To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. IIBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. II
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Ghana -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Ghana
We slept once more at Anima-kru; and here Cameron made sure of his
position by Jupiter and Procyon, and by his valuable watch-chronometer,
the gift of his brother-officers: it worked peculiarly well. The St.
John's mine lies in north lat. 4º 49' 44", and in west long. (G.) 2º 6'
44". While the owners would place it seven miles from the sea, it is
distant only 2.2 from 'old Fort Brandenburg.' Early next morning we packed
and prepared for return, the chief Mra Kwami insisting upon escorting us.
And now the difference of travel in Africa and England struck me forcibly.
Fancy a band of negro explorers marching uninvited through the Squire's
manor, strewing his lawn and tennis-ground with all manner of rubbish;
housing their belongings in his dining- and drawing- and best bed-rooms,
which are at once vacated by his wife and family; turning his cook out of
his or her kitchen; calling for the keys of his dairy and poultry-yard,
hot-houses, and cellar; and rummaging the whole mansion for curios and
heirlooms interesting to the negro anthropologist. Fancy also their
bidding him to be ready next morning for sporting and collecting purposes,
with all his pet servants, his steward and his head-gardener, his
stud-groom and his gamekeeper; and allowing, by way of condescension, Mr.
Squire to carry their spears, bows, and arrows; bitterly deriding his
weapons the while, as they proceed to whip his trout-stream, to pluck his
pet plants, to shoot his pheasants, and to kill specimens of his rarest
birds for exhibition in Africa. Fancy their enquiring curiously about his
superstitions, sitting in his pew, asking for bits of his East window, and
criticising his 'fetish' in general, ending with patting him upon the back
and calling him a 'jolly old cock.' Finally, fancy the Squire greatly
enjoying such treatment, and feeling bitterly hurt unless handled after
this fashion. Paddling down stream, we collected for Kew. But the
hopelessness of the task weighs upon the spirits: a square mile of such
flora would take a week. There is a prodigious variety of vegetation, and
the quantity of edible berries, 'fowl's lard,' 'Ashanti-papaw,' and the
Guinea-peach (_Sarcophalus esculentus_) would gladden the heart of a
gorilla. Every larger palm-trunk was a fernery; every dead bole was an
orchidry; and huge fungi, two feet broad, fed upon the remains of their
victims. Climbers, chiefly papilionaceous, and llianas, bigger than the
biggest boa-constrictor, coiled and writhed round the great gloomy trees
which rained their darkness below. In the sunlight were pretty jasmines
(_J. grande_), crotons and lantanas, with marantas, whose broad green
leafage was lined with pink and purple. Deep in shadow lay black miry
sloughs of sickening odour, near which the bed of Father Thames at low
water would be scented with rose-water; and the caverns, formed by the
arching roots of the muddy mangrove, looked haunts fit for crocodile and
behemoth and all manner of unclean, deadly beasts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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