Akim is divided into eastern and western. Mr. H. Ponsonby, when travelling through both regions, found the natives getting quantities of gold by digging holes eight to ten feet deep on either side of the forest-paths. He saw as much as three ounces taken up in less than half an hour. Around the capital of eastern Akim, Kyebi, or Chyebi, the land is also honeycombed with man-holes, making night-travel dangerous to the stranger. It requires a sharp eye to detect the deserted pits, two feet in diameter and 'sunk straight, as if they had been bored with huge augurs.' I have seen something of the kind in the water-meadows near Shoreham. The workman descends by foot-holes, and works with a hoe four to six inches long by two broad: when his calabash is filled it is drawn up by his companions. The earthquakes of April and July 1862 [Footnote: I happened to be at Akra during the convulsion of July 10. The commandant, Major (now Colonel) de Buvignes, and I set out for a stroll along the sands to the west. The morning was close and cloudy: what little breeze there was came from the south-west, under a leaden sky and over a leaden sea. At 8.10 A.M., as we were returning from the rocks about three-quarters of a mile off, there was a sudden rambling like a distant thunder-clap; the sands seemed to wave up and down as a shaken carpet, and we both staggered forwards. Others described the movement as rising and falling like the waters of a lagoon. I looked with apprehension at the sea; but the direction of the shock was apparently from west-north-west; and the line was too oblique to produce one of those awful earthquake-waves, seventy feet high, which have swept tall ships over the roofs of cities. We ran as fast as we could to the town, where everything was in the wildest confusion. The 'Big House' and Mr. John Hansen's were mere ruins; the Court-house had come to pieces, and the prison-cells yawned open. I distinctly saw that the rock-ledge under Akra, between Fort James and Crevecoeur, had been upraised: canoes passed over what was now dry. A second shock at 8.20 A.M., and a third about 10.45, completed the destruction, split every standing wall, and shook down the three forts into ruinous heaps. Nor did the seismic movements cease till July 15, when I made my escape.