The reader will have gathered from the preceding pages that the negroes have worked their gold-fields for centuries but to very little purpose. Their want of pumps, of quartz-crushers, and of scientific appliances generally, has limited their labour to scratching the top-soil and nibbling at the reef-walls. A large proportion of the country is practically virgin-ground, and a rich harvest has been left for European science, energy, and enterprise. The Fantis have many curious usages and superstitions which limit production. As a rule nuggets are the royalty of kings and chiefs; but in many places these 'mothers of gold' are re-buried, in order that gold may grow from them. [Footnote: It was long supposed in Europe that alluvial gold grew by a succession of layers imposed upon a solid nucleus, and by the coalescence of grains as a snow-ball is constructed. Mr. Sellwyn still holds that 'nuggets and particles of alluvial gold may gradually increase by the deposition of metallic gold (analogous to the electroplating process), from the meteoric waters that circulate through the drifts.'--_Gold Fields of Victoria_, p. 357.] I have noted that a smoke, or thin vapour, guides to the unknown placer, and that white gold causes a mine to be abandoned. Rich ground is denoted by a peculiar vegetation, especially of ferns. Gold is guarded here not by a dragon, but by a monstrous baboon; and when golden dogs are found the finder dies. In 1862 I visited with Major de Ruvignes Great Sankanya, a village west of the Volta, where a large gold-field was reported. As we drew near the spot we were told that the precious metal appears during the 'yam-customs,' and that only prayers, sacrifices, and presents to the fetish will make it visible. Presently we saw a white rag on a pole, which the dark youth, our guide, called a 'sign,' and groaned out that it would surely slay us. A woman, whose white and black beads showed a 'religious,' pointed to a place where gold is 'common as ashes after a fire'--the priest being first paid. The report of this excursion spread to Akra; Major de Ruvignes had taken up in his arms a golden dog, and at once fell dead. I can hardly connect the superstition with old Anubis.