,--one hundred and fifty, says Bishop Vidal--are spoken in the streets of Freetown. All are hostile to one another; all combine against the white man. After the fashion of the Gold Coast, they have formed themselves into independent republics, called 'companies.' These set aside certain funds for their own advancement, and for the ruin of their rivals. The most powerful and influential races are the Aku and the Ibo.

"If the reader believes that I have exaggerated the state of things at Sierra Leone, he is mistaken; the sketch is under rather than overdrawn. And he will presently see a confirmation of these statements in the bad name which these liberated Africans bear upon the whole of the western coast.

"At breakfast we had been duly primed with good advice, viz. not to notice impudence, and to turn our shoulders--the severest punishment--upon all who tried their hands at annoyance. We rowed to the Government landing, a rickety, slippery flight of wooden stairs, which is positively dangerous at night, or when the waves dash against the jetty. We were careful to carry no luggage; porters fight for the job, and often let the object of emulation drop into the water. One of our mail-bags received this _baptism de Sierra Leone_ last night. On such occasion a push or poke is a forbidden luxury; the man might fall down--you have certainly injured him internally--you must pay exemplary damages."

[Sidenote: _Richard inaugurates a Better State of Things._]

Two stories are related about Richard. I do not vouch for them, but they sound likely. One was, that when he arrived in Africa, he found that the negroes were in the state above described, assuming the upper hand, and treating the white men as an inferior race. They were summoning them before tribunals on the most trivial pretext, forwarding complaints home to pander to different people, which a man who had lived in India, and had passed something like twenty-two years in black countries, was not the least likely to stand. A day or two after his arrival at his post, a very dandified-dressed and full-blooded nigger walked into the Consulate, the window of which was not far from the ground, clapped Richard on the back in the most jovial manner, with his disagreeable "yah-yah" laugh. "How do, Consul? Come to shake hands--how do?" holding out his black paw, as if he were a condescending Royalty. There were some other Englishmen waiting about for different business, looking curiously to see what was going to be the attitude of the new Consul. He looked at the bumptious and loud-mannered nigger, with a quiet stare of surprise, and then shouted, "Hi, Kroo-boys, here; throw this nigger out of the window, will you?" The Kroo-boys, his canoemen (of six oars), rushed in, delighted with the commission, and flung him out. It was only a roll of three or four feet--but no niggers in black coats and button-holes came to clap the new Consul on the back after that, nor did they summon him before the Tribunal.

Another story told was, that the merchants on the West Coast were sorely put to inconvenience by the Captains of ships steaming in, discharging their cargo, and steaming off again without giving the merchants time to read and answer to their correspondence. Commerce, therefore, was at a very low ebb, because the merchants were a fortnight behind the world, there being only two steamers a month at that time. They asked Richard in a body, if there was no means of helping them. Richard got out the contracts, and saw that they said "that the Captain of a ship should stop at the port _eighteen hours' daylight_ for that very purpose." The next ship that came in, the Captain came and looked into the Consulate in a jovial way, and said, "Now, Captain, hurry up with my papers; I want to be off; going to clear out." Richard looked up at him with a surprised stare, and drawled out lazily, "Oh, you can't go, for I have not finished my letters!" "Oh, damn your letters, Sir! I'm off." "Stop a bit," said Richard; "let us have a look at your contract?" He pulled it out of the drawer. "The contract says that you shall stop here eighteen hours' daylight, to give the merchants an opportunity of receiving and answering their correspondence, otherwise commerce would be ruined, the merchants being a fortnight behind the world." "Oh yes," he said, "but nobody has ever enforced that; the Consuls have never bothered us about that!" "Ha," said Richard, "more shame for them! Now, are you going to stay?" "No, sir, not I!" "Very well, then; I am going up to the Governor's, and I am going to shot two guns. If you go out _one minute_ before your eighteen hours' daylight expires--mind, I shall go up there and stay myself--I shall send the first gun right across your bows, and the second slap into you. Mind, I am a man of my word. Good morning!" He did not go out till half an hour after his eighteen hours' daylight; and as long as Richard was there none of them ever did.

"The Sierra Leone man is an inveterate thief; he drinks, he gambles, he intrigues, he over-dresses himself, and when he has exhausted his means, he makes Master pay for all. With a terrible partiality for summoning and enjoying himself thoroughly in a court of law, he enters into the spirit of the thing like an attorney's clerk; he soon wearies of the less exciting life in the wilder settlements, where debauchery has not yet developed itself; home sickness then seizes him, and he deserts, after probably robbing the house. He is the horror of Europeans; the merchants of the Gaboon river prefer forfeiting the benefits of the African Steam Ship Company to seeing themselves invaded by this locust tribe, whose most beautiful view is apparently that which leads out of Sierra Leone. At Lagos and Abeokuta, Sierra Leone has returned to his natural paganism, and has become an inveterate slave-dealer, impudently placing himself under native protection, and renegading the flag that saved him from life-long servitude. Even during the Blackland's short stay, the unruly, disorderly character of the man often enough showed itself by fisticuffing, pulling hair, and cursing, with a mixture of English and African ideas, that presented a really portentous _tout ensemble_.

"With respect to the relative position of Japhet and Ham--perhaps I had better say Ham and Japhet--at Sierra Leone, I may remark that English ultra-philanthropy has granted at times _almost all_ the wishes of the Ethiopian melodist--

'I wish de legislator would set dis darkie free,
Oh, what a happy place den de darkie world would be!
We'd have a darkie parliament
An' darkie code of law,
An' _darkie judges on de bench_,
Darkie barristers and aw'!'

"I own that 'darkie' must be defended, and well defended, too, from the injustice and cruelty of the class whom he calls 'poor white trash.' But protection should be within the limits of _Reason_. If the white man is not to be protected against the black man, why should the Jamaica negro be protected against the coolie? Because he requires it? I think not. Though physically speaking and mentally weaker than his rival, he can hold quite enough of his own--as Sierra Leone proves--by combination, which enables cattle to resist lions. Displays of this sentiment on the part of the whites must, of course, be repressed. Do so freely, but not unfairly. England, however, is still in the throes of her first repentance. Like a veteran devotee, she is atoning for the coquetries of her hot youth. But a few years ago she contracted to supply the Spanish colonies for thirty years with four thousand eight hundred slaves per annum, and she waged wars and destroyed Cities for a traffic which Cardinal Cibo, at the end of the seventeenth century, on the part of the Sacred College, to the Congoese missionaries, denounced as 'a pernicious and abominable abuse.' For this, and for the 2,130,000 negroes imported into the West Indian estates between A.D. 1680 and A.D. 1786, Britannia yet mourns, and, Rachel-like, will not be comforted, because those niggers are not. What the inevitable reaction shall be, _quien sabe?_

[Sidenote: _Method of protecting the Negro._]

"I do not for a moment regret our philanthropy, even with its terrible waste of life and gold. But England can do her duty to Africa, without cant and without humbug.[2] She can contend with a world in arms, if necessary, against the injurious traffic, but she might abstain from violently denouncing all who do not share her opinions upon the subject. Anti-slavery men have hitherto acted rather from sentiment than from reason; and Mr. Buckle--alas! that we should hear from him no more--may be right in determining that morality must not rule, but be ruled by intellect. Let us open our eyes to the truth, and eschewing 'zeal without knowledge,' secure to ourselves the highest merit--perseverance in a good cause when thoroughly disenchanted with it. We have one point in our favour. The _dies atra_ between 1810-1820, when a man could not speak or write what he thought upon the subject of slavery, is drawing to a close. Increased tolerance now permits us to express our opinions, which, if in error, will wither like the grass in an African day; if right, will derive fresh increase from time.

"There are several classes interested in pitting black man against white man, and in winning the day for him, _coram publico_. An unscrupulous missionary--it is the general policy of the English propagandist to take violent parts in foreign politics--will for his own ends preach resistance to time-honoured customs and privileges, which the negro himself has conceded.[3] An unworthy lawyer will urge a lawsuit, with a view to filling his pockets; a dishonourable Judge or police Magistrate will make a name for philanthropy at the expense of equity and honour; a weak-minded man will fear the official complaints, the false-memorializings which attend an unpopular decision, and the tomahawking that awaits him from the little army of negrophiles at home. But the worst class of all is the mulatto, under which I include quadroon and octaroon. He is everywhere, like wealth, _irritamenta malorum_. The 'bar-sinister,' and the uneasy idea that he is despised, naturally fill him with ineffable bile and bitterness. Inferior in point of _morale_ to Europeans, and as far as regards _physique_ to Africans, he seeks strength in making the families of his progenitors fall out. Many such men visiting England are received, by virtue of their woolly hair and yellow skin, into a class that would reject a fellow-countryman of similar, nay, of far higher, position; and there are amongst them infamous characters, who are not found out till too late. London is fast learning to distinguish between the Asiatic _Mir_ and the _Munshi_. The real African, however--so enduring are the sentimentalisms of Wilberforce[4] and Buxton--is still to be understood.

[Sidenote: _Teaching Fair Treatment for the Negro._]

"It is hardly fair to pull down one system without having another ready in its stead. I therefore venture to suggest certain steps toward regenerating--diffidently, though, on account of the amount of change to be made in--our unhappy colony, which for years has been steadily declining.

"Creoles, as children of liberated Africans are called here, should be apprenticed for seven years, with superintendents to see that they clear the soil, plant, and build; otherwise the apprenticeship would be merely nominal. For the encouragement of agriculture, I would take a very heavy tax from small shopkeepers and hucksters, who, by virtue of sitting upon a shady board, before a few yards of calico and strings of beads, call themselves merchants. Another very heavy tax--at least £100 per annum--upon all grog-shop licences, very few of which should be issued in the colony. Police magistrates are perfectly capable of settling disputes amongst these people, and of dealing out punishment to the offenders; moreover, in all cases the fines should go to the Crown, not to the complainant: in civil cases, however, there might be an appeal home for the benefit of the litigious. This measure would wipe off at one sweep inducement to engage in actions which the presence of a judicial establishment suggests, and which causes such heart-burning between Europeans and Africans. I would not allow a black jury to 'sit upon' a white man, or _vice versâ_; and, in the exception of a really deserving mulatto, I would rather see him appointed Lord Lieutenant or Secretary of Ireland than acting Governor or Secretary at Sierra Leone.

"I am convinced that something of the kind will be done, when the _real_ state of affairs in this unfortunate colony is ventilated in England. There are men who are always ready to let bad alone, and to hold that--

'What has answer'd so long may answer still;'

but the extension of Steam Navigation, and the increased number of travellers and visitors, will not allow progress, for want of a little energy, even at Sierra Leone, to be arrested.

"It is supposed that women, being less exposed than men, can better resist the climate of Sierra Leone. I believe the fact to be the contrary; in many cases the German missionaries have lived, whilst their wives have died. Here lie three Spanish Consuls, who in four years fell victims to a climate which has slain five Captains-General, or Governors, in five years. A deserted cemetery, without flowers or whitewash, is always a melancholy spectacle. This was something more. The grass and bush grew dense and dank from the remnants of mortality, and the only tree within the low decaying walls was a poisonous oleander. Another sense than the eye was unpleasantly affected; we escaped from the City of the Slain, as from a slave-ship or from a plague hospital.

"Servants in shoals presented themselves, begging 'mas'er' to take them down coast. In vain. The Sierra Leone man is handier than his southern brother; he can mend a wheel, make a coffin, or cut your hair, operations which in other places must remain wanted. Yet no one, at least if not a perfect greenhorn on the coast, will engage him in any capacity. In civility and respectfulness, he is far below the Brazilian or the Cuban _emancipado_. He has learned a 'trick or two;' even a black who has once visited Sierra Leone is considered as spoiled for life, as if he spent a year in England.

"An unexpected pleasure was in store for me. Lagos contains, as has been said, some eight hundred Moslems, but not yet two thousand, as it is reported. Though few, they have already risen to political importance; in 1851, our bravest and most active opponents were those wearing turbans. Among these are occasionally found 'white Arabs.' One had lately died at Ekpe, a village on the 'Cradoo waters,' where the ex-king Kosoko lives, and, though a Pagan, affects the Faith. I was presently visited by the Shaykh Ali bin Mohammed El Mekkáwi. The Reverend man was fair of face, but no Meccan; he called himself a Máliki, as indeed are most Moslems in this part of El Islam, and I guessed him to be a Morocco pilgrim, travelling in the odour of sanctity. He was accompanied by the Kazi Mohammed Ghana, a tall and sturdy Hausa negro, with his soot-black face curiously gashed and scarred; he appeared to me an honest man and a good Moslem. The dignitaries were accompanied by a mob of men in loose trousers, which distinguished them from the Pagan crowd; one of them, by trade a tailor, had learned to speak Portuguese in the Brazil.

"Very delightful was this meeting of Moslem brethren, and we took 'sweet counsel' together, as the Missionaries say. The Shaykh Ali had wandered from Tripoli southwards, knew Bornu, Sokatu, Hausa, and Adamáwá, the latter only by name; and he seemed to have suffered but little from a long journey, of which he spoke favourably. He wished me to return with him, and promised me safe conduct. I refused, with a tightening of the heart, a little alleviated, however, by the hope that Fate may spare me to march at some future day through Central Africa homewards. And in that hope I purified my property, by giving the _zakat_, or legal alms, to the holy man, who palpably could not read or write, but who audibly informed his followers that 'this bondsman' is intimately acquainted with _kull'ilm--omnis res scibilis_."

N.B.--Benin was a great object of interest, and I quote these few remarks anent the Niger for geographers, and then proceed to the _gold_, in which millions are interested.--I. B.

"Benin was visited by Captain Thomas Wyndham in 1553, and in 1823, Belzoni of the Pyramids left his bones near its banks.

"After Lagos we came to the Oil Rivers, and direct connection of the Bonny river with the true Niger is still a subject of geographical speculation: I hope to solve the problem, despite all its difficulties.

"It is opined that the Niger falls into the Gulf of Guinea by a great delta, the Rio del Rey being the eastern, and the Great Rio Formoso, or Benin,[5] being its western limits. There are twenty-five streams which discharge themselves into this Great Bight, six of which are Oil Rivers--a disagreeable week's trip. This remarkable hypothesis, right in the main, whilst wrong in detail, and characterized at the time as 'hazardous and uncertain,' was probably suggested by native testimony, the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea being well known to French traders. It is hard indeed to comprehend how an intelligent sailor could pass by these shores without suspecting them to be the delta of some great stream. Caillié, the much-abused discoverer of Timbuktu, wrote in 1828 these remarkable words: 'If I may be permitted to hazard an opinion as to the course of the River Dhioliba, I should say that it empties itself by several mouths into the Gulf of Benin.'

"It is directly connected with the twenty or thirty millions of people in the Sudan; the centres of trade are upon the stream, yet the long and terrible caravan march of four months still supplies articles more cheaply than we can afford to sell them, _viâ_ the Niger.

GOLD IN AFRICA.

"'Slave of the dark and dirty mine:
What vanity has brought thee here?'
----LEYDEN.

"'Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold;
Molten, graven, hammer'd, and roll'd;
Heavy to get and light to hold.'
----HOOD.

[Sidenote: _West African Gold._]

"I lost all patience with Cape Coast Castle. Will our grandsons believe that in these days a colony which cannot afford £150 per annum for a stipendiary magistrate, that men who live in a state of poverty, nay, of semi-starvation, are so deficient in energy as to be content with sitting down hopelessly, whilst gold is among their sands, on their roads, in their fields, in their very walls? That this Ophir--that this California, where every river is a Tmolus and a Pactolus, every hillock is a gold-hill--does not contain a cradle, a puddling-machine, a quartz-crusher, a pound of mercury? That half the washings are wasted because quicksilver is unknown, and that pure gold, selling in England for £3 17_s._ to £4, is here purchaseable for £3 12_s._? I shout with Dominie Sampson, 'Prodi-gious!'

"Baron Humboldt first announced the theory that gold is constant in meridional ranges of the paleozoic and metamorphic formations. In this he was followed by Sir R. Murchison, and he was followed by Professor Sedgwick. The latter 'has no faith whatever in the above hypothesis, though it led to a happy anticipation,' which followed erroneous premises. He continues, 'What we seem to know is, that gold is chiefly found among paleozoic rocks of a quartzose type,' and, moreover, that 'some of the great physical agencies of the earth are meridional, and these agencies _may probably_--and in a way we do not comprehend--have influenced the deposit of metals on certain lines of bearing.' He thinks, however, it would be a 'hypothetical misdirection' to say that a quartzose paleozoic rock cannot be auriferous, because its strata is not north and south, and that 'experience must settle this point.' The supporters of the meridional theory may quote as instances East Africa Ghauts, the Oural Mountains, the Sierra Nevada of California--which included the diggings in British Columbia--the Australian Cordillera, the New Zealand ranges, and the Western Ghauts of India. On the other hand, there are two notable exceptions--the Central Indian region, in which Sir R. Martin and others, as long as thirty years ago, were convinced that the natives washed for gold; and, still more remarkable, the highly productive African chain, which, for want of a better name, we still call the Kong Mountains.[6]

"The fact is that gold is a superficial formation, and has been almost universally distributed over the surface of earth's declivities. This want of depth Sir R. Murchison is fond of illustrating by the hand with the fingers turned downwards; they represent the golden veins, whilst the palm denotes the main deposit. It is the contrary with other metals. Gold-placers, therefore, are now rare, except in newly explored or exploited lands of primitive formation, where it is common, nay, almost universal; the article, whose utility was early recognized, soon disappeared from the older workings. The Californian digger, provided with pick, pan, and shovel, made $10 per diem in 1852; in 1862 he still makes $2.50, and in 1872 he probably will make $0. The anciently auriferous countries, especially Arabia, have been stripped of their treasure, perhaps before the dawn of what is called true history;[7] and if they linger in Sofala, it is by reason of the people's ignorance;[8] they never traced the metal to its matrix.

"Setting aside the vexed question of the identity of Ophir and Sofala, and the fact that in early times gold was brought down from the eastern regions of the upper Nilotic basin, Western Africa was the first field that supplied the precious metal to Europe. The French claim to have imported it from Elmina as early as A.D. 1382. In 1442, Gonçales Baldeza returned from his second voyage to the regions about Bojador, bringing with him the first gold. Presently a company was formed for the purpose of carrying on the gold trade between Portugal and Africa; its leading men were the navigators, Lanzarote and Gilianez, and the great Prince Henry did not disdain to become a shareholder. In 1471 João de Santarem and Pedro Escobar reached a place on the Gold Coast, to which, from the abundance of gold found there, they gave the name of Oura da Mina, the present Elmina. After this a flood of gold poured into the lap of Europe, and at last, cupidity having mastered terror of the Papal Bull, which assigned to Portugal the exclusive right to the Eastern hemisphere, English, French, and Dutch adventurers hastened to share the spoils.

"The Portuguese, probably foreseeing competition in the Atlantic waters, but sure of their power in the Indian seas, determined, about the middle of the sixteenth century, to seek gold, of which those who preceded them had heard, in Eastern Africa. The Rev. Father João dos Santos, of the order of San Domingo, has left us, in his 'History of Eastern Ethiopia,' a detailed account of the first disastrous expedition. According to him, Dom Sebastian was scarcely seated on the throne of Portugal[9] before he sent to Sofala an expedition under command of Francis Baretto, who 'penetrated into Macoronga,'[10] and 'Maniça,' discovered mines of gold in these kingdoms, of which, by his prudence and valour, he made himself master. Baretto, having successfully passed through, despite a harassing warfare, the territories of the Quiteva or sovereign of Sofala, who fled from his capital, Zimboe, and having contracted with the Moorish or Arab Sultan[11] of Maniça a treaty of amity, which included the article that the King of Chicanga should admit the strangers to trade throughout his territories for gold dust and other merchandise, reached at length the goal of his ambition. His proceedings are told as follows:--[12]

"'The Portuguese were enchanted at having, in so short a time, concluded a treaty of such advantage to their sovereign, and so beneficial to the realm; they, moreover, flattered themselves with the hope of acquiring a store of gold, with which to return enriched to their country; but when they saw what toil was requisite for extracting this precious metal from the bowels of the earth, and the danger incurred by those who worked in the mines, they were speedily undeceived, and no longer regarded their fortunes as instantaneously made. At the same time, they were induced to reflect that the labour and risk of digging the gold from the abysses whence it is drawn, are such as to stamp that value on it which it bears from its consequent rarity.

"'These people have divers methods of extracting the gold, and separating it from the earth with which it is blended; but the most common is to open the ground, and proceed towards the spot where, from certain indications, ore is supposed to abound. For this purpose they excavate vaults, sustained at intervals by pillars, and notwithstanding they make use of every possible precaution, it often happens that the vaults give way, and bury the subterranean sappers beneath their ruins. When they reach the vein in which the gold is found, mixed with the earth, they take the ore as it is and put it into vessels full of water, and by dint of stirring about the water the earth is dissolved, and the gold remains at the bottom.[13]

"'They likewise take advantage of heavy rains, which, occasioning torrents, carry before them whatever loose earth they meet in their way, and thus lay open the spots where gold is embedded in the ravines. This the Caffres collect, and wash with care to purify from the grosser parts of its earthy admixture.

"'These people also, however unpolished they may seem, yet possess a secret, peculiar to themselves, for discovering the gold concealed in certain stones, which they likewise have the ingenuity of extracting, constantly observing the same practice of washing it well to separate all earthy particles from the metal, and thus rendering it equally lustrous with that obtained from the earth. This gold is, however, much cheaper than the other, either owing to its being more common, or to its being obtained with more facility and at less expense than that exfoliated from the bowels of the earth.

"'It is a mere matter of fact that this country is rich in gold and silver mines, but these metals are not so easily obtained as is imagined, for the Caffres are prohibited, under penalty of death and the confiscation of their property, from discovering the site of the mine, either to their neighbours, or to those who pass through their country. When a mine is discovered, the persons finding it make wild outcries, to collect witnesses round them, and cover the spot, above which they place some object to denote the site; and far from being susceptible to be prevailed upon by strangers to point out these spots, they avoid encountering them as much as possible, for fear they should even be suspected of such a deed.

"'The motive of the sovereign for enacting these prohibitory laws, and for exacting a declaration to be made to the Court of all mines discovered, is that he may take possession of them,[14] and by preventing the Portuguese from becoming masters of one portion, give no room for succeeding warfare on their part to seize on the remainder.'

"The melancholy fate of Baretto's expedition deserves mentioning. After passing through Zimbo,[15] where the Quiteva received him with open arms, Baretto returned to Sofala. Being now on good terms with the sovereigns of that place, and of Chicanga, he resolved to open a road into the kingdom of Mongas, the dominions of the Monomotapa, who opposed him with a large army. Baretto signally defeated the 'Caffres,' and reached Chicona, where he found no gold mines. An artful native, however, buried two or three lumps of silver, which, when discovered, brought large presents to the cheat and dreams of Potosi to the cheated.[16] Baretto, in nowise disheartened by discovering the fraud, left two hundred men in a fort at Chicona, whilst he and the remainder of his force retired upon Sena, on the Zambeze. The Caffres then blockaded the fort, and having reduced the gallant defenders to a famine, compelled them to make a sortie, in which every man was slain.

"The ruins of Maniça, north-west of Sofala, and west of and inland from the East African ghauts, are described as being situated in a valley enclosed by an amphitheatre of hills, having a circuit of about two miles. According to Mr. M'Leod, the district is called Matouca (the Matuka of Dr. Livingstone's map), and the gold-washing tribes Botongos.[17] The spots containing the metal are known by the bare and barren surface. The natives dig in any small crevice made by the rains of the preceding winter, and there find gold dust. These pot-holes are rarely deeper than two or three feet, at five or six they strike the ground-rock. In the still portions of the rivers, when they are low, the natives dive for nuggets that have been washed down from the hills. Sometimes joining together in hundreds, they deflect the stream, and find extensive deposits. Mr. M'Leod heard of mines four to five hundred miles from Sofala, where the gold is found in solid lumps, or as veins in the rocks and stones.

"The result of Dr. Livingstone's travels is, that whilst he found no gold in the African interior, frequent washings were met with in the Mashinga Mountains[18] and on the Zambeze river; no silver, however, was met with, nor could the people distinguish it from tin, which, however, does not establish its non-existence; he heard from a Mashanga man, for the first time, a native name for gold, _Dalama_.[19] The limits of the auriferous region are thus laid down: 'If we place one leg of the compasses at Tete, and extend the other 3° 30', bringing it round from the north-east of Tete by west, and then to the south-east, we nearly touch or include all the known gold-producing country.' This beginning from the north-east would include the Marave country,[20] the now 'unknown' kingdom of Abutua[21] placed, however, south of the Zambesi, and coming round by the south-west, Mashona, or Bazizulu, Maniça, and Sofala. Gold from about Maniça is as large as wheat grains, whilst that found in the rivers is in minute scales. The process of washing the latter is laborious. 'A quantity of sand is put into a wooden bowl with water, a half-rotatory motion is given to the dish, which causes the coarser particles of sand to collect on one side of the bottom. These are carefully removed with the hand, and the process of rotation is renewed until the whole of the sand is taken away, and the gold alone remains.'[22] Mercury is as usual unknown. Formerly one hundred and thirty pounds of gold were submitted to the authorities at Tete for taxation, but when the slave-trade began, the Portuguese killed the goose with the golden eggs, and the annual amount obtained is now only eight to ten pounds.

"It is evident that gold is by no means half worked in Eastern Africa. As in California, it appears to be found in clay shale, which for large profits requires 'hydraulicking.' The South African traveller heard that at the range Mashinga, the women pounded the soft rock in wooden mortars, previous to washing; it is probably rotten quartz, and the yield would be trebled by quicksilver and crushers.

"It is highly probable that the gold formations in those East African ghauts, which Dr. Beke is compelling to become the 'Lunar Mountains,' are by no means limited to the vicinity of the Zambeze. In gold-prospecting, as every geologist knows, the likeliest places often afford little yield and sometimes none. The author of 'The Lake Regions of Central Africa' describes a cordillera which he struck, about a hundred miles from the eastern coast, as primitive, quartzose, and shaly; unfortunately time and health hindered him from exploring it. The same writer, in 'First Footsteps in East Africa' (p. 395), indicates such formation in the small ghauts, and on the western side of that range he is reported to have found gold. What steps he took do not appear; he was probably disheartened by the reflection that all his efforts would be opposed by might and main in official circles. Possibly he feared the fate of Mr. Hargreaves, of Australia, who obtained a reward of £5000, when one per cent. of export would have made him master of eight millions. Local jealousies at Aden also certainly would have defeated his plans, if permitted to be carried out; and the Court of Directors had already regarded with a holy terror his proposals to build a little fort, by way of base upon the seaboard near Berberah. Leaving, however, these considerations, we are justified by analogy of formation and bearing in believing that at some future time gold may be one of the exports from Eastern Intertropical Africa.[23]

"Returning to Western Africa, we find in Leo Africanus, who is supposed to have died about 1526, that the King of Ghana had in his palace 'an entire lump of gold'--a monster nugget it would now be called--not cast nor wrought by instruments, but perfectly formed by the Divine Providence only, of thirty pounds weight, which had been bored through and fitted for a seat before the royal throne.[24] The author most diffuse upon the subject of gold, is Bosman, who treats, however, solely of the Gold Coast.

"The first region which he mentions is Dinkira, under which were included the conquered provinces of Wásá (our Wassaw, Wossa, Wasau, Warsaw, etc.), Encasse and Juffer, each bordering upon one another, and the last upon Commany (Commanda). There the gold is fine, but much alloyed with 'fetishes,' oddly shaped figures used for ornaments, and composed sometimes of pure mountain gold, but more often mixed with one-third, or even half, of silver and copper and filled inside with half weight of the heavy black earth used for moulding them. The second was Acanny, the people of which brought the produce of their own diggings and of their neighbours of Ashantee and Akim: it was so pure and fine, that the negroes called all the best gold 'Acanny Sika,' or Acanny gold. The third was Akim,[25] which 'furnished as large quantities of gold as any land that I know, and that also the most valuable and pure of any that is carried away from this coast; it is easily distinguished by its deep colour.' The fourth and fifth are Ashanti and Ananse, a small province between the former empire and Dinkira. The sixth and last is Awine, our Aowin,[26] which formerly used to export large quantities of fine and pure gold, and they 'being the civilized and the fairest dealers of all the negroes,' the Dutch 'traded with them with a great deal of pleasure.' They were, however, finally subdued by the Dinkiras.

"According to Bosman ('Letters,' vi.) 'the illustrious metal' was found in three sites. The first and best was 'in or between particular hills:' the negroes sank pits there, and separated the soil adhering to it. The second 'is in, at, and about some rivers and waterfalls, whose violence washeth down great quantities of earth, which carry the gold with it. The third is on the seashore, near the mouths of rivulets, and the favourite time for washing is after violent night rains.[27] The negro women are furnished with large and small troughs or trays, which they first fill full of earth and sand, which they wash with repeated fresh water till they have cleansed it from all its earth; and if there be any gold its ponderosity forces it to the bottom of the trough, which if they find it is thrown into the small tray, and so they go on washing it again, which operation generally holds them till noon; some of them not getting above the value of sixpence; some of them pieces of six or seven shillings, though not frequently; and often they entirely lose their labour.'

"The gold thus dug is of two kinds, dust gold and mountain gold. The former is 'fine as flour,' and the more esteemed because there is no loss in melting. The latter, corresponding with our modern 'nugget,' varies in weight from a farthing to two hundred guineas; it touches better than gold dust, but it is a loss from the metal adhering to the stone.

"The natives, in Bosman's day--and to the present time--were 'very subtle artists in the sophisticating of gold.' The first sort was the fetish before alluded to.[28] They also cast pieces so artificially, that whilst outside there was pure gold thick as a knife, the interior was copper, and perhaps iron--then a new trick and the most dangerous, because difficult to detect. The common 'false mountain gold' was a mixture of the precious metal with silver and copper, extremely high coloured, and unless each piece was touched, the fraud passed undetected. Another kind was an artificially cast and tinged powder of coral mixed with copper filings; it became tarnished, however, in a month or two. The official tests of gold were as follows:--If offered at night or in the evening large pieces were cut through with a knife, and the smaller nuggets were beaten with a stone, and then tried as above. Gold dust was cast into a copper brazier, winnowing with the fingers, and blown upon with the breath, which causes the false gold to fly away. These are not highly artificial tests. Bosman, however, strongly recommends them to raw, inexpert people (especially seafaring men), whom he bids to remember the common proverb, that 'there is no gold without dross.' These greenhorns, it seems, tested the metal by pouring aquafortis upon it, when ebullition or the appearance of green proved it to be false or mixed. 'A miserable test, indeed!' exclaims old Trunk-hose, justly remarking that an eighth or tenth part of alloy would produce those appearances, and that such useless and niceness, entailing the trouble of drying, and causing the negroes to suffer, is prejudicial to trade.

"With respect to the annual export from the Gold Coast, Bosman reckons it in peaceful times, when trade is prosperous, to be '23 tun.' The 7000 marks are disposed of as below.[29] Mr. Macqueen estimates this exportation at £3,406,275. The English trade has now fallen to £360,000 to £400,000 per annum.[30]

"The conclusion of Bosman's sixth letter may be quoted as highly applicable to the present day. 'I would refer to any intelligent metallist, whether a vast deal of ore must not of necessity be lost here, from which a great deal of gold might be separated, from want of skill in the metallic art; and not only so, but I firmly believe that large quantities of pure gold are left behind, for the negroes only ignorantly dig at random, without the least knowledge of the veins of the mines. And I doubt not but if this country belonged to the Europeans, they would soon find it to produce much richer treasures than the negroes obtain from it; but it is not probable that we shall ever possess that liberty here, wherefore we must be content with being so far masters of it as we are at present, which, if well and prudently managed, would turn to a very great account.'

"In several countries, as Dinkira, Tueful, Wásá,[31] and especially Akim, the hill region lying due north of Accra, the people are still active in digging gold. The pits, varying from two to three feet in diameter, and from twelve to fifty feet deep, are often so near the roads that loss of life has been the result. 'Shoring-up' being little known, the miners are not unfrequently buried alive. The stuff is drawn up by ropes in clay pots, or calabashes, and thus a workman at the bottom widens the pit to a pyriform shape: tunnelling, however, is unknown. The excavated earth is carried down to be washed. Besides sinking these holes, they pan in the beds of rivers, and in places collect quartz, which is roughly pounded. The yield is very uncertain, and the Chief of the district is entitled to one-third of the proceeds. During the busy season, when water is abundant, the scene must resemble that described by Dr. Livingstone, near the gold-diggings of Tete. As in California and Australia, prices rise high, and gunpowder, rum, and cotton goods soon carry off the gold dust.

"During the repeated earthquakes of July, 1862, which laid waste Accra, the strata of the Akim Hills were so much shaken and broken up, that, according to report, all the people flocked to the diggings and dispensed with the shafts generally sunk. There are several parts of the Gold Coast where the precious metal is fetish, and where the people will not dig themselves, though perhaps they would not object to strangers risking their lives. One of the most remarkable is the Devil's Hill, called by Bosman 'Monte da Diabo,' near Winnebah, in the Aguna (Agouna) country. In his time, a Mr. Baggs, English agent, was commissioned by the African Company to prospect it. He died at Cape Coast Castle before undertaking a work which, in those days, would have been highly dangerous. Some authorities fix the Seecom river as the easternmost boundary where gold is found. This is so far incorrect, that I have panned it from the sands under James Fort. Besides which, it is notorious that on the banks of the Upper Volta, about the latitude of the Krobo (Croboe) country, there are extensive deposits, regarded by the people as sacred.