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
The sun, despite the mist, seemed to burn our backs, and the glare from
the red clay soil roasted our eyes as we toiled up the ramp, bad as
those of 'Gib.,' which leads to Water Street, the lower line subtending
the shore. Here we could inspect St. George's Cathedral, built, they
say, at a cost of 10,000_l._ to 15,000_l._, which would be
reduced to 5,000_l._ in England--contracts in such 'colonies' cost
more than stone and slate. The general aspect is that of its Bombay
brother, and the order is called, I believe, neo-Gothic, the last insult
to ecclesiastical architecture. A single rusty tower, with
toy-battlements, pins down along ridge-back, evidently borrowed from a
barn; the light yellow-wash is mildewed and weather-stained, and the
windows show unseemly holes. Surely Bishop Cheetham could have afforded
a few panes of glass when exchanging his diocese for a rectory in
England. Let me here note that the Catholic bishop at Goa and elsewhere
is expected to die at his post, and that there is an over-worldly look
in this Protestant form of the 'nolo episcopari.' East of the cathedral,
and uncompromisingly 'Oriented' to the north, stands the unfinished
shell of a Wesleyan chapel, suggesting that caricature which has
intruded itself into the shadow of York Minster. Some 5,000_l._
were spent upon this article by the locals; but the home committee
wisely determined that it should not be finished, and now they propose
to pull it down for building-material.
We then entered the fruit and vegetable market, a neat and well-paved
bazar, surmounted by a flying roof and pierced for glass windows. The
dead arches in the long walls are externally stone and internally
brick. The building was full of fat middle-aged negresses, sitting at
squat before their 'blyes,' or round baskets, which contained a variety
and confusion of heterogeneous articles. The following is a list almost
as disorderly as the collection itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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