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
The head of the valley shows a single stream, the Babeabarbawo or Takwa
rivulet, rising close to the works of the Gold Coast Company. It is
swollen by small tributaries from either side; and, just below the
settlement, an eastern dam with a small sluice has been thrown across the
valley of the Franco-English company. As there is plenty of water in and
near the mine, they should cut at once this abominable dam, which forms a
pestilential swamp, the cess-pool of the neighbourhood. The Takwa
settlement, a line of bamboo and swish huts well built enough, lies, like
a hamlet in Congo-land, along the winding road. It is bare of trees, but
here and there a shaft yawns before the doors. M. Dahse makes the
population before 1879 to have been 6,000 souls, and in 1881 about 3,000.
I should reduce the latter figure to 600, and propose for 1882, before the
May emigration, 1,500 to 1,600. The people are Coast-men and islanders of
every tribe, with a fair sprinkling of dissolute ruffians, 'white
blackmen,' from Sierra Leone and Akra, drunken Fanti policemen, and
plundering Haussa soldiers. The ex-manager of the Effuenta mine says, in
allusion to his early residence there, 'So wird Einem das Leben daselbst
zu einer wahren Hoelle;' and he rightly describes the peculiar industries
of these true infernal regions as 'Schnappskneipen, Spielhoellen und
Schlimmeres.' Almost every house combines the pub. and the agapemone: all
the chief luxuries of the Coast-'factories' are there, and the 'blay'
(basket) of Sierra Leone comes out strong. Brilliant cottons and kerchiefs
hang from the normal line; there is pomatum for the lucky dandy and tallow
for the miner down in his luck; whilst gold-dust is conjured from pouch or
pocket by pipes and tobacco, needles and thread, beads, knives, and other
notions.
The northern part of this veritable 'Nigger Digger's Delight' is now
comparatively deserted: some chief died there, and the people have crowded
into the main body of the settlement. The village of Kwabina Angu, King of
Eastern Apinto, is now joined to Takwa. I could not distinguish the
'Palast' of King Kwami Enimill, who rules western Wasa, and whose capital
is Akropong.
M. Haillot had preceded me in a hammock, and welcomed me to his quarters.
He occupied one of the three or four raised plank-houses; another lodged
Dr. Burke, and a third M. Voltaire, Mr. Carlyon, another young Cornishman,
who came out with us, and sundry French _ouvriers_. A large bamboo-house
had been built for a general restaurant: it became a barrack during the
'Ashanti scare,' and now it is quite unused. Standing farther back are the
very respectable tenements of the same material, with broad verandahs,
occupied at times by Mr. Ex-missionary Dawson and family. The negro
quarters are mostly in the Takwa village.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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