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
Now he has another opportunity of doing valuable service, none of these
positions having been established by observations, and of showing
travellers how topography should be worked. He has before him for
correction the Hydrographic chart, which pretends to nothing within the
Coast, and the 'River Ankobra and Tarquah(!) Gold Mines,' printed in 1878
by Captain Louis Wyatt, then District-commissioner for Axim. This first
attempt at a regular survey is meritorious for an amateur; but of course
it cannot compare with the produce of a scientific and experienced naval
surveyor. We had Lieut. Jeekel, before alluded to, but his scale,
1:250,000, is too small for details. I did not see, till long after our
return from this excursion, the then unfinished map by M. Paulus Dahse, a
veteran West-Coaster, who has spent years in travelling through the
interior. My fellow-voyager also was the first to show me the various
cartes printed and published by the late M. Bonnat. [Footnote: _Carte des
Concessions de 'The African Gold Coast Company_,' par M. J. Bonnat. Paris,
August 1879. Beginning south at Tumento, it does not show the southern
fork of the Bonsa or Abonsa River, which falls into the Ancobra's left
bank; and it ends a little north of Asseman, the cemetery of the 'kings.'
M. Bonnat had already printed in 1877 a _Chart of the River Ankobra_,
extending north as far as the 'Gold Mines of Aodoua.']
The Ancobra is an enlarged copy of the Yenna or Prince's River. There are
the same swampy borders and 'impenetrable forests,' as Captain Wyatt
entitles them; while the mangrove never quite disappears from this true
lagoon-stream. The monotonous fringe of rhizophores is broken, about two
miles from the mouth, by bamboo-palms and hibiscus-beds, then by the
bombax, the rubber-vine, the locust-tree (_inga_), and the
banana-plantation. The mounds and hillocks on either side, beginning with
the Akromasi and Kabudwe mounds, near the mouth, are evidently parts of an
ancient archipelago built by the mangrove and silted up to mainland. The
long and curious reaches are shown in my companion's map, and I shall
notice only those details which claim something of general interest.
After about eight miles' steaming up a huge loop to the west, and a bend
easterly, we passed the Kwabina Bosom, or Fetish-Rocks, two wall-like
blocks, one mangrove-grown and the other comparatively bare. Contrary to
native usage, we chose the fair way between the latter and the left bank,
for which innovation, said our escort, we shall surely suffer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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