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
and the old French 'Serrelionne' was the most correct translation. The
reason is disputed; some invoke the presence of the Queen of the Cats,
others the leonine rumbling of the re-echoed thunder. The latter
suggested the Montes Claros of the Portuguese. Cà da Mosto in 1505 tells
us that the explorers 'gave the name of Sierra Leone to the mountain on
account of the roaring of thunder heard from the top, which is always
buried in clouds.' But the traveller, entering the roadstead, may see in
the outline of Leicester Cone a fashion of maneless lion or lioness
couchant with averted head, the dexter paw protruding in the shape of a
ground-bulge and the contour of the back and crupper tapering off
north-eastwards. At any rate, it is as fair a resemblance as the French
lion of Bastia and the British lion of 'Gib.' Meanwhile those marvellous
beings the 'mammies' call 'the city' 'Sillyown,' and the pretty, naughty
mulatto lady married to the Missing Link termed it 'Sa Leone.' I shall
therefore cleave to the latter, despite 'Mammy Gumbo's' box inscribed
'Sa leone.'
Presently the lighthouse, four to five miles distant from the anchorage,
was seen nestling at the base of old Cabo Ledo, the 'Glad Head,' the
Timni 'Miyinga,' now Cape 'Sa Leone.' Round this western point the sea
and the discharge of two rivers run like a mill-race. According to
Barbot (ii. 1) 'the natives call Cabo Ledo (not Liedo) or Tagrin (Cape
Sa Leone) 'Hesperi Cornu,' the adjoining peoples (who are lamp-black)
Leucsethiopes, and the mountain up the country Eyssadius Mons.' All the
merest conjecture! Mr. Secretary Griffith, of whom more presently, here
finds the terminus of the Periplus of Hanno, the Carthaginian, in the
sixth century B.C., and the far-famed gorilla-land. [Footnote: This I
emphatically deny. Hanno describes an eruption, not a bush-fire, and Sa
Leone never had a volcano within historic times. There is no range fit
to be called Theôn Ochema (Vehicle of the Gods), which Ptolemy places on
the site of Camarones Peak, and there is no Notou Keras, or Horn of the
South. Lastly, there is no island that could support the gorilla: we
must go further south for one, to Camarones and Corisoo in the Bight of
Benin.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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