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
South of the cathedral, and in Colegio Street (so called from the
Augustine college, [Footnote: There is still a college of that name
where meteorological observations are regularly made.] now converted
into a tribunal), we find a small old house with heavily barred
windows--the ex-Inquisition. This also has been desecrated into
utility. The Holy Office began in 1504, and became a free tribunal in
1567. Its palace was here founded in 1659 by Don José Balderan, and
restored in 1787 by Don Diego Nicholas Eduardo, whose fine fronting
staircase has been much admired. The Holy Tribunal broke up in 1820,
when, the Constitution proving too strong for St. Dominic, the
college-students mounted the belfry; and, amid the stupefaction of the
shuddering multitude, joyously tolled its death-knell. All the material
was sold, even the large leather chairs with gilt nails used for
ecclesiastical sitting. 'God defend us from its resurrection,' mutters
the civil old huissier, as he leads us to the dungeons below through the
mean court with its poor verandah propped on wooden posts. Part of it
facing the magistrates' chapel was turned into a prison for petty
malefactors; and the two upper _salas_ were converted into a
provisional _Audiencia_, or supreme court, large halls hung with
the portraits of the old governors. The new _Audiencia_ at the
bottom of Colegio Street, built by M. Botta at an expense of 20,000
dollars, has a fine court with covered cloisters above and an open
gallery below, supported by thin pillars of basalt.
Resuming our walk down La Triana southwards, we note the grand new
theatre, not unlike that of Dresden: it wants only opening and a
company. Then we cross the Giniguada wady by a bridge with a wooden
floor, iron railings, and stone piers, and enter the _Viñeta_, or
official, as opposed to the commercial, town. On the south side is the
fish-market, new, pretty, and gingerbread. It adjoins the general
market, a fine, solid old building like that of Santa Cruz, containing
bakers' and butchers' stalls, and all things wanted by the
housekeeper. A little beyond it the Triana ends in an archway leading to
a square court, under whose shaded sides mules and asses are
tethered. We turn to the right and gain Balcones Street, where stands
the comfortable hotel of Don Ramon Lopez. Most soothing to the eye is
the cool green-grown _patio_ after the prospect of the hot and
barren highlands which back the Palm-City.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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