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
Presently we sighted the bar and breakers that garnish the mouth of the
Cavally (Anglice Cawally) River: the name is properly Cavallo, because it
lies fourteen miles, riding-distance, from Cape Palmas. Here Bishop Payne
had his head-quarters, and his branch missions extended sixty miles
up-stream. On the left bank, some fifteen or sixteen miles from the
_embochure_, resides the 'Grand Devil,' equivalent to the Great God, of
Kruland. The place is described as a large caverned rock, where a
mysterious 'Suffing' (something) answers, through an interpreter, any
questions in any tongue, even English, receiving, in return for the
revelations, offerings of beads, leaf-tobacco, and cattle, which are
mysteriously removed. The oracle is doubtless worked by some sturdy knave,
a 'demon-doctor,' as the missionaries call him, who laughs at the beards
of his implicitly-believing dupes. A tree growing near the stream
represents 'Lot's wife's pillar;' some sceptical and Voltairian black was
punished for impious curiosity by being thus 'translated.' Skippers who
treated their 'boys' kindly were allowed, a score of years ago, to visit
the place, and to join in the ceremonies, even as most of the Old Calabar
traders now belong to the 'Egbo mystery.' But of late years a village
called Hidya, with land on both banks, forbids passage. Moreover, Krumen
are not hospitable. Masters and men, cast ashore upon a coast which they
have visited for years to hire hands, are stripped, beaten, and even
tortured by women as well as by men. The savages have evidently not learnt
much by a century's intercourse with Europeans.
Leaving Cavally, the last place where Kruboys can be shipped, we coasted
along the fiery sands snowed over with surf and set in the glorious
leek-green growth that distinguishes the old Ivory Coast. The great Gulf
Stream which, bifurcating at the Azores, sweeps southwards with easting,
now sets in our favour; it is, however, partly a wind-current, and here it
often flows to the west even in winter. The ever-rolling seas off this
'Bristol coast' are almost clear of reef and shoal, and the only storms
are tornadoes, which rarely blow except from the land: from the ocean they
are exceedingly dangerous. Such conditions probably suggested the Bristol
barque trade, which still flourishes between Cape Palmas and Grand Bassam.
A modern remnant of the old Bristolian merchant-adventurers, it was
established for slaving purposes during the last century by Mr. Henry
King, maintained by his sons, Richard who hated men-of-war, and William
who preferred science, and it is kept up by his grandsons for legitimate
trade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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