do away with (N.B.--I hope after panning) the large silted-up banks of sand and gravel which have accumulated in the river bends, causing the stream to overflow and to swamp the low lands, after each little freshet. Some of the banks, four to five feet high and fifteen across, are perfect natural dams. The work should not occupy more than three or four months.' "The first thing which struck me on the Gold Coast was a conviction that its 'nullah beds' will supply the greatest quantity of metal for the least possible expenditure. The late M. Bounat, a Frenchman, who taught Englishmen the value of their colony on the Guinea Gulf, began (as I related in the 'Gold Book,' ii. 360) with the intention of dredging the Ancobra river for dust and nuggets. And he was right. Every little rivulet bed in the land must be ransacked before the hills are washed down by hydraulicking; and the sooner the 'steam navvy' appears upon the scene the better. "Mr. Lowman evidently took good counsel, and, not being a consulting engineer, was not above taking a lesson from 'Chief Appo.' You may imagine my vexation on hearing that he had been recalled for 'want of funds.' Want of funds! Why, three months' work and a few hundred pounds would have enabled him to wash gold enough for paying all the labour he requires. Surely the directors of 'Ingotro' must see this as clearly as I do. It is a sorry time to draw back when standing upon the very verge of a grand discovery. I would state, in your pages, my certainty that such is the case; and if the Nánwá project fail, I would subside into a 'mere traveller,' as a booby acquaintance kindly described me. "Excuse the length of this letter--the importance of the subject amply justifies it. "I am, etc., "RICHARD BURTON. "Trieste, Austria, November 26th." "To the Editor of the _Mining World and Engineering Record_. "Sir,--You should have heard from me before had not _petite santé_ stood in the way of good intentions. Life in a little Mediterranean harbour-town makes one almost look forward to leaving the world in view of some extensive explorations beyond the world. "My letters from the Gold Coast are cheering. Captain Cameron and Mr. Walsten are doing prime work. The former is being supplied with funds, an essential point which I cannot urge too strongly upon the two companies for whom he is now labouring. The 'present and future' of the Gold Coast mainly depends upon his success. "Many thanks to Mr. Louis F. Gowan for his 'pile of experience' about Chinese coolies. This is what we want--familiarity with the subject, not more dogmatism. And the question is whether Chinamen in Africa would be the 'pig-tailed cut-throats' described by Mr. Gowan. I did not find them so in Bombay, San Francisco, and Peru.