Entries tagged with: gold coast
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Exploration of the Golden Land
PRELIMINARY: TRIESTE TO LISBON. The glory of an explorer, I need hardly say, results not so much from the extent, or the marvels of his explorations, as from the consequences to which they lead. Judged by this test, my little list of discoveries has not been unfavoured of fortune. Where two purblind fever-stricken men plodded painfully through fetid swamp and fiery thorn-bush over the Zanzibar-Tanganyika track, mission-houses and schools may now be numbered by the dozen. Missionaries bring consuls, and consuls bring commerce and colonisation. On the Gold Coast of Western Africa, whence came the good old ’guinea,’ not a washing-cradle, not a pound of quicksilver was to be found in 1862; in 1882 five mining companies are at work; and in 1892 there will be as many score. I had long and curiously watched from afar the movement of the Golden Land, our long-neglected El Dorado, before the opportunity...
Posted on May 30, 2007 12:35 PM
Gold Mining in Africa
The Appendix discusses at some length the various objections made to the Gold Coast mines by the public, which suffers equally from the ’bull’ and the ’bear’ and from the wild rumours set afloat by those not interested in the speculation. I first dispose of the dangers menaced by Ashanti invasions. The second number notices the threatened labour-famine, and shows how immigration of Chinese, of coolies, and of Zanzibar-men will, when wanted, supply not only the Gold Coast, but also the whole of our unhappy West African stations, miscalled colonies, which are now starving for lack of hands. The third briefly sketches the history of the Gold-trade in the north-western section of the Dark Continent, discusses the position and the connections of the auriferous Kong Mountains, and suggests the easiest system of ’getting’ the precious metal. This is by shallow working, by washing, and by the ’hydraulicking’ which I had...
Posted on May 30, 2007 12:33 PM
Gold is the Magic Word
For long years my words fell upon flat ears. Presently the Ashanti war of 1873-74 brought the subject before the public. The Protectorate was overrun by British officers, and their reports and itineraries never failed to contain, with a marvellous unanimity of iteration, the magic word–Gold. The fraction of country, twenty-six miles of seaboard out of two hundred, by a depth of sixty–in fact, the valley of the Ancobra River–now (early 1882) contains five working companies. Upwards of seventy concessions, to my knowledge, have been obtained from native owners, and many more are spoken of. In fact, development has at length begun, and the line of progress is clearly traced. At Madeira I was joined (January 8, 1882) by Captain Cameron, R.N., C.B., &c. Our object was to explore the so-called Kong Mountains, which of late years have become quasi-mythical. He came out admirably equipped; nor was I less prepared....
Posted on May 30, 2007 12:31 PM
Gold in Western Africa
As we advance northwards from the Gold Coast the yield becomes richer.... It is becoming evident that Africa will one day equal half-a-dozen Californias.... Will our grandsons believe in these times ... that this Ophir–that this California, where every river is a Tmolus and a Pactolus, every hillock is a gold-field–does not contain a cradle, a puddling-machine, a quartz-crusher, a pound of mercury? That half the washings are wasted because quicksilver is unknown? That whilst convict labour is attainable, not a company has been formed, not a surveyor has been sent out? I exclaim with Dominie Sampson–’Pro-di-gious!’ Western Africa was the first field that supplied the precious metal to mediaeval Europe. The French claim to have imported it from Elmina as early as A.D. 1382. In 1442 Gonçales Baldeza returned from his second voyage to the regions about Bojador, bringing with him the first gold. Presently a company was formed...
Posted on May 30, 2007 12:28 PM
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