Beyond 'Devil's Gate' a pleasant surprise awaited us. Mr. D. C. MacLennan, manager of the Effuenta mine, [Footnote: The name was given by M. Dahse; it is that of the first worker, Efuata, a woman born on Saturday (_Efua_), and the third of a series of daughters (_ata_).] stopped his canoe to greet us. He was justly proud of his charge--a box of amalgam weighing 15 lbs. and carrying eighty ounces of gold. It was to be retorted at home and to be followed within a fortnight by a larger delivery, and afterwards by monthly remittances. The precious case, which will give courage to so many half-hearted shareholders, was duly embarked on the A.S.S. _Ambriz_ (Captain Crookes); and its successor, containing the produce of a hundred tons, on the B. and A. _Benguela_ (Captain Porter). Consequently the papers declared that Effuenta was first in the field of results. This is by no means the case. As early as November 1881 Mr. W. E. Crocker, of Crockerville, manager of the important Wasa, (Wassaw) mining-property, sent home gold--amalgam, and black sand [Footnote: I have before noticed this 'golden sea-sand.' It has lately been found, the papers tell me, on the coast about Cape Commerell, British Columbia. A handful, taken from a few inches below the surface, shows glittering specks of 'float-gold,' scales so fine that it was difficult to wash them by machinery. Mem. This is what women do every day on the Gold Coast. The _Colonist_ says that a San Francisco company has at length hit upon the contrivance. It consists of six drawers or layers of plates punched with holes about half an inch in diameter, and covered with amalgam. The gold-sand is 'dumped in;' and the water, turned on the top-plate, sets all in motion: the sand falls from plate to plate, leaving the free loose gold which has attached itself to the amalgam, and very little remains to be caught by the sixth plate. So simple a process is eminently fitted for the Gold Coast.]--a total of sixty-eight ounces to twenty-five tons. After an hour's paddling we sighted a few canoes and surf-boats under a raised clay-bank binding the stream on the left. This was Tumento (Tomento), our destination; the word means 'won't go,' as the rock is supposed to say to the water. The aspect of the Ancobra becomes gloomy and menacing. The broad bed shrinks to a ditch, almost overshadowed by its sombre walls of many-hued greens; and the dead tree-trunks of the channel, ghastly white in the dull brown shade, look to the feverish imagination like the skeleton hands and fingers of monstrous spectres outspread to bar thoroughfare.