To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 15

Labour the symbol of man's punishment.

No Spaniard of the old school would despise more than a negro those new-fangled notions glorifying work now familiar to stirring and bustling North Europe. Nor will these people exert themselves until, like the Barbadians, they must either sweat or starve. Example may do something to stir them, but the mere preaching of industry is hopeless. I repeat: their _beau ideal_ of life is to do nothing for six days in the week and to rest on the seventh. They are quite prepared to keep, after their fashion, 365 sabbaths per annum.

In the depths of Central Africa, where a European shows a white face for the first time, the wildest tribes hold markets once or twice a week; these meetings on the hillside or the lake-bank are crowded, and the din and excitement are extreme. Armed men, women, and children may be seen dragging sheep and goats, or sitting under a mat-shade through the livelong days before their baskets and bits of native home-spun, the whole stock in trade consisting perhaps of a few peppers, a heap of palm-nuts, or strips of manioc, like pipe-clay. This savage scene is reflected in the comparatively civilised stations all down the West African coast, where the inexperienced and ardent philanthrope is apt to suppose that the lazy, f.e.c.kless habits are not nature-implanted but contracted by contact with a more advanced stage of society.

Again, in many parts of Africa the richest lands, and those most favourably situated, are either uninhabited or thinly peopled, the result of intestine wars or of the export slave-trade. Mr. Administrator Goulsbury, of Bathurst, during his adventurous march from the Gambia to the Sierra Leone River, crossed league after league of luxuriant ground and found it all desert. He says, [Footnote: Blue Book of 1882, quoted in Chap. X.] 'I think the fact has never been sufficiently recognised that Africa, and especially the west coast of the continent, is but very spa.r.s.ely populated.... It is not only very limited, but is, I believe, if not stationary, actually decreasing in numbers.... I commend this fact to the consideration of those who indulge in day-dreams as to the almost unlimited increase of commerce which they fondly imagine is to be the result and reward of opening up the interior of the country.'

In regions richer than the Upper Gambia the disappearance of man is ever followed by a springing of bush and forest so portentous that a few hands are helpless and hopeless. Such is the case with the great wooded belt north of the Gold Coast, where even the second-growth becomes impenetrable without the matchet, and where the swamps and muds, bred and fed by torrential rains, bar the transit of travellers. The Whydah and Gaboon countries are notable specimens of once populous regions now all but deserted.

Nothing more surprising, to men who visit Africa for the first time, than the over-wealth of labour in Madeira and its penury on the Western Coast.

At Bathurst they find ships loading or unloading by the work of the Golah women, whose lazy husbands live upon the hardly-earned wage. They see the mail-steamers landing ton after ton of Chinese rice shipped _via_ England.

The whole country with its humid surface and its reeking, damp-hot climate is a natural rice-bed. The little grain produced by it is far better than the imported, but there are no hands to work the ground. It is the same with salt, which is cheaper when brought from England: no man has the energy to lay out a salina; and, if he did, its outlay, under 'Free Trade,' would be greater than its income.

Steaming along the picturesque face of the Sierra Leone peninsula, the stranger remarks with surprise that its most fertile ridges and slopes hardly show a field, much less a farm, and that agriculture is confined to raising a little garden-stuff for the town-market. The peasant, the hand, is at a discount. The Sierra Leonite is a peddler-born who aspires to be a trader, a merchant; or he looks to a learned profession, especially the law. The term 'gentleman-farmer' has no meaning for him. Of late years a forcing process has been tried, and a few plantations have been laid out, chiefly for the purpose, it would appear, of boasting and of vaunting the new-grown industry at home. Mr. Henry M. Stanley remarks [Footnote: _Cooma.s.sie and Magdala_, p. 8], 'In almost every street in Sierra Leone I heard the voice of praise and local prayer from the numerous aspirants to clerkships and civil service employ; but I am compelled to deny that I ever heard the sound of mallet and chisel, of mortar, pestle, and trowel, the ringing sound of hammer on anvil, or roar of forge, which, to my practical mind, would have had a far sweeter sound. There is virgin land in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone yet untilled; there are buildings in the town yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce yet to be made; the trade of the African interior yet waits to be admitted into the capacious harbour of Sierra Leone for the enrichment of the fond nursing-mother of races who sits dreamily teaching her children how to cackle instead of how to work.'

The same apathy to agriculture prevails in Liberia. For the last forty years large plantations have been laid out on the n.o.ble St. Paul River between Cape Mount and Mount Mesurado. The coffee-shrub, like the copal-tree, belts Africa from east to west--from Harar, where I saw it, through Karague, where it grows wild, the bean not being larger than a pin's head, to Manywema, in the Congo valley, and to the West Coast, especially about the Rio Nunez, north of Sierra Leone. It is of the finest quality, second only to the Mocha; but what hope is there of its development? The Vay tribe, which holds the land, is useless; the rare new comers from America will work, but the older settlers will not; and there is hardly money enough to pay Krumen.

On the Gold Coast there is no exceptional scarcity of population: under normal circ.u.mstances, the labour-market is sufficiently supplied, but a strain soon exhausts it. Sir Garnet Wolseley found his greatest difficulty in the want of workmen: he was obliged to apply for 500 British navvies; and, at one time, he thought of converting the first and second West India Regiments, with Wood's and Russell's men, into carriers. On the other hand, the conduct of the women was admirable; as the conqueror said in the Mansion House, he hardly wondered at the King of Dahome keeping up a corps of 'Amazons.' I shall presently return to the gold-mines.

At Lagos M. Colonna, Consular Agent for France, informs me that by his firm alone 600 hands are wanted for field-service, and that the number might rise to a thousand. He would also be glad to hire artisans, blacksmiths and carpenters, masons and market-gardeners. The Yorubas from the upper country, who will engage for three years, demand from a franc to a shilling per diem, rations not given. Labour ranges from sixteen to twenty-four francs per mensem; and coolies could not command more than twenty-five francs, including 'subsistence.' Here Kruboys are much used.

M. Colonna pays his first-cla.s.s per mensem $5 (each =5 francs 20 centimes), his second cla.s.s $4, and his third $3. Returning to the Gold Coast, I find two cla.s.ses of working men, the country-people and the Kruboys: the Sierra Leonites are too few to be taken into consideration.

At present, when there are only five working mines, none of which are properly manned, labour is plentiful and cheap. It will be otherwise when the number increases, as it will soon do, to fifty and a hundred. Upwards of seventy concessions have already been granted, and I know one house which has, or soon will have, half a dozen ready for market. Then natives and Kruboys will strike for increased wages till even diamond-mines would not pay. The Gold Coast contains rich placers in abundance: if they fail it will be for want of hands, or because the cost of labour will swallow up profits.

The country-people, Fantis, Accra-men, Apollonians of Bein, and others, will work, and are well acquainted with gold-working. But they work in their own way; and, save under exceptional conditions, they are incapable of regular and continuous labour. It gives one the heart-ache to see their dawdling, idling, shuffling, shiftless style of spoiling time. They are now taking to tribute, piece and contract work. The French mines supply them with tools and powder, and, by way of pay and provisions, allow them to keep two-thirds of the produce. It is evident that such an arrangement will be highly profitable to the hands who will 'pick the eyes out of the mine,' and who will secrete all the richest stuff, leaving the poorest to their employers. No amount of European surveillance will suffice to prevent free gold in stone being stolen. Hence the question will arise whether, despite the price of transport, reduction in England will not pay better.

The Kruboys in the north and the Kabinda boys in the south have been described as the Irishmen of West Africa: they certainly do the most work; and trading-ships would find it almost impossible to trade without them.

During the last twenty years they have not improved in efficiency even on board men-of-war. In 1861-65 the gangs with their headmen willingly engaged for three years. Now they enlist only for a year; they carefully keep tallies, and after the tenth monthly cut they begin to apply for leave. Thus the men's services are lost just as they are becoming valuable. It is the same with the Accra-men. When the mines learn the simple lesson _l'union fait la force_ they will combine not to engage Krumen for less than two years.

There are two great centres at which Kruboys are hired. The first is Sierra Leone, where they demand from all employers what the mail-steamers pay--the headmen half-a-crown and the hands a shilling a day besides rations. The second is the Kru coast. In 1850 the 'boys'

received 5_s._ per mensem in goods, which reduced it to 3_s._ They had also daily rice-rations, 'Sunday beef,' and, at times, a dash of tobacco, a cap, a blanket or a waist-cloth. In 1860 the hire rose to 9_s._ in kind, or 4_s._ 6_d._ in coin. About this time cruisers began to pay them the monthly wages of ordinary seamen, 1_l._ 10s., with white man's rations or compensation-money, amounting to another 12_l._ a year.

In 1882 headmen engage for the Oil Rivers at 1_l._, and 'boys' for 10_s._ to 12_s._ For the gold-mines of Wasa they have learned to demand 1_s._ 3_d._ per diem, and at the cheapest 1_l._ a month, the headmen receiving double.

The Kru-market does not supply more than 4,000 hands, and yet it is already becoming 'tight.' In a few years demand will be excessive.

[Footnote: The usual estimate of the Kru-hands employed out of their own country is as follows:-- For the Oil Rivers: 150 each for Bra.s.s and Bonny, New Calabar and Camarones; 150-200 for the Niger, and 150 for Fernando Po and the Portuguese Islands 1200-1500 At Lagos 1000 On board the 25 Bristol ships, at 20 each 500 For nine to ten ships of war 200 For ten mail-steamers 200 In the mines: (May, 1882) Izrah 7, Akankon 14, Effuenta 120, the two French companies 200, the Gold Coast 100, and Crockerville 20 461 ---- Total 3861; say 4000]

The following notes were given to me by the managers of mines, whom I consulted upon the subject.

Mr. Crocker prefers Fantis, Elminas, and others; and he can hire as many as he wants; at Cape Coast Castle alone there are some eighty hands now unemployed. He pays 36_s._, without rations, per month of four weeks. He has about a score of Kruboys, picked up 'on the beach;' these are fellows who have lost all their money, and who dare not go home penniless. Their headman receives per mens. $3.50, and in exceptional cases $4. The better cla.s.s of 'boys' get from $2.50 to $3; and lesser sums are given to the 'small boys,' whose princ.i.p.al work is stealing, skulking.

Mr. Creswick has a high opinion of Krumen working in the mines, and has found sundry of them to develop into excellent mechanics. The men want only good management. Under six Europeans, himself included, he employs a hundred hands, and from eight to ten mechanics. The first headman draws 37_s_. 6_d_., the second 22_s_., full-grown labourers 18_s_., and 'small boys' from 4_s_. to 6_s_. and 9_s_.

Mechanics' wages range between 1_l_. 5_s_. and 4_l_. All have rations or 'subsistence,' which here means 3_d_. a day.

Mr. MacLennan has a few Fanti miners, whom he pays at the rate of 6_d_.

per half-day. His full muster of Krumen is 120; the headmen receive 27_s_.

6_d_., rising, after six months, to 35_s_. The first cla.s.s of common boys get 20_s_.; the second from 13_s_. 6_d_. to 15_s_.; and the third, mostly 'small boys,' between 5_s_. and 10_s_. His carpenters and blacksmiths, who are Gold Coasters and Sierra Leonites, draw from 2_l_. 10_s_. to 3_l_. The rations are, as usual, 1-1/2 lb. of rice per day, with 1 lb. of 'Sunday beef,' whose brine is converted into salt.

Mr. A. Bowden, manager of the Takwa and Abosu Mines, also employs a 'mixed mult.i.tude.' His Sierra Leone carpenters and blacksmiths draw 3_l._ 10_s._ to 4_l._ 10_s._ per month without rations, and his native mechanics 3_l._ to 3_l._ 10_s._ The Fanti labourers are paid, as usual, a shilling per diem and find themselves. The Kruboys, besides being lodged and fed (1-1/2 lb. rice per day and 1 lb. beef or fish per week), draw in money as follows: headman, 2_l_.; second ditto, 1_l_. 7s. to 1_l_. 12_s._; miners, 18_s._ to 20_s._ and labourers 9_s._ to 16_s._

This state of the labour-market is, I have said, purely provisional. It will not outlast the time when the present concessions are in full exploitation; and this condition of things I hope soon to see. We can then draw from the neighbouring countries, from Yoruba to the north-east, and perhaps, but this is doubtful, from the Baasas [Footnote: A manly and powerful race, who call themselves Americans and will have nothing to do with the English.] and the Drewins to the west. But we must come, sooner or later, and the sooner the better, to a regular coolie-immigration, East African, Indian, and Chinese.

The benefit of such an influx must not be measured merely by the additional work of a few thousand hands. It will at once create jealousy, compet.i.tion, rivalry. It will teach by example--the only way of teaching Africans--that work is not ign.o.ble, but that it is ign.o.ble to earn a shilling and to live idle on three-pence a day till the pence are exhausted. Its advantages will presently be felt along the whole western coast, and men will wonder why it was not thought of before. The French, as they are wont to do in these days, have set us an example. Already in early 1882 the papers announced that a first cargo of 178 Chinese--probably from Cochin-China--had been landed at Saint-Louis de Senegal for the proposed Senegambian railway.

The details of such an immigration and the measures which it will require do not belong to this place. Suffice it to say that we can draw freely upon the labour-banks of Macao, Bombay, and Zanzibar. The intelligent, thrifty, and industrious Chinese will learn mining here, as they have learnt it elsewhere, with the utmost readiness. The 'East Indian' will be well adapted for lighter work of the garden and the mines. Finally, the st.u.r.dy Wasawahili of the East African coast will do, as carriers and labourers, three times the work of Pantis and Apollonians.

I need hardly say that Captain Cameron and I would like nothing better than to organise a movement of this kind; we would willingly do more good to the West African coast than the whole tribe of its so-called benefactors.

--3. GOLD-DIGGING IN NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA.

_a. Sketch of its Origin_.

The mineral wealth of Central Africa has still to be studied; at present we are almost wholly ignorant of it. We know, however, that the outlying portions of the Continent contain three distinct and grand centres of mining-industry. The first worked is the north-eastern corner--in fact, the Nile-valley and its adjacencies, where Fayzoghlu still supplies the n.o.ble metal. The second, also dating from immense antiquity, is the whole West African coast from Morocco to the Guinea Gulf, both included. The third and last, the south-eastern gold-fields, have been discovered by the Portuguese in comparatively modern days.

In this paper I propose to treat only of the western field. Its exploitation began early enough to be noticed by Herodotus, the oldest of Greek prose-writers. He tells us (lib. iv. 196, &c.) that the Carthaginians received gold from a black people, whose caravans crossed the Sahara, or Great Desert, and that they traded for it with the wild tribes of the West Coast. His words are as follows:--'There is a land in Libya, and a nation beyond the Pillars of Hercules [the Straits of 'Gib.'], which they [the Carthaginians] are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith they break cargo; and, having disposed their wares in an orderly way along the beach, leave them, and, returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke.

'The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the sh.o.r.e, and, laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw themselves afar. The Carthaginians upon this come ash.o.r.e and look. If they deem the gold sufficient they take it and wend their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard once more and wait patiently.

Then the others draw near and add to their gold till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly by the other; for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away.'

Plato ('Critias' [Footnote: The celebrated Dialogue which treats of Altantis and describes cocoas as the 'fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments.']) may refer to this dumb trade when he tells us, 'Never was prince more wealthy than Atlas [eldest son of Poseidon by Cleito]. His land was fertile, healthy, beautiful, marvellous; it was terminated by a range of gold-yielding mountains.' Lyon, speaking of the western Sudan, uses almost the very words of Herodotus. 'An invisible nation, according to our informant, inhabit near this place, and are said to trade by night. Those who come to traffic for their gold lay their merchandise in heaps and retire. In the morning they find a certain quant.i.ty of gold-dust placed against every heap, which if they think sufficient they leave the goods; if not, they let both remain till more of the precious ore is added' (p. 149). [Footnote: Shaw gives a similar account (_Travels_, p. 302).]

The cla.s.sical trade in gold and slaves was diligently prosecuted by the Arabs or Saracens after Mohammed's day. Their caravans traversed the great wilderness which lies behind the fertile Mediterranean sh.o.r.e, and founded negroid empires in the western Sudan, or Blackland. Ghana, whence, perhaps, the Portuguese Guine and our Guinea of 'the dreadful mortal name,' became the great gold-mart of the day. Famous in history is its throne, a worked nugget of solid gold, weighing 30 lbs. It has been rivalled in modern times by the 'stool' of Bontuko (Gyaman), and by the 'Hundredweight of gold' produced by New South Wales. Most of the wealth came from a district to the south-west, w.a.n.gara, Ungura, or Unguru, bordering on the Niger, and supposed to correspond with modern Mandenga-land. In the lowlands, after the annual floods, the natives dug and washed the diluvial deposits for the precious metal exactly as is now done upon the Gold Coast; and they burrowed into the highlands which surround in crescent-form the head-waters of the great River Joliba.

Presently Tinbukhtu succeeded, according to Leo Africa.n.u.s (1500), Ghana as the converging point of the trade, and made the name for wealth which endures even to the present day. Its princes and n.o.bles lavishly employed the precious ore in ornaments, some weighing 1,300 ounces.

In due time the Moroccan Arabs were succeeded by their doughty rivals, the Portuguese of the heroic ages of D. D. Joo II. and Manoel. I here pa.s.s over the disputed claim of the French, who declare that they imported the metal from 'Elmina' as early as 1382. [Footnote: See Chapter II.] The first gold was discovered on his second voyage by Goncalo Baldeza (1442) at the Rio de Ouro, the cla.s.sical Lixus and the modern El-Kus, famed for the defeat and death of Dom Sebastiam. [Footnote: I have noticed it in _Camoens, his Life and his Lusiads_, vol ii. chapter iii. The identification with the Rio de Onro is that of Bowdich (p. 505). Another Rio de Ouro was visited in 1860 by Captain George Peac.o.c.k (before alluded to), 'having a French frigate under his orders.' The 'River of Gold' of course would become a favourite and a ba.n.a.l name.]

In 1470 Joo de Santarem and Pero d'Escobar, knights of the King, sailed past Cape Falmas, discovered the islands of So Thome and Ann.o.bom (January 1, 1471); and, on their return homewards, found a trade in gold-dust at the village of Sama (Chamah) and on the site which we miscall 'Elmina.'

[Footnote: This form of the word, a masculine article with a feminine noun, cannot exist in any of the neo-Latin languages. In Italian and Spanish it would be La Mina, in Portuguese A Mina. The native name is Dina or Edina.] During the same year Fernan' Gomez, a worthy of Lisbon, bought a five years' monopoly of the gold-trade from the King, paying 44_l._ 9_s._ par annum, and binding himself to explore, every year, 300 miles down coast from Sierra Leone. One of these expeditions landed at 'Elmina' and discovered Cape Catherine in south lat.i.tude 1 50' and west longitude (Gr.) 9 2'. The rich mines opened at Little Kommenda, or Aprobi, led to the building of the Fort So Jorje da Mina, by Diego d'Azembuja, sent out (A.D. 1481) to superintend the construction. But about 1622 the falling in of some unbraced and untimbered shafts and the deaths of many miners induced Gweffa, the King, to 'put gold in Fetish,' making it an accursed thing; and it has not been worked since that time.

Thus Portugal secured to herself the treasures which made her the wealthiest of European kingdoms. But when she became a province of Spain, under D. Philip II., her Eastern conquests were systematically neglected in favour of the Castilian colonies that studded the New World. The weak Lusitanian garrisons were ma.s.sacred on the Gold Coast, as in other parts of Africa; and the Hollanders, the 'Water-beggars,' who had conquered their independence from Spain, proceeded to absorb the richest possessions of their quondam rivals. 'Elmina,' the capital, fell into Dutch hands (1637), and till 1868 Holland retained her forts and factories on the Gold Coast.

In their turn the English and the French, who had heard of the fabulous treasures of the Joliba valley and the Tinbukhtu mart, began to claim their share. As early as 1551 Captain Thomas Wyndham touched at the Gold Coast and brought home 150 lbs. of the precious dust. The first English company for exploring the Gambia River sent out (1618) their agent, Richard Thompson. This brave and unfortunate explorer was rancorously opposed by the Portuguese and eventually murdered by his own men. He was followed (1620) by Richard Jobson, to whom we owe the first account of the Gambia River. He landed at various points, armed with mercury, aqua regia (nitric acid), large crucibles, and a 'dowsing' or divining rod; [Footnote: A form of this old and almost universal magical instrument, worked by electricity, has, I am told, been lately invented and patented in the United States.] washed the sands and examined the rocks even beyond the Falls of Barraconda. After having often been deceived, as has occurred to many prospectors since his day, he determined that gold never occurs in low fertile wooded lands, but in naked and barren hills, which embed it in their reddish ferruginous soil. Hence it was long and erroneously determined that bare rocks in the neighbourhood of shallow alluvia characterise rich placers, and that the wealthiest mining-regions are poor and stunted in vegetation. California and Australia, the Gold Coast and South Africa, are instances of the contrary. Wasa, however, confirms the old opinion that the strata traversed by lodes determine the predominating metal; as quartz produces gold; hard blue slate, lead; limestone, green-stone and porphyry, copper; and granite, tin. [Footnote: Page 17, _A Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining_, by D. C. Davies. London, Crosby and Co., 1881. The volume is handy and useful to explorers.]

After twenty days' labour Jobson succeeded in extracting 12 lbs. from a single site. He declares that at length he 'arrived at the mouth of the mine itself, and found gold in such abundance as surprised him with joy and admiration.' Unfortunately he leaves us no notice of its position; it is probably lost, like many of the old Brazilian diggings. The Gambia River still exports small quant.i.ties of dust supposed to have been washed in the Ghauts, or sea-subtending ridges, of the interior. Most of it, however, finds its way to the wealthier and more prosperous French colony.

Whilst the English chose the Gambia the French preferred Senegal, where they founded (1626) 'St. Louis,' called after Louis XIV. The Sieur Brue, Director-General of the Senegal Company, made a second journey of discovery in 1698, and reached with great difficulty the gold-mines of desert and dreary Bambuk. There he visited the princ.i.p.al districts, and secured specimens of what he calls the _ghingan_, or golden earth. He proposed a third incursion, but the absolute apathy of his countrymen proved an insuperable obstacle.

M. Golberry describes Bambuk in gloomy and sombre colours. Its gold is distributed amongst low ranges of peeled and sterile hills. Probably this results from fires and disforesting. It occurs in the shape of spangles, grains, and _pepites_ (nuggets), whose size increases with the depth of the digging. In the Matakon mine the dust adhered to fragments of iron, emery, and lapis lazuli, from which it was easily detached and washed. The less valuable Semayla placer produced dust in a hard reddish loam, mixed with still more refractory materials; it was crushed in mortars with rude wooden dollies or with grain-pestles. The pits, six feet in diameter, reached a depth of from ten to twelve yards, where they were stopped by a bed of hard reddish marle; this the Frenchman held to be the hanging wall of a much richer lode. The people used ladders, but they neglected to collar or brace the mouth, and the untimbered pit-sides often fell in; hence fatal accidents, attributed to the 'earth-spirits.' They held gold to be a capricious elf, and when a rich vein suddenly ran barren they cried out, 'There! he is off!'

In later days Mungo Park drew attention by his famous first journey (1795-97) to the highlands of the Mandingoes (Mandenga-land), and revived interest in the provinces of Shronda, Konkodu, Dindiko, Bambuk, and Bambarra. Here the natives collect dust by laborious washings of detrital sand. His fatal second expedition (1805) produced an unfinished journal, which, however, gives the amplest and most interesting notices concerning the gold-production of the region he traversed. My s.p.a.ce compels me to refer readers to the original. [Footnote: Murray's edition of 1816, vol.

i, p. 40, and vol. ii. p. 751.]

The traveller Caillie (1827), after crossing the Niger _en route_ to Tinbukhtu, pa.s.sed south of the Boure province, in the valley of the Great River; and here he reports an abundance of gold. As in the districts visited by Park, it is all alluvial and washed out of the soil. The dust, together with native cloth, wax, honey, cotton and cattle, finds its way to the coast, where it is bartered for beads, amber and coral, calicoes and firearms. The gold-mines of Boure were first visited and described by Winwood Reade. [Footnote: _Cooma.s.sie_, &c., p. 126.]

The peninsula of Sierra Leone is not yet proved to be auriferous. Here stray Moslems, mostly Mandengas, occasionally bring down the Melakori River ring-gold and dust from the interior. The colonists of Liberia a.s.sert that at times they have come upon a pocket which produced fifty dollars; the country-people also occasionally offer gold for sale. From the Ba.s.sam coast middle-men travel far inland and buy the metal from the bushmen. Near Grand Ba.s.sam free gold in quartz-reefs near the sh.o.r.e has been reported.