To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. IBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. I
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Ghana -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Ghana
Mrs. Murray also declares that Captain Troubridge, when invested in the
monastery by superior numbers, placed before his men a line of
prisoners, and that these being persons of influence, the assailants
fired high; moreover that Colonel M(onteverde?), the commander of the
island troops, was an Italian who spoke bad Spanish, and kept shouting
to his men, 'Condanate vois a matar a la Santisima Trinitate!' The
officer sent to parley (Captain Hood) was, we are told, accompanied to
the citadel by a gentleman named Murphy, whom the English had taken
prisoner. A panic (before mentioned) came from three militia officers,
who, mounting a single animal, rode off to La Laguna, assuring the
_cabildo_ and the townspeople that Santa Cruz had fallen. One of
this 'valiant triumvirate' had succeeded to a large property on
condition of never disgracing his name, and after the flight he had the
grace to offer it to a younger brother who had distinguished himself in
South America. The junior told him not to be a fool, and the property
was left to the proprietor's children, 'his grandson being in possession
of it at the present day.'
The chapter ends with the fate of one O'Rooney, a merchant's clerk who
cast his lot with the Spaniards, and whom General Gutierrez sent with an
order to the commandant of Paso Alto Fort. Being in liquor, he took the
Marina, or shortest road; and, when questioned by the enemy, at once
told his errand. 'In those days and in such circumstances,' writes the
lively lady, 'soldiers were very speedy in their decisions, and the
marine who had challenged O'Rooney at once bayonetted him, while his
comrade rifled his pockets and appropriated his clothes.'
Remains only to state that the colours of the unfortunate cutter
_Fox_ and her boats are still in the chapel of Sant' Iago, on the
left side of the Santa Cruz parish church, La Concepcion. Planted
against the wall flanking the cross, in long coffin-like cases with
glass fronts, they have been the object of marked attention on the part
of sundry British middies. And the baser sort of town-folk never fail to
show by their freedom, or rather impudence of face and deportment, that
they have not forgotten the old story, and that they still glory in
having repulsed the best sailor in Europe.
CHAPTER VIII.
TO GRAND CANARY--LAS PALMAS, THE CAPITAL.
At noon (January 10) the British and African s.s. _Senegal_ weighed
for Grand Canary, which stood in unusually distinct relief to the east,
and which, this time, was not moated by a tumbling sea. Usually it is;
moreover, it lies hidden by a bank of French-grey clouds, here and there
sun-gilt and wind-bleached. We saw the 'Pike' bury itself under the blue
horizon, at first cloaked in its wintry ermines and then capped with
fleecy white nimbus, which confused itself with the snows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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