THE 
GOLD COAST REVIEW 
Vol. IV. No. I . 
JANUARY-JUNE 
• 11' 
('II , 'f 
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THE GOVERNMENT PRINTER, ACCRA. GOLO eoAST. 
1928. 
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Authors of Articles and Notes appearing in the 
Oold Coast Review are solely responsible for 
their statements and expressions of opinion. 
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ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY-Concluded. 
BY NOA AKUNOR AGUAE AZU . 
(ARRANGED AND TRANSLATED BY ENOCH Azu) . 
[Continued from Vol. III. No. I. Page. u6.] 
• 
CHAPTER XX. 
KING SAKITEY. 
Sakitey was made King after the death of his father 
on the 29th of December, 1867. The name of his 
mother was Dsabakuo. 
We read in the preceding Chapter about the testa-
ment made by the late king re his successor. Of course 
the elders met and appointed one Asale as their Chair-
man to elect a king. 
Asale, the Chairman, told them plainly that their late 
father the King- had left the stool to Christian Akutei, 
his beloved son, therefore they were not to keep long 
on this matter. They all agreed that the will must be 
considered powerful. 
By this time Christian Akutei was in the Seminary 
under training by the Missionaries. The elders there-
fore sent to the Missionaries at Odumase to give him 
to them in order to ens tool him. The Missionaries, 
having trained him to be a cathechist, cunningly advised 
them that the prince was too young for his post, there-
fore they would better give the post to his elder brother 
Akute. The people agreed, as in reality they were 
not in favour of being ruled by a Christian, who 
would object to many of their so-called obligatory cus-
toms then reigning. The elders therefore offered the 
stool to Akute, but he frankly told them that he would 
not like to take it inasmuch as his half brother Sakitey. 
who is older than he, was still alive. The stool was 
4 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW. 
therefore given to Sakite and a proviso was made 
that Akute should act in absence of the king and that 
after his death Akute might reign. 
Both of them were taken first to the Djebtam stool 
and sat on it three times and were marched to Dorm 
Akwenor, where Nate Odsaraper, the then keeper of· the 
Dorm Stool, took hold of their hands one after the other 
to help them to sit on that stool also. This was done 
because Muela Okumsono had given the Dorm stool to 
Odonkor Azu (see Chap. XIX). 
In the year 1873 on the 9th day of October a letter 
from the Governor was received by King Sakitey in 
which he was requested by the former to meet him at 
Akropong, the capital town of Akwapem. The King 
therefore went to Akropong together with all his Chiefs 
under him. On his arrival he saw that all the other 
paramount Chiefs had assembled with the Governor in 
their midst. When the latter saw him, he expounded to 
him the cause of his invitation and the necessity of the 
present meeting-which was the united effort of all the 
Gold Coast Chiefs to help the Government in waging 
war on the Ashantees in their own country. "I know", 
said Captain Glover, "that your subjects are good 
shots! Will you kindly swear to me that you will 
join me in this expedition?" On hearing this King 
Sakitey unsheathed his dagger and pointed it to Captain 
Glover and said: "I swear! I swear! I swear by our 
elders who are dead, that, if you ask me to join you to 
Ashantee in order to kill my enemies who have wrought 
many a wicked deed on my race and kinsmen, and I 
decline, know that I have broken this my oath, and 
therefore have this very head of mine cut off!" 
This action caused the other Chiefs to be exceedingly 
annoyed. They therefore charged King Sakitey for 
having consented to the Governor's proposal without 
first consulting them; for they who were first with the 
Governor should have done that when convenient. He 
tried in vain to render all kinds of solid apology as any 
one would do when he is between the horns of a 
dilemma; yet they fined him some rum. Captain 
Glover realized that the Chiefs were not in favour of 
{ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY 5 
going to Ashantee to fight them on their own soil and 
proposed that all the Chiefs should come to Accra after 
a week's time just to bring to an end their plan of war. 
The appointed date came and about 3 I head chiefs 
met in Accra in front of U ssher Fort (Kinka-mo-na). 
. All these Chiefs with the exception of King Sakitey, 
counselled together and said: "What are we todonow? 
Sakitey has sworn to go to the expedition and therefore 
it appears that we are bound to follow his example or we 
shall lose the favour of the whiteman, yet the rub is that 
even during the time of our forefathers, nobody has 
dared to attack the Ashantees on their soil." "I am 
going to tell the Governor," said Ga Manche Taki, 
" that the Ashantees and the Awunas are allied and the 
latter would certainly attack us during our absence and . 
capture our defenceless wives and children, so we would 
fight the Awunas first and then proceed on to Ashantee; 
but you know if the white man agrees to this proposal, 
we can clear ourselves when the Awuna war is over bv 
saying that we are tired of warfare." They unanimously 
agreed to this suggestion and returned to take their 
respective seats among the assemblage. 
King Sakitey went round to salute them, but every-
where he was met with abusive words and hooting. He 
returned the abusive words. The Krobos started to 
beat their Obonu drums and their King started to 
dance. While dancing he plied his body downward 
and pointed his left thumb to his back to tell the people 
that they may come and lap there. One Accra man 
rose up to push the Krobo King down, then a fearful 
hand to hand fight followed. The Krobos fought with 
all their might, but they were beaten. Prince Akute, 
their leader, rallied them and ordered them to fight on 
while retreating to Osu. The enemies followed. 
When they reached Tunyean now called New Site, they 
took their stand near a heap of stones gathered there 
for some purpose. Being experts in stone fights, they 
easily drove the enemies back with wounds. Soldiers 
were sent out to disperse them, and order was given 
to the officer to bring King Sakitey and his brother into 
the Governor's House for their safety. The Accras 
reported to Captain Glover tbat Kin~ Sakitey was a 
6 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW. 
bad man and in vain he had sworn to him at Akropong, 
because he had told the people not to join the expedI-
tion and this brought on the fight. The Chiefs wrote 
a petition to Captain Glover to send King Sakitey away 
to Sierra Leone to remain there till the end of the war, 
as they were not willing to do anything together with 
him. The Governor's interpreter, Mr. W. Ado, alias 
Kofi Mensah, also misinterpreted all that the Krobo 
King and his people had said; and therefore 
the King and his brother were sent to prison. 
A runner went to Krobo and reported 
the fight. The news was exaggerated that 
King Sakitey and his brother Akute had been 
killed. Now, Catechist Noa A. Aguae Azu, who was 
then a schoolmaster in Addah and had come to Krobo 
on casual leave, was informed. He at once gathered 
some men around him and proceeded on to Accra in 
order to learn the truth in the matter. The whole story 
was told to him at Osu, and he therefore went straight to 
Captain Glover to see him about his brothers at Accra. 
He was friendl y received by the whiteman, yet the latter, • 
believing the false charges framed against his brothers, 
unreservedly declared that King Sakitey had proved 
through his actions to be treacherous and disloyal. 
This caused Mr. Noah A. A. Azu, who knew his 
brother very well, to express himself as follows: "I 
know my brother very well and, moreover, we Krobos 
never go against our oath! Did you ask him to swear 
before you at Akropong?" "Yes, I did, " said Captain 
Glover, who, upon saying this, produced the petition 
written by Mantse Taki and the other chiefs. 
Mr. Noah A. A. Azu read it and then asked Captain 
Glover to tell him the statement given by King Sakitey 
Captain Glover replied: "Your brother has refused 
to go to the war and this was the cause of the fight and 
his imprisonment." 
" I want to see my brothers, Sir," asked Mr. N. 
A. A. Azu. "I am going together with you," 
remarked the whiteman. The prisoners were brought 
out by the command of Captain Glover. When thev 
saw their brother, they were greatly relieved, because 
they knew also that he could speak English to the white 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 7 
man and their grievances will be known by him. "Why 
were you imprisoned?" asked Captain Glover, who 
was passing the question through Mr. N. A. A. Azu. 
" Please your Excellency," said the latter, " let your 
own interpreter do this, as perhaps you would not 
believe me." The interpreter, Mr. W. Ado, who was 
not far from the place, was brought. Through him 
Sakitey informed the Captain that he was beaten and 
imprisoned for his sake, as it was he who asked him to 
swear an oath of allegiance to him at Akropong, which 
he did. "Have you not told the other chiefs that you 
would not go to the war?" asked Captain Glover. 
" Never in my life could I do such a base thing," 
replied Sakitey. On this occasion Mr. W. Ado could 
not change what Sakitey was saying, as the Krobo 
scholar was standing there. Captain Glover, who was 
moved with compassion and wrath, gave Mr. Ado 
several kicks with his martial boots, who ran away 
crying that it was not his own fault, as the Ga Mantse 
and the other chiefs had asked him to do so. The 
Krobo scholar was sent out hy the Captain to bring 
Mantse Taki. He saw the Mantse in his house, who 
promised to follow soon, but did not make his appear-
ance for SOme hours; then the Captain sent one dozen 
soldiers to bring him. They entered the Mantse's 
house with the Krobo scholar in front, but the Mantse 
was nowhere to be found. One old man in the house 
told them that the Mantse was drunk and that he would 
beg to see the white man to-morrow when sober. This 
was reported to the Captain, who laughed and sent them 
back to the town to bring all the Krobos who had been 
wounded and taken prisoners in the fight. They met 
them in a very sad state. Some were in fetters with 
undressed wounds on their heads as well as their bodies. 
They were unfettered and brought to the Captain, who 
handed them over to Mr. N. A. A. Azu to take them 
home for treatment. 
He thanked the Captain and then asked him to call 
all the chiefs to court in order to investigate the 
matter which brought out the fight. The Captain 
replied that his attempt of taking judicial steps in this 
case would frustrate his plan of war for which he was 
8 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW, 
sent. Moreover, as the chiefs knew that they had done 
wrong and perhaps they might be punished, they would 
rather avoid punishment by returning to their towns 
without taking his leave. He friendly invited all the 
chiefs to a meeting solely convened in order to bring 
the plan of war to a material end; yet he warned them. 
that if anyone of them should absent himself from this 
essential meeting, there was to be a severe punishment 
to such a one· All the chiefs assembled on that 
appointed day; and to their surprise they saw King 
Sakitey sitting by the side of the Captain . Consequently 
they were stirred into wrath and unanimously cried 
out "We are not going to this war with Sakitey 
accompanying us ." The Captain asked them their 
reasons and they replied that once they, Gas, Akems, 
Akwapems and the Krobos, united together to fight 
against the Akwamus at Aboatia and Sakitey forced 
them to swear that if they should desert him during the 
fight to give the enemies a chance to molest him after 
the war is over, then the fetish Laloe might kill them 
and their race. They, of course, 'swore, yet did not stay 
t n the end of the war, therefore this fetish had been 
~ illing them up till now. The Captain said nothing, 
and even forbade King Sakitey to speak, when he asked 
for permission to do so, but rather sent him back to the 
prison . He now called the attention of all the other 
chiefs and then fixed a day for them to meet him at 
Addah, where they would encamp to attack the Awunas. 
Ammunition was served them and the meeting was 
dissolved. Captain Glover now called Mr. N. A. A . 
Azu to a private room and told him that he had seen 
that the other chiefs hated his brother without any 
material reason, so he was going to give him three hun-
dred capguns, sufficient powder and lead and three 
barrels of rum to take to Krobo in order to distribute 
among his best fighters to meet him at Addah, for he 
was afraid to give his brother Sakitey to him, to trek 
back through his enemies to Krobo. Again he must 
not tell anyone that he was going to put King Sakitey 
on board the ship that will bring him to Addah and after 
he, Mr. Noah A. A. Azu, had brought sufficient men 
to Addah, there he will give King Sakitey to him. The 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED) . 9 
Krobo scholar thanked the Captain and started for 
mumtlOn. On his arrival, he gathered all the Krobos 
to N uaso, and there he related to them his missionary 
enterprise to Accra and its result. Three days after 
he received a letter from the hands of a certain white 
man sent by Captain Glover, in which he was asked to 
construct a road from Odumase to Akuse within a very 
short space of time. He read the letter to his brother 
Peter Nyako, who assembled the Krobos to let them 
know the contents of the letter. At first they were 
unwilling to construct a road that could bring an army 
to the town. While they were exchanging thoughts 
on this, the white man sent by Captain Glover 
recognised two men among the crowd and called Mr. 
Noah A. A. Azu to his side and said that he had seen 
these fellows at Akuse and entreated them to row him 
in a canoe to Kpong, and after he had given them some-
thing in advance, they cunningly deserted him, so he 
wished them punished. Mr. Noah A. A. Azu sug-
gested to him that they must be Imprisoned, but the 
white man objected and said that they must be bastina-
doed, as martial law had been declared. They 
were then tied to a palm tree, which was then standing 
in front of the present Basel Mission Chapel at Odu-
rnase, and corporal punisbment was inflicted on tbem. 
Tbe people were frightened when they saw this uncom-
mon public whipping, therefore when the gong-gong 
beater warned tbem with the sound of the gong-gongs 
!::; !ake up their cutlasses to cut the new road, they 
quietly responded and witbin a few days the road was 
completed. Another letter was brougbt again to Mr. 
Noah A. A. Azu from Captain Glover requesting that 
the former should bring bis armed men to Addah 
immediately. He therefore divided his army of about 
500 men under Tei Dakro and Mate Adipa and started 
for Addah the next morning about ro 0' clock. They 
passed the night at a place called Zandor, as many of • 
them went to the Krobo mountain to take leave of tbeir 
wives and war jujus. 
N ext day tbey reacbed Lolonya on the coast of 
Addah and, marcbing eastward, passed Futeh and 
reacbed Addah at 5 o'clock p.m. An incident bap-
10 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW. 
pened when they were quite near to the town-that is : 
when Manche Taki of Ga, who had also gone to Addah 
to fight the Awunas, saw the Krobo army coming, he 
took them to be part of his followers and went out with a 
few followers to meet the Krobos. The Krobos, on 
seeing Manche Taki, were excited and wished to create. 
a fight in which they could take vengeance; but their 
leader, Mr. Noah A. A. Azu, assuaged them by promis-
mg them a better occasion. They then marched 
straight towards the Captain's camp singing as follows: 
No do Lamiano ne eye ble I 
Ye ble gu Taki lo? Ble pi 10 kpa I 
English: Sorrow has caused the nobleman to eat a 
snake! Taki, do you for the sake of nothing 
eat a snake? A snake is not a fish. 
Later in the evening Captain N ater Okumador of 
Dorm, and some other tribes with their Chiefs, arrived 
and made their camp near Azizanya, together with the 
van-guard. Early in the next morning a white man, 
an officer, came to the camp to pay them a visit. By 
that time there was a hawk hovering overhead; a young 
man called Kpabitey Bortier took up his cap-gun and 
shot the bird down dead. The white officer took the 
dead bird and went back to Captain Glover's camp. 
Not long after a soldier arrived in the Krobo camp and 
told Mr. Noah A. A. Azu that his presence was urgently 
requested by Captain Glover. He followed the soldier 
to the white men's camp and there upon a small table 
he saw the dead hawk lying. Captain Glover opened 
the conversation in this way: I have seen that your men 
are good shots, as the wounds on this dead bird testify; 
I am therefore going to give 200 snider rifles which you 
are to give to the best shots among your men for 
exchange of the cap-guns I gave you at Accra. This 
was accordingly done to an uncommon elation of the 
Krobos as they threw up their rifle, catching them, 
dancing and singing. On the day fonowing, they were 
ordered to march to Sukpe, where the enemies were 
heard of to be encamping. King Sakitey and his 
brother Akute were taken on board a launch which was 
to take Captain Glover to Sukpe. The Krobos reacheil 
ADANGBE (.'JlANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). II 
Sukpe not long after the Captain arrived, with King 
Sakitey and his brother. 
The enemies' camps were sighted on the other side 
of the bank of the Vol ta, and their songs as well as the 
sounds of drums were also within hearing. Captain 
. Glover told Manche Taki to cross the river to the other 
bank in order to fight the enemies, but the latter replied 
that his men were not yet come. 
On hearing this, Prince Akute told his brother King 
Sakitey that he would tell Captain Glover to let the 
Krobos cross to the other bank. This request pleased 
the Captain who had already told Mr. Noah A. A. Azu 
to tell the Krobos to prepare for that same purpose. 
On 24th December, 1873, the Krobos were put into 
boats and rowed to the bank. Not long after they had 
landed a severe fight followed. The Krobos poured· a 
repeated volley into the Awunas' camp from their rifles. 
which caused the latter to run pell mell to save their 
lives. The Krobos followed them, set their camp on 
fire and plundered all they could get. 
About three hours after they returned from the chase 
with many heads, their favourite trophy. 
They formed their camps on the battlefield together 
with the Hausas. Next morning, namely on the 25th 
December more skirmishing took place and some other 
villages were taken. On the next day Captain Glover 
gathered all his fighting men, including the chiefs, and 
told them that a letter had been written from Sir Garnet 
\Volseley ordering him, together with his army, to march 
at once to the Pra; so he was going to re-cross the Volta 
and they had to follow him. Manche Taki insisted 
that they must first defeat the Awunas, and that after 
they had been completely brought down on their knees, 
then they would accompany him to the Pra. 
Captain Glover became very angry when he noticed 
that the Chiefs were actually insolent and uncom-
prehending; he therefore left them under the command 
of Mr. Goldsworthy and Lieutenant Moor, R.N., while 
he re-crossed the Volta with his Hausas and the 
Donkors, followed by the Krobos, who did not like to 
lose sight of their King Sakitey. They marched 
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12 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW. 
victoriously to Odumase. where, after a short prepaIa-
tion, they proceeded on with King Sakitey at their • 
head, under the command of Captain Glover, via Akim 
to Kumasi. 
Mr. Noah A. A. Azu and a dozen soldiers were left 
at Odumase, Krobo, to look after the transport and . I 
peace in town and suburbs. I 
Three days after Captain Glover and his army had 
left Krobo, the King of Akwamu sent his messengers to 
Krobo to tell them that he was coming with his army 
to pass through Krobo to Ashantee. 
Mr. Noah A. A. Azu who was then acting king, I 
sent back the messengers to tell the Akwamu king that, 
if they were willing to go to the war, they could find 
another way; not through Krobo. 
After the messengers had left for their town news 
reached Odumase that the Akwamus were coming; the 
acting King on hearing this went out with four of his 
soldiers and one Osom and Kpabite Bortier to meet 
them at Kpong. They found no sign of the Akwamus 
coming there; yet they marched on as far as Adawuru-
madan, where the Akwamus used to ferry across the 
Volta to Krobo. They sent two men to tell the 
Akwamu King from Adawurumadan that if he allowed 
any of his subjects to cross the Volta, he might know 
that he had wronged the Krobos and the consequence 
would be bad. 
The soldiers set a flag pole at Adawurumadan and 
hoisted the British flag there and some Krobos with their 
guns were posted there to watch and check the 
Akwamus from crossing the river. 
One day the following incident happened: at a 
village called Huekper, about a quarter of a mile or less • 
from Odumase, some war juju priests assembled to try 
the power of their juju. After thev had performed all 
the necessary ceremonies due to this juju and also put 
on their anti-bullet garments, one of them loaded his 
gun and asked a friend of his to aim the ((un at him and 
fire, hoping that the bullet will never take its ordinary 
effect on him. 
Unfortunately, at the souna of the gun this juju man 
{ell down dead. 
• 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 13 
Mr. Noah A. A. Azu, the acting King, was called 
to the spot. He was greatly surprised at their folly, 
yet he said nothing concermng the cnme, but sImply 
asked Captain Tetter Agbo to bury the dead body and 
also to take the rest including the murderer to the war. 
This order was successfully carried out. 
On another occasion the soldiers who were occupying 
the house of one Djabatse Lawei Akuma carelessly 
set fire to the grass-roofed kitchen. The usual alarm 
on such occasions was given and the acting King and 
a band of women put a stop to this awful conflagration 
after three different roofs had been burned to ashes . 
After this incident small-pox broke out and carried 
away the lives of many a child and woman including 
that of the only sister of the acting King by name 
Akuki, who was given to the English as a hostage by ' 
King Odonkor Azu during the Freeman war or Ologo 
Patu war in 18S8. 
About the end of February, 1874, King Sakite and 
his army returned from the expedition. They were 
gladly received by the women who formed a long pro-
cession with leaves and palm branches in their hands 
to meet them. 
They also responded to this warm reception by firing 
their guns. This performance was carried out from one 
end of Odumase town to the other end. Last of all 
they took King Sakitey to his Royal House, where 
through his Chief Linguist he thanked his veteran 
warriors as well as the women and the rest who had given 
him such a cordial reception; and before sending them 
to their respective homes, invited them to a meeting 
which would be held on the next day. 
On .this day during the meeting the King of Manya 
Kr?bo In duty bound related to the subjects behind him 
theIr war adventures as follows: "Acting King 
and my people: I am very glad to see you again and 
although I have been told that the epidemic has carried 
many lives away during our absence, yet I am glad to 
tell you that my men who accompanied me to the war are 
all back, and not a single hair of any of them has fallen 
to the ground. Supposing the epidemic were to be like 
• 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW . 
the Ashantees, who fled everywhere before our victor-
ious army, we shoulJi have had no loss at all. 
.. Where is the home of the plague? Who can fight 
it? God knows! 
• 
.. Now on our way to Kumasi we passed through 
Akem; there we were asked by Captain Glover to wait 
for the Akem levy to join us. After a day's rest, we 
marched forward, together with the Akems. The latter 
as scouts and leaders, being the speakers of the Ashanti 
language; and leaders, because they knew the way 
to the enemies' country; but one day they were detected 
to be perfidious by Captain Glover, as none of their 
reports had proved to be of any value. We the Krobos 
were asked to take the van. Prince Akute and some 
others volunteered to scout and left the main body 
immediately. Near dusk, the scouts returned with a 
newly cut-off head of an Ashanti man and also reported 
to have seen thousands of the enemies behind a river. 
Captain Glover was well pleased with this report and 
planned for the crossing of the river and how to give the 
enemies a surprising attack. Next day after marching 
some miles we reached the bank ofthis river and we were 
ordered to cross it first and then to construct a temporary 
bridge over the river . 
.. Of course everyone was expecting to hear a volley 
from Ashanti camps up the river and therefore the 
attempt was quite suspicious and nervous in action . 
.. Mr. C. A. Azu, through whom the captain gave this 
order of crossing the river, put his feet into the water 
just to wade through it, but he found it to be deep and 
therefore swam across it; others ventured his example 
and found themselves safe on the other bank. Soon a 
bridge was made from trunks of trees hewn down to fall 
on both banks on the narrow part of the river. Marching 
a little forward we saw the camp of the enemies in a 
long row both on our left and right; went there and 
found foodstuff in great quantities everywhere, 
abandoned by the enemies. 0, we had a sufficient 
meal on that day. 
15 ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 
" After passing through skirmishes of little import-
ance we reached Kumasi on the 12th February, 1874. 
" We found this famous and historic town burnt 
down to ashes and smoke rising still into the sky above 
IO tell the tale of its fall. 
" We remained a few days in Ashanti, and after the 
whitemen had caused Kofi Karikari, the King of 
Ashanti, to sign some paper we left Kumasi for our 
homeward march. We halted at Prahsu and Captain 
Glover dismissed all his native levies on the 17th 
February, r874, and we took our course without any 
emergency to this place. 
" Thank you for all you have done on my behalf 
during my absence." 
Towards the middle of June Dr. Gouldsbury came 
to Odumase and asked the King of Akwamu to come 
there in order to make a treaty of peace. Akoto, the 
King of Akwamu, refused to attend the invitation for 
fear that the Krobos would do him harm. It was 
therefore arranged that two hostages might be sent to 
the Akwamus to prove their fidelity; next day King 
Sakitey sent the two hostages, one his own son, to the 
Akwamus and on the following day Akoto came to 
Odumase and a treaty of peace was completed between 
the Akwamus and the English on the 15th June, 1874. 
Sometime after a sword and a medal with a neck-
piece were presented to King Sakitey by the Queen of 
England as a reward for the loyalty and valour of his 
people during the Ashanti war. 
In 188S Mr. Thomas Odonkor was made Chief of 
K pong by King Sakitey and his Councillors. This 
town was founded by a Krobo man called Tetter-Yumu 
from Ogome tribe. When Tetter-Yumu was a lad 
about nine years old, he was kidnapped and sold away 
to some Awuna man. He remained in slavery for about 
30 years before his whereabouts was known. A ransom 
was paid to his masters and he came back to his own 
people as a fisherman, because that was the industry 
of his former masters. His love of fishing brought him 
16 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
to the banks of the Volta, where he built a hut on a 
parcel of land called by him" Kpong," which means 
an Island, because during the rainy season water us~ 
to surround it. The meaning of " Tetter-Yumu " is 
Black Tetter. He became chief of the place also. 
After Tetter-Yumu there had been some other chiefs in 
succession about six in number before Thomas Odonkor 
the first literate chief in the whole of Krobo, w~ 
enstooled. Tbrough his influence and skill, trade and 
improvement of the town in general was advanced. He 
was loved by many E uropeans-oflicials and non-
offiCials. He was on some occasions temporarily 
employed as interpreter by the Government, as he 
could speak Adangbe, Ga, Twi, Ewe, Hausa and 
English. 
~ The year 1892 was a remarkable year of great 
importance in the annals of Krobo. In the early part 
of this year some Krobo men of the Dorm tribe killed 
an Akwamu man, a hunchback, between Apra and 
Sapor, who was also a golden breastplate carrier to the 
Akwamu King. They purposely killed him in order to 
use his head and skull for making their juju. In order 
to conceal his trunk, the murderers dug a straight round 
hole in the ground; and into this hole they placed it. 
After they had covered it with swish, they planted a 
sucker of plantain on the spot, just to make the site less 
attractive to an expert detective. 
The Akwamus reported the case to the English 
Government. King Sakitey was made responsible for 
the crime, as the action had taken place within his juris-
diction and among his subjects. A search was made 
and the murderers were arrested, four of them, 
Dangmor, Narh, Asare and Doku, and sentenced to 
death. Some European officials with Hausa soldiers 
brought the culprits back to Krobo and erected a scaffold 
at Somanya, Yilo Krobo, and before the Head Chiefs 
and the sub-chiefs, men and womtl\, Dangmor and hiS 
companions were ha~ged, in order to avoid the 
continuation of such crimes. 
In the same year the Krobos, who had been <;>0 their 
mountain home for hundreds of years, were notified by 
Governor W. B. Griffith to abandon it. The Krobos at 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 17 
first took it for a joke; yet they strongly determined to 
fight against any power on earth that would make the 
attempt. 
In the midst of this crisis King Sakitey expired 
from old age and heart failure. 
He was brave and fearless, fond of juju, in which 
he had a strong belief. 
CHAPTER XXI. 
KONOR EMMANUEL MATE KOLE. 
On the death of King Sakitey Prince Akute was 
proclaimed King, according to the arrangement made 
before the late King ascended to the stool. All the 
Krobos were glad to have Akute as their ruler during 
this crucial time, for he was brave and a clever leader 
in fight, and also the rightful heir. 
A meeting was held and a plan to defend their 
mountain home was made by him. 
During this time Mr. Peter N yako, the younger 
brother of the late King, had formed a rival party 
against the enstoolment of King Akute. This party was 
secretly supported by Chief Thomas Odonkor of 
Kpong. They selected Mr. Emmanuel Mate Kole, 
the son of Mr. Peter Nyako, who was then a teacher 
in the Basel Mission School at Ada, to be made King. 
This party again hired the most learned men in Accra. 
namely Mr. Edmund Bannerman, the barrister, and 
,. Sir James" Buckle, who put all their statements into 
wntmg. 
The Basel Missionaries residing at Odumase during 
this time also were pleased to have a Christian King who 
would not like that unnecessary war which the Krobos 
were every day preparing, to defend their mountain 
home and their fetish customs· The discontent of the 
people led to seditious riot in Krobo. Governor Sir 
W. Brandford Griffith, K.C.K.G., with "a his Hausa 
18 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
force, sufficient ammunitions, Maxim gun, and seven-
pounder guns came to Krobo in the 3rd week in July. 
A grand meeting was held on the 24th July, 1892, and 
after a long discussion the Governor gave hi!!' decision 
in favour of Mr. P. Nyako's party. A blank shell from 
the· seven-pounder gun was fired among the poor inna-
cent crowd which dispersed them. 
Mate Kole was made king on the same day by the 
Governor after he had sworn to take Odumase for his 
capital town instead of the mountain home, and also 
to abolish Nadu Fetish, Kotoklo Fetish and even 
Dipo-the female training institution. 
One Osiekutse K waoyo, whose father's name was 
Katsi, an Ayigbe man, and his mother's name was 
Mamie Kperkperter, a Krobo woman, falsely swore that 
he was a son of Odonkor fuu and therefore was allowed 
by the Governor to place Mate Kale on the stool. 
Soldiers and officers were sent to the Krobo mountain 
and the inhabitants were driven away and the fetish 
houses demolished. Old and feeble were carried in 
hammocks by their own people down the mountain to 
their respective country homes. 
The Shais, finding their allied Krobos driven from 
their beloved home without a shot, followed their 
example; and thus the famous homes of defence were 
evacuateii. 
In the year 1895 war broke out between the English 
Government and the Ashantis. Konor Emmanuel 
Mate Kole was asked by the Government to join this 
expedition. He therefore collected 300 men under 
him and marched away with them to the war. They 
reached Kumasi on the 18th January, 1896, without a 
fight; and on the 20th, Prempe the King of Kumasi, the 
Queen Mother, the King's father, his two uncles, his 
brother, the two war chiefs and the Kings of Mampong, 
Ejisu and Ofinsu were taken prisoners. 
Konor Mate Kole and his army returned to Krobo 
in the latter part of January. A grand reception WQS 
given them on their arrival. On the next day, a meeting 
was held in which the Konor related to his people their 
war ad,.enture through his Chief Linguist, Tete Amlalo. 
4DANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 19 
• CHAPTER XXII . 
THE VILO KROBO STOOL 
Formerly the whole of Krobo-Eastern and Western 
as we see them now-was under one King of the Eastern 
Krobo who ruled from the N oiyo on the East to the 
foot of the Akwapem hills on the West; and again from 
Yogaga on the North to Asabi Stream or Akoledor on 
the South. 
About the year '739 the tribe of Ogome in Yilo 
murdered an Accra man called Tetetsuru of Kinka, who 
had brought his wares to Krobo for sale. The relatives 
of this man came to Krobo in search of their brother 
but he was nowhere to be found. The Accras did not 
give up the search, for almost every month they fervently 
sent to Krobo to inquire after their lost brother. 
Now after some time, the murderers, thinking that 
their crime had been perpetually concealed, took out the 
wares of the murdered man to share amongst themselves. 
A certain girl happened to see them and related the 
whole secret to her grandmother. As a matter of fact, 
the grandmother also went boldly to the then king and 
prosecuted the murderers, who were accordingly 
arrested. 
The Accras were invited to Krobo and after a long 
. discussion peace was concluded on the terms that seven 
murderers should be given to the Accras to be slain for 
the soul of the murdered Tetetsuru. 
After this incident, the whole of Krobo as one body 
held a conference in which the agendum was " The 
necessity of giving the Yilo Krobo a Chief to supervise 
them ." This agendum was cheerfully seconded by 
many of the elders, and all of them agreed to select the 
chief from the relatives oJ the woman who reported the 
crime to the King and who also prosecuted the 
criminals. 
20 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
A young man by name Saki, a grandson of the 
prosecutrix, from the Ogome tribe, was cho!en and 
enstooled under the title of Akro Saki. He was 
~mpowered to suppress the outrages and depredations 
committed by the Western Krobos. , 
One day Akro Saki went to see his relative the Chief 
of Akwerno who was then very old and void of 
perception. The former entreated the latter to place 
him on the Akwerno stool-a performance which he 
thought would give him some supernatural power to rule 
the people of the Western Krobo. The old Chief 
consented and the deed was done between them 
privately. In this way Akro Saki got to know this parti-
cular stool from the others and also the place of its con-
cealment. One day the stool was missing and after dili-
gent search it was found in the hands of Akro Saki in 
Western Krobo, who promised to send it back with 
necessary gift to redress the wrongs he had done to the 
stool-which is considered as a fetish. 
Years passed away with no sign of any fulfilment 
of this promise. Now in the reign of Ozeno, when 
Odonkor Azu was acting, the question about 
this stool was raised bv Muela Okumsono The case 
was brought to Odonkor Azu to settle, who after deep 
consideration made a new stool for the Akwerno tribe 
in lieu of the stolen one. Although the old stool's case 
was decided in this way, yet the Ogome tribe had no 
right to enstool any person by themselves. 
In the reign of King Odonkor Azu, Chief Akro Saki 
expired and Odikro alias Adawara succeeded him. 
This new chief had not sufficient money to hold up his 
chieftainship, he therefore asked monetary help from 
Ologo Patu of Nvewe-Sra tribe, who unhesitatingly 
lent him a certain amount of money. They then 
became tight friends. Ologo Patu, who had purposed 
to usurp the chieftainship from his friend, willingly 
advanced him more money. 
On one occasion when there was war between the 
Krobos and the Akwapems Chief Adawara became hard 
up again and to get money to defray his expen~es 
promised his chieftainship to Ologo Patu, who gave hIm 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 21 
all he wanted. Chief Odikro Adawara was unable to 
pay back all he had taken from Ologo Patu until his 
death. 
After his death Ologo Patu mace himself Chief of 
W.estern Krobo. A dissension then arose between the 
family of the late chief and Ologo Patu. The former 
claiming his right given him from Eastern Krobo and 
the latter his right by the money he had lent to Adawara. 
From that time two rival parties began to rule in Western 
Krobo. One from Akro Saki's family and the other 
from Ologo Patu's family. 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
AKWERNOR SUOTENY A STOOL. 
The Dorm Akwernor (Suotenya) tribe came from 
Akem. Ba Asare their Chief brought them to Krobo. 
It was said that there broke out a quarrel between 
this chief and the Paramount Chief of Akem, and the 
former noticing his life to be in danger, deserted his 
fatherland with his family and also some few of his 
faithful subjects to find a substantial refuge in a safe 
place. They reached Krobo about the year 1719 and 
gave themselves up to the Krobo for protection as we 
have seen in Chapter V. B. 2. 
Not long after their reception a sister of Ba Asare 
their chief slew a Kroboman called Abaya when she 
was out of her temper. This wicked action of course 
did not at all please the Krobos, yet tbe humble inter-
cession displayed by this noble chief quelled the 
revengeful wrath of the blood-thirsty Krobos. 
Now Ba Asare, in order to prove his loyalty and 
faithfulness to his benefactors, gave one of his sisters 
and two maid servants to one Djebiam prince to marry 
all the three together. He again allowed Kofi Asare, 
who was the son of his own slave, to marry his own 
• • 
• 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
daughter. Such actions caused Ba Asare and his people 
to be loved and honoured more by the Krobos. Again 
their ways and manners of attending their Chief at home 
or in any assemblage pleased the Krobos and therefore 
were not abolished but rather adopted. 
• 
Ba Asare made a garden on the Krobo mountain 
which was named" Konor Piem " which means Chief's 
garden. This garden afterwards became a little cottage, 
and in this cottage he died. His remains were interred 
in a cave at a place called Akweryi on the Krobo 
mountain. Through intermarriage the name" Asare " 
became common in Krobo. One of Ba Asare's grand-
sons was named " M uela " by his mother. Literally 
the word Muela is equal to "Mue no ela" which 
means: who is the owner of this bead? 
Her meaning in giving the boy this name was that a 
child as a present is worth more than costly beads. 
When this boy attained manhood, he became a hunter 
and luckily one day he killed an elephant. 
This feat caused him to get the title of Okumsono, 
a Twi word which means an elephant killer. 
He afterwards succeeded his grandfather under the 
title of Muela Okumsono. 
Another daughter of Ba Asare, married a certain 
nobleman of Manya Lomodje Krobo tribe. Although 
they lived as a happy couple, yet their great misfortune 
was the death of their children in their infancy which 
cast a shadow upon their happiness. 
On one occasion a female child was delivered, and 
as the parents were naturally despairing they namt'rl, 
her" Dale" which is equal to Edawole, meaning' ,he 
has simply come to tease us in order to know us and then 
to return". Luckily this girl survived and was mar· 
ried by Batsa K wate and became the mother of KinO' 
Odonkor Azu. " 
In later days there arose a civil quarrel in this Dorm 
tribe and one Asare Donkor Labor, a relative of Muela 
Okumsono, separated himself from the children of 
Muela Okumsono and formed his own chiefdom known 
in Krobo now as Asare Donkor of Akwenor. - • 
ADANGllE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 23 
\ 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
THE OLD NADU FETISH OF KROSO. 
The word Nadu is an old Adangbe word meaning 
• an elephant. This fetish found its origin from the 
Gberse tribe now known in Accra as Gbese, part of the 
tribe known in Krobo as Kplelii. This Gbese tribe 
stayed In Krobo after the "'-ccras had left the Krobos 
When the Gbese tribe of Accra were leaving Krobo 
they left this fetish in the hands of their brothers the 
Kple tribe. The latter fearing to take this juju up to 
the top of the Krobo mountain left it at the foot of it at 
a place called Kpatii, because human sacrifice was given 
to this fetish yearly. 
Now one day a Krobo boy of about six years old was 
missing; a careful search was made to no effect. About 
four days after, the mother of this boy saw a group of 
vultures on the top of a silk-cotton tree standing near 
KpatIi; she therefore asked her husband to make a 
search that way. The dead body was found under the 
silk cotton tree with neither head, heart nor intestines. 
Tracing further these were found in the Nadu fetish pot 
belonging to the Kplelii. They were charged with 
this crime. The case was brought before the elders 
of Krobo who unanimously agreed to kill all the males 
of the Kple people and capture all females and chil-
dren. The criminals explained that they did not know 
that the boy was a Krobo boy, as he was not circum-
cised. Again N adu fetish is a war fetish and could 
fight all their battles for them. Moreover it hates all the 
uncircumcised nations. The Krobos, who were then 
the bitter enemies of the uncircumcised nations, were 
easily satisfied and the charge was abandoned. A 
proviso was then made that this juju must be brought 
to the top of the mountain and be placed in the hands 
the elders. Again priests for this juju should be 
selected from Dsebiam, Dorm and Akwernor tribes. 
Thus Nadu became universal Juju in Krobo. The 
Nadu pnest and his Labias or servants are to give 
yearly human sacnfice to th.s fetIsh. The best sacrifice 
is a man or a boy who is not circumcised. This offering 
-
24 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
must be brought alive to the fetish house and there be 
slain, and the blood, brains, heart and intestines are 
put into the pot where the juju is supposed to live_ 
The fetish Priest used to tell the public that the 
very person who had been killed last year would come. 
back alive again this year and be killed. When the 
time for celebrating the yearly festival of this famous 
fetish had come, the fetish priest would give a decree 
as follows;-
I. No Krobo man is allowed to travel within 
these four weeks. 
2. No Krobo man is allowed to roam about in 
neighbouring woods. 
Now after the decree the elected servants of the 
fetish would be busy lying in ambush along all the 
main roads in order to find an offering for the fetish. 
If they could not succeed in this way, then they would 
go to the neighbourhood of the uncircumcised nation, 
where they would venture so far as to hide behind their 
latrines or water supply until they would succeed. 
During this road closing period, the following song 
would be sung ;-
Okone fo ta SI ,.  w~ mMo-Akro-w~io 
English; Death has felled a palm tree, Krobo natio" 
will dance their country dance. 
Now four weeks after the decree the roads will be 
opened, provided they had succeeded in getting tho 
offering. The public are infonned in this way. 
Okone gu tii nQ dii pe mUQ-KlegbOgl;o. 
English Death has passed over the fallen palm tree, 
therefore the wine has turned in to blood 
and brains. 
After this a Sunday would be fixed for the 
celebration. On this day all the people gather up at a 
market place called Dorm-mano on the Krobo mountain 
and there they will dance. The N adu priest dresses 
with a long cloth around his waist and a spear in his 
hands. The second priest or Labia covers his head 
(ADANGBE) ADANGME HISTORY (CONCLUDED.) 25 
with the skin of a black monkey with the tail hanging 
behind his head, and on the top of his head a pair of 
ram's horns are fixed up. In his hands you will see 
several human jaws strung on a rope; and also 'that 
he has painted his face with some black paint, and 
his mouth is red from chewing of kola nuts. The 
assistant priests whose duty it is to bring a human 
sacrifice to the fetish, behave quite gentle and calm on 
this day for they hold no weapon in their hands but a 
short forked stick like the handle of the native hoe; with 
this they dance, and while dancing they point the sticks 
in the direction of an enemy's country and then pretend 
to be hoeing; a gesture sufficient to explain that they 
would treat their enemies as a farmer does to the weeds 
on his farm. 
The other essential thing, which every young or old 
man is required to show on this day, is a human skull. 
A man dancing without a skull in his hands is laughed 
at by the women spectators. They also drink their 
palm-wine from the skulls. 
Two small drums called Okrema are beaten to stir 
the dancers. Everybody when dancing, motions to 
show the way and manner he took to get the skull in his 
hands. 
Some sitting down, others kneeling, whilst others 
standing. The celebration goes on from morning till 
evening the whole Sunday, until the last song would 
be sung as follows:-
I. Siamu ye (me) obee yo! Siamu yoobe yoyo! 
English: We awaited you (the enemies) yet you 'did 
not come! 
K~k~ yo, k~k~ Akoto yo gbo 
K~k~ yo, K~k~ Dako yo gbo, 
K~k~ yo, Keke Osei yo gbo, 
Ny. hUQ me o! Ho 0 5. 
English: We wish that Akoto of Akwamu be dead. 
We ",ish that Dako of Akwapem be dead. 
We wish that Osei of Ashanti be dead. 
Hoot at them, Hoo-o-o. 
26 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
The Krobos have a great respect for this fetish and 
even call it the first son of God; their belief is so 
strong in it that they would not go to any war without 
receiving a sign of success from it. The sign is 
obtained in this way. The priest and his assistant~ 
would go into the fetish hut and blow a kind of whistle 
covered with the skin of iguana, then they would pour 
down some drink and call the name of the fetish, the 
drums would be taken out and singing and dancing com-
menced; in the midst of tbis, when a whirlwind is seen, 
then the sign has come and all would shout out; 
Anyenmle! Anyenmle! meaning, Whirlwind I' 
Whirlwind! 
It is said that when the Krobos were fighting their 
enemies, this fetish used to reveal itself and be seen as a 
human being, and that it would fight and lead them as 
a general would do to his army. 
It is also said that rain falls during the celebration or 
a few hours after it. 
Here are the titles of N adu : 
I. Akwetsetsebi-Akwetse: 
English: Son of father boa. 
2. Sumui Sikpe. English: The heavy lead that keep. 
one to stand still. 
3. Okpa-yege. 
English: Thou who pushest one to fall headlong. 
4. Tesa no pie. 
English: A fence on the rock. 
5. Gegle-bu. 
English: A huge thing. 
6. Dsetinme. 
English: Thou who resemblest a bride. 
7. Ahue leke anyewe. 
English: A thing that can never be carried successfully 
between two. 
8. Anyenmle. 
English: Whirlwind. 
9. Pupu J Nmanma J 
English: Silence. 
10. Apuni nya. 
English: Well fennented palm wine. 
II. Sokosoko, mi Suwe. • 
English: A jumping buck in the bush. 
AOANGBE (AOANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDEO) 27 
THE OLD FETISH KOTOKLO OF KROBO. 
The Fetish" Kotoklo .. formerly belonged to the 
people of Shai. It was brought to Krobo by a certain 
woman called Nokwo of Yilo Nyewe Krobo, who 
married the Kotoklo fetish priest of Shai. It was said 
that during the time the Las with the combined armies 
of Akwamu and Akem declared war against the Shais, 
through the instigation of the Las, the people of Shai 
despatched their wives and children to take refuge in 
Krobo. Nokwo's husband also gave this fetish to his 
wife to be kept in Krobo, with the intention of getting it 
back after the war is over; but the Shai King and some 
of his people, including the Kotoklo priest, recrossed 
the Volta and built a town called Segodse near Abobo in 
Lome. 
N ow Madam N okwo, who was afraid that this fetish 
would kill her, for she could not give the annual human 
sacrifice to it, revealed the whole secret to her brother 
who further on was frightened and therefore handed th~ 
juju to the elders of Krobo. The woman related the 
method of its formality but could not sing out the songs 
dedicated to it. After a long cogitation, the elders 
came to one accord that the old Dsebiam Fetish N a 
songs might be given to Kotoklo for fear that the former 
would be jealous. In this way Kotoklo got her place 
among the Krobo fetishes. All the ways and require-
ments for Kotoklo are just the same as Nadu. Madam 
Nokwo was appointed priestess for this fetish. 
During the yearly celebration she used to dress in a 
white robe and sit on a high rock at N yewe Mano on the 
Krobo mountain and thence give a solo, while the 
dancers with skulls and weapons in their hands below 
would join in the chorus. 
In the olden days, as a custom, the priest of Nadu 
had to have his head cut off when dead and kept in the 
fetish hut, while the trunk was thrown away or buried 
WIth 110 honours. Now in later days in view of this 
treatment the female sex refused the office of being 
pnestess to Kotoklo and thus the chalice fell into the 
hands of the other sex, who were willing to be treated as 
the Nadu priest after their death. 
28 I BR COLD COAST REVIEW 
THE DIPO CUSTOM . 
. The Dipo custom is an institution where girls are 
tramed for the purpose of becoming good housekeepers, 
Wives, mothers, and also priestesses for the use of the 
general public. Again different trades such as pottery, 
mat! basket and purse weaving formed the compulsory 
subjects taught in this institution. An old priestess is 
selected to be the manager; and the mistresses are 
selected from women who are over forty years and have 
stopped their menses. 
The teachers take great care about the moral lives of 
their pupils; and have many anecdotes and songs to 
teach them how dangerous it is to play with the other 
sex. Although the students are not boarded, yet each 
family has a special loft where the Dipo girls are kept 
in the evening after they have been numbered and then 
the ladder is removed from the wall only to be replaced 
in the morning. 
The other sex would surely prowl about to hear their 
sweet voices, but all in vain like the fox and the cock 
on the top of the tree. 
Before a girl enters into this Institution her parents 
present her with a nice fatted, castrated goat, which 
would be killed and the fat inside is carefully removed 
and placed upon the head of the girl as a veil, and then 
she is marched to a certain rock called Tekpete on the 
Krobo Hill; here on this rock the bare buttock is set 
three times by the priestess as an entrance ceremony. 
The most abominable and disgraceful thing is that 
a girl under such training should conceive. Such a 
crime does not only bring calamity upon the female and 
the male, but extends to the parents of both parties, who 
are to pay something to the fetish priest for purification 
of their household. 
The male is sometimes sold away ana his head 
money is divided to defray the expense thus incurre~i. 
The female also is driven away to find a new home \D 
ADANGBE (ADANGME) HISTORY (CONCLUDED). 29 
any other country. The course of training lasts 
according to the length of the purse of the parents or 
that of the future husband. 
The first examination is taken in sweeping and 
the successful candidates are rewarded with some cuts 
on the back of both thumbs, and the scars are left there 
as an everlasting certificate. The second examination is 
taken in dancing and singing of the historical songs 
called Klama. The best successful candidates are 
chosen for the priesthood. 
N ow the third term is that all candidates who have 
emerged from their teens shall have some cuts on their 
stomachs and waist to show that they have passed under 
this training. 
During the course of training the students are 
marked with some black paint on their heads and a hat 
to cover the same. \ 
Now a 'day called " Vifomi", which means hair-
washing, is fixed for all candidates whose parents are 
ready or willing to remove them from institution. 
On this day they are allowed to wash the black paint 
from their hairs and dress nicely, then they are marched 
to the market place to dance before the public. 
After this they are declared fitted for marriage. 
This institution was firmly confirmed and carefully 
reorganised by a certain woman called Domeyo Gbema 
who came to Krobo with the Dome or Susui tribe. 
She taught the people that any woman who has haa 
some casual knowledge of a man before marrying 
another will never be a satisfactory wife to her husband. 
This pleased the elders and a band of men known as 
,. Dsemielii ", which means hunters of the worldly 
affairs, was formed to look into these matters. 
This organisation was considered to please a fetish 
known in Kroho as "Kroweki." 
30 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
• 
THE KROBO MOUNTAIN. 
• 
Behold! What do you see 
When looking down the plain? 
Dwellers of Bana" see! , 
A crouching lion mountain 
With an open'd mouth you see, 
Defying climbers for gain, 
Foes from North, South, East and West 
Akro and his only I keep. 
Foes of old who disturbed their rest 
Thousands lie buried in the steep. 
But our fathers' faults of old 
Children of now do weep! 
, Amend! Bana! Amend 
Those faults, we cry, Amend! 
ENOCH AZD . 
• 
• 
• Bana is the hill on which stand'S the Basel (now Scottis.1.) 
lV1.ission Station.-Ed. 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY 31 
. DIARY OF AN OVEnUND JOUnNEY FnOM LOnHA, 
NOnTHEnN TEnnITOnlES, GOLD COAST, TO 
DAKAR, SENEGAL, AUGUST 2nd TO 
SEPTEMBEn 26tb, 1919-CoDcluded. 
By A. DUNCAN JOHNSTONE, 
GOLD COAST POLITICAL SERVICE. 
(Contillued from Page 293, of Vol. fff. No.2.) 
Aug. 25th. Tiekongoga. 
Marched 19 miles to·day . On getting on to the 
main road this morning we found the tracks of a pony 
and trap.and were told that a European N .e.0., bound 
for Gaoua, had driven past during the night. 
A quarter of a mile out of N iena the road ran for 
half a mile over a well built causeway through wide 
marshes, which were alive with wild duck. 
Had a shot with my mauser right into the brown at 
150 yards and, lucky shot, got two duck, a welcome 
addition to our larder. 
After 12 miles the marshy country was left behind 
and we entered a hilly ironstone country, lightly wooded. 
The road is in very good! order for the time of year, 
and touches of civilisation were added by the motor 
signs at the dangerous hills and corners. 
After 18 miles we arrived at the Bagoe river, a 
tributary of the Bani which flows into the Niger . It is 
about 200 yards wide and we crossed on a large pontoon, 
which held all the carriers and the four ponies. 
There are now hardly any villages on the banks of 
this river, as the tsetse fly is very bad, and sleeping 
sickness has wiped out the inhabitants. This is the 
boundary between Sikasso and Bougouni. 
Tiekongoga lies a mile back from the river, and i. 
a large scattered Bambara village . 
32 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
The rest house is a miserable place, and very filthy. 
Although the chief had been warned of our arrival 
he had not attempted to clean it nor had he any food 
ready. 
He said! that his people would not obey him, arrd 
that there was no food. Eventually an old soldier 
turned up and with his assistance we got one hut cleaned 
and some food for the carriers. I think that the latter 
are the worst gang I have had so far, being very weak 
or very lazy, and at every village I have had to pay for 
half a dozen extra men in spite of the fact that the chop 
boxes keep getting lighter and lighter. 
Am reduced to a few plates and a tin mug, every-
thing else being smashed. This afternoon eight men 
came in with the mail for Sikasso and Bobo Dioulasso. 
Aug. 26th. Kottmantott. 
Met another stream of permissionnaires on the 
road to-day. Meant to stop at Kokouna at I9t miles 
but found the place choc a bloc with permissionnaires 
who like locusts had devoured everything in the village. 
So we went on another 4t miles up a long hill to 
Koumantou. However the view from there was worth 
the extra 4t miles. 
This evening all the women of the village arrayea 
in white came out, and went through some kind of 
ceremonial dance under a baobab tree. It was an 
invocation to the village fetish for a good harvest. 
Aug. 27th. Sirakoro. 
Another long march of 24t miles to-day. The 
town is walled and built in a swamp, where one is 
tormented by sand flies and mosquitoes. Some of the 
young men of the village came and danced this evening. 
Amongst the Bambaras, the youths from fourteen 
to the age of seventeen or eighteen wear a leather 
garment like a hunters shirt, sewn with beads, while 
their hair is parted like a woman's into little plaits and 
hung with charms. 
OIA RY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 33 
They have a sort of secret language and speak in 
high unnatural falsetto voices, amongst themselves, 
passing their time with dancing and buffoonery, until 
they come to man'S estate . 
• The Bambaras are a taJl vigorous race, with long 
heads, strong jaws, and regular but hard features . 
The women who frequently tattoo their lips blue, 
have a very complicated coiffure, wearing the hair in 
the form of a crest with plaits of hair each side of the 
head in which are tied charms. The Bambaras are 
pagans, but men and women affect the Moslem style of 
dress. 
The men, who make exceJlent soldiers, are amongst 
the most ancient aJlies of the French in their conquest 
of the Sudan and form the backbone of the Senegalese 
regIments. 
Aug. 28th. Bougouni. 
Was told that we would have difficulty in crossing 
the Baninfing river near Oure about 13 miles on the 
way, as the bridge was covered, and! a woman crossing 
to Oure market yesterday had been swept off and 
drowned . On arrival found that the bridge, a weJl 
constructed P. W. D. trestle bridge of wood, from 60 
to 70 yards in length, was covered knee deep by the 
swirling water. Had some difficulty in getting the 
horses across, as the planks were very slippery . The 
crossing took some time and by the time aJl the carriers 
were across the sun was high in the heavens, so we 
decided to halt at Oure about I ~ miles further on the 
road. 
Left Oure at 3 p.m . and continued to Bougouni 
another I31 miles. Riding ahead of the carriers I got 
to the banks of the Baoule river, another tributary of the 
Bani, flowing swiftly between grassy banks and about 
ISO yards wide. Could see the Bougouni scarp, about 
a mile or so away, rising straight up to the height of 520 
feet with the station perched on top of it. As I crossed 
on the pontoon, six o'clock was being struck on a deep 
melodious-toned bell in the station. The old man who 
worked the pontoon told me that he received 50 centimes 
34 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
a oay ano had been at his job for ten years without a rise. 
Arrived in the post of Bougouni at 6-30 p.m., after 8 
stiff climb up the tortuous road leading up the scarp. 
Was met at top by M. Hauet the resident, who showed 
me my quarters. Got in just in time to escape the 
tornado, but my kit not arriving until 7-30 p.m. WQS 
soaked. Dined this evening with the Resident and his 
wife, and spent a pleasant evening. It is nice to meet 
a white woman again. The Residency is a fine building 
after the Moorish style, with a flat roof from which one 
gets a magnificent view of the surrounding country. 
The only other Europeans in the station are M. 
De1mouly, the Postmaster, and his wife. M. 
Hauet told me he was so short·handed, being 
without his pre-war staff of Assistant Resident, 
European Clerk, and Treasurer, that he had been 
unable to travel for months and feared that all the 
rest houses were in very bad condition. He asked me 
if I had had any trouble with the permissionnaires, and 
I told him that they had eaten up nearly all the food in 
the villages en route. He said that many of them had 
been absolutely ruined by their experiences in France 
and were quite out of hand; that only a few weeks 
before he.,JJad seen a permissionnare trying to force a 
woman in Bougouni market to sell him a fowl at one 
quarter of the proper price. The man finally pushed 
the woman over and took the fowl. When M. Hauet 
interfered, the permissionnare turned round and told 
him to go away, giving him a blow on the chest. He 
is now in prison charged with assault. This incident 
only bears out what I have heard and' seen of the 
conduct of these men, who to sum up the situation 
" can't carry corn". 
Aug. 29th. 
Rested here to·day and had a look at the station, 
which is very well kept and laid out. Being up on top 
of the scarp, the air is always comparatively fresh and 
cool, and there are very few mosquitoes. M. Hauet 
is very keen on training oxen and has about a oozen in 
his stables, which do all the work in the station. 
When on tour he has all his kit in bullock wagons, a 
most comfortable method of travelling. The native 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 35 
town of Bougouni, down below the scarp, is not large, 
having only about 1200 inhabitants, Bambaras. There 
is, however a continual stream of traders coming through 
the town, for roads come into Bougouni from Sikasso, 
Odienne in the Ivory coast, Bamako in the north and 
K'ankan in French Guinea. There is one European 
trader in the town, who goes in for farming also and has 
built himself a very fine house. 
Apropos of our habit of wearing shorts and the 
French native soldiers' inability to understand this 
custom, at dinner this evening M. Hauet related an 
amusing episode which occurred when he was Resident 
at Faranah on the frontier of Sierra Leone. Colonel, 
then Captain, Heywood, came through the post on his 
way home on leave via French territory. Walking on 
ahead of his carriers, clad only in very skimpy shorts, 
a bush shirt open at the neck, and no putties on, after 
the Sierra Leone fashion, a rifle on his shoulder and 
very tanned in the face, he walked on to the verandah 
where Madame Hauet was sitting. As he was about 
to make himself known, the French orderly on duty, 
never having seen such a kit before, took him for a 
Syrian trader and rushing up to him pushed him off the 
verandah. 
Short march to-day, only IO! miles. This makes 
our mileage 42Si miles, only 100 miles more to 
Bamako. The journey through thick bush would have 
been uninteresting had it not been for the continual 
stream of traffic on the road. Herdsmen coming sOllth 
with cattle and sheep, traders with hides and salt, while 
innumerable carriers and donkeys accompanied us north 
with loads of kola, rubber and cloths. 
Aug. 31st. Sido. 
Met three Europeans on the road this morning 
driving in a four-wheeled trap. The party consisted 
of an officer of the 2nd. Senegalese going down to relieve 
Captain Figuret at Huende and a European Clerk and 
his wife, bound for Bougouni to gladden the heart of 
the overworked M. Hauet. Further along the road 
we met five wagons pulled by two horses each, contain-
ing the baggage. Wonder if we could dQ this with 
• 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
bullocks in the Northern Territories, if so it would be 
a great improvement on carriers. Sido is rather a 
miserable place and the rest house, as usual, is unclean, 
and situated near a piece of stagnant water. A party of 
permissionnaires were occupying the resthouse, but when 
an old one-legged soldier, who lived in the village, came 
up and ordered them out they went like sheep. He was 
wearing a string of medals, including the Croix de 
Guerre, which he won at Gallipoli. He said that he 
had hadl twenty years' service and had very little use 
for the recruits of 1917-18, who had seen no service and 
had come back from France with swollen heads. 
The old time tirailleur Senegalais is indeed a very 
fine specimen, very different to the modern types I have 
met on the road. 
There are only three rest houses here, which are 
occupied respectively by myself, the staff and loads, 
the escort and carriers. This afternoon during a 
tornado a Djollof clerk arrived with his family, and 
ordered my orderly and boys to clear out of their house 
and let him in. Told him to share it with them or go 
to the village. He departed, grousing, in a very bad 
humour. It is extraordinary how everyone is allowed 
to make free with the rest-houses, the authorities 
apparently not even drawing the line at horses, donkeys 
and cattle coming into the compounds . 
Sept. 1st. K eleya. 
20i miles to-day. The carriers from Bougoum 
are the best I have had so far. Amongst them are some 
Bambara Fulani who wear their hair in plaits like 
women. 
The scenery is now most uninteresting, being all 
thick scrub. At intervals on the road we passed small 
neatly fenced rubber plantations. Now going North 
by West. 
Sept. 2nd. Karako. 
Very long march to-day of 32 miles. Started very 
early in the morning. Passed four villages on the way, 
but all the rest houses were in such a bad leaky state 
that I did not like to stop in them. Two of the villages 
.. route were very large ones, with loopholed walls, still 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JD URNEY . 
39 
in good repair. The rest house here is nothing bu 
collectIOn of hovels and there is very little food in tf, 
village. This place also possesses a ghost who lives 
in a hut behind the rest house. This evening the same 
hideous wailing commenced and the bush became alive 
with people rushing home from their farms to the village, 
the small boys driving in the cattle at a hand gallop . 
Sept. 3rd. Senou. 
Good rest house here and, for a wonder, quite 
clean; huilt on a hill. Large walled village, with the 
walls still in good condition, a relic of Samori's days . 
We get in to Bamako tomorrow; thank goodness for the 
rest . of the journey we will not have to bother about 
earners. 
Sept. 4th. Bamako. 
A march of 8! miles down hill most of the way 
brought us to Niger river, and ended our march of 5251 
JI1iles . On the way we met a military convoy conveying 
specie down to Bougouni. The specie was in two 
wagons, each pulled by four oxen and followed by a 
mounted escort . When within half a mile of the river 
we could make out the tall masts of the wireless station 
on tbe further bank. The Niger is nearly half a mile 
wide, presenting an animated scene with its blue waters 
laden with ferry boats, sailing canoes coming from 
French Guinea, and both banks crowded with passen-
gers waiting to cross . On the further side we could see 
the town of Bamako stretching down to the river, the 
sameness of its mud architecture broken by the various 
white European huildings rising everywhere above the 
native houses, with the Government station on the top 
of Koulouba hill towering over the town, the whole 
backed by a range of mountains. I was met at the ferry 
by a sergeant of gardes de cercle sent by the Admini-
strateur-Maire of Bamako. He got one of the sailing 
ferry boats or chalands, in which my orderly and I 
embarked, leaving the carriers to cross by another ferry 
boat. The crew of the boat, consisting of five men, 
one steering and four pulling, drove the boat up stream 
for four or five hundred yards, then hoisting the big lug 
sail did a long leg across to the Bamako landing stage, 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
, here M, Touponnet, the Administrateur-Maire, and 
PM. Maurel the Chef du Cabinet, were awaiting me. 
Getting into the latter's car, we drove up the broad 
avenue, lined with shady trees which led up from the 
quay to the town, past a teeming market to the railway 
hotel. M. Maurel offered me a house up at KouloulJa 
but I preferred to stay at the hotel. Koulouba is some 
distance away, and it is a business getting there and back 
unless one has a car. The hotel, which looks on to the 
station platform, is a two-storied building of iron, I was 
given a very nice bedroom with electric light and an 
electric fan, What luxury! Soon after my arrival I 
received a visit from the Administrateur of the Bamako 
district, a monsieur Roberty, who spoke very fluent 
English with a strong North British accent, his mother 
having been a Scotswoman, We adjourned to the Cafe 
• downstairs where he produced a bottle of whisky, and I 
had the first iced drink for over two years. Presently 
the loads arrived in a motor lorry, on top of which were 
perched my staff all looking rather nervous and 
bewildered after their first motor ride. One boy is very 
nervous of the trains, and cannot make out the electric 
light or fan, Have received an invitation to dine with 
the Governor this evening up at Koulouba. 
Sept. 5th. Bamako. 
The capital of the French Sudan is situated on the 
Niger and lies about 1590 feet above sea level. The 
old Capital was at Kayes on the Senegal river, only 120 
feet above sea level, and very hot. The seat of 
Government was transferred to Bamako in 1908, wbere 
the climate is much better. Bamako is divided into 
three distinct towns, The old town on the plain bord , r-
ing on the Niger containing the commercial houses, 
local government offices, railway depot, schools and 
P.W.D, Koulouba hill, which rises sheer out of the 
plain behind Bamako to a height of 520 feet, is a 
Government reservation containing the palace of the 
Governor, Secretariat, Treasury and houses of the 
various European officials employed at Koulouba. As 
the crow flies the plateau is only It miles from Bamako, 
but the ascent has to be made by a road which zigzags 
up the mountain side and lengthens the journey to about 
DIARY OF AN OVER LAND JOUR~EY . 39 
3 miles. There is a motor bus service up and down, 
but the majority of officials on the occasion of their rare 
visits to Bamako drive up and down in pony traps. 
There is talk of building a funicular railway to connect 
the two places. The third town is that of Kati, about 
5' miles to the north of Bamako, where the 2nd. 
Senegalese have their headquarters. It is connected 
with Bamako both by rail and by road. 
The native population of Bamako numbers about 
10,000, and the Europeans about 520, leaving out the 
floating European population at Kati. 
Dined with the Governor, M. Olivier, last night. 
A car came for me at 7 p.m. and took me up to 
Koulouba in ten minutes. The road up the hill-side 
was lit all the way by arc lamps, and looking back from 
the top the effect of the long line of lights winding down 
the hill-side until they merged into the twinkling lights 
of the town, was very pretty. The dinner was more or 
less a family party, as M. Olivier only arrived to take up 
his duties a week ago. It consisted of the Governor 
and his wife, the Colonial Secretary M. Terrasson, 
Lieutenant Ravoux, directeur du bureau militaire, 
M. Maurel, chef du cabinet, and Madame Maure!' 
Government house IS a magnificent building with a flat 
roof, built almost overhanging a precipice. Inside it 
is particularly handsome, with polished parquet floors 
and wainscotted walls. I was told that special work-
men had been brought from France to fit up the place. 
M. Olivier has his little son aged five with him. The 
latter was born at Dakar. Took an early departure 
and felt very cold when I got out-side, as it is almost 
subtropical on the plateau and very cold at night. 
Got back to the hotel at I I p.m. to find the garden lit 
by an arc lamp, full of people sitting at little tables, 
sipping iced beer, while close by an open-air Cinema 
performance was in progress. What a contrast it is 
for me after all these years in the bush. 
This morning I paid an official call at Koulouba and 
had a chat with M. Olivier. He asked me if I would 
like a trip to Timbuctoo, but I was reluctantly obliged 
to refuse, as this would mean missing the mail boat down 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
the Senegal river to St. Louis and might delay me 
indefinitely. M. Olivier told me that the provinces of 
Gaoua, Ouagadougou, Fadan Gurma and Bobo Diou 
Lasso were now no longer under his direction, but had 
been formed into a new colony known as the Haute 
Volta Colony with Ouagadougou as its capital. lie 
spoke about the different systems employed by the 
British and French in their government of the natives 
and said that I must have seen a good many things 
which perhaps surprised me. The French, he said, by 
direct government, and a broad and enterprising educa-
tion policy, aimed at making the native into a good 
citizen and their colonies into departments of France, 
as had already been done in Algeria and Senegal. The 
French native chiefs generally have not the powers 
that ours have, and their position in many cases corres-
ponds to that of the mayor of a town. He added, 
however, that he very much admired our system of 
administration and thought that it would be an excellent 
thing if every year an exchange of political officials 
could be made between the two countries for the purpose 
of instruction and education. 
After leaving Government House M. Maurel took me 
out on the terrace overhanging the mountain, from 
where one has a magnificent view of the Niger valley, 
with the town of Bamako below, a mass of houses, 
native and European, huddled up together, there being 
no attempt at segregation. All the houses in Koulouba 
have electric light and are cooled by electric fans. 
There is also water laid on, which is pumped up from 
the Niger to a water tower on a hill to the left and 
slightly above Koulouba. 
Sept. 6th. 
Have arranged to sell two of my ponies, all three 
of whom arrived in excellent condition, as hard as nails. 
They are stabled near the ':lative prison, a small st~ne 
building, surrounded by a high wall, about half the size 
of the Coomassie prison. Quite near the stables is 
another low stone building, with small barred windows 
and a tin roof. It looks like a magazine or store, but 
my orderly tells me it is the European prison and that 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 41 
there are five Europeans in it at present, who have heen 
there for two years. If that is SO, I wonder they are 
not dead. Don't believe it. Yet it turns out to be 
true; three Commissioners and two military officers. 
The orderly is much admired here by everyone, 
• and in his turnout, bearing, and general smartness he 
forms a great contrast to the slouching, untidy looking 
tirailleurs and gardes de cercle. 
The hotel I am in is exceedingly cool and comfor-
table, good feeding and every possible luxury, very 
pleasant after the bush. 
But here is a funny thing and where the French 
are so extraordinary :-there is only one convenience for 
the whole of the hotel guests and the native staff, indeed 
for anyone who likes to use it, and no one seems to 
think anything of it. 
The town of Bamako is itself extremely insanitary, 
and there are no latrines for the natives, who are permit-
ted to go where they like. I wonder how it escapes 
epidemics. 
This afternoon two officers came in from Kati and 
asked if I would! come and stay with them on my way 
to Kayes. 
Sept. 7th. 
Attended the annual Sunday auction in the market, 
and I had my shabby old kit put up for auction, realising 
{,8 for it. Every Sunday morning anyone who has 
anything to sell brings it along to the auction, which is 
the rendezvous for all the people of Bamako, black and 
white, who seek to be entertained. The market, a very 
large one, presented a most animated spectacle, and 
one saw natives from all over the Sudan. Tall 
Bambaras, their relatives the Malinkes, Soninkes, 
Sarakoles, and Markas, fanatical Moslems from the I 
north country bordering on the Sahara, Moors from the 
Sahel, Arabs, white-skinned Touaregs from Timbuctoo, 
the lower part of their faces covered with the blue 
" litham ". Toucouleurs, and Fulanis of Peuls as the 
French call them Wandering through the market I 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
came upon a little group of Hausa traders and had a 
"bukh" with them. After the auction rode up to 
Koulouba, where I arranged with M. Maurel about the 
sale of my ponies. He is buying two of them at £,10 
each for the use of the officials at Koulouba. My ponies 
look very small compared with the horses one sees here, 
but are in fine fettle. There are three types of horses 
here. The tall Macina horses running to about 15 to 16 
hands, showy, but with little stamina, the small, 
stocky, Segou ponies, most hardy and enduring, and the 
Arab ponies, about 13 hands and very fast. 
Have been invited to an official dinner at Govern-
ment House tonight. 
Sept. 8th. 
Dined at Government House last night, where I 
met the new Governor of the Hautevolta Colony and 
his staff. He is leaving for Ouagadougou in about a 
month's time. 
The journey, which will be done by motor car, will 
take four days, halting at Bouguni, Sikasso, Bobo 
Dioulasso, andl from there straight to the new capital 
Ouagadougou. The new Governor is married and has 
his wife and two little girls aged seven and eight years 
with him. They, however, are going to remain in 
Bamako until the new houses at Ouagadougou are ready. 
I hear that the five French officers, two military and 
three political, have just been acquitted in the courts here 
after having been three years in prison in Bamako await-
ing trial. They were accused by a Moshi interpreter of 
taking measures of undue severity in putting down the 
revolt of 1916, when undoubtedly many officials lost 
their heads. They have been kept for three years in 
the little native building which serves as a prison here, 
and have had to go into hospital on several occasions. 
Seems a curious way to treat Europeans in such a 
climate, and I wonder that they are still alive. The 
case collapsed I believe for want of proper evidence. 
Called on the Administrateur Maire, M. Touponnet, 
this morning to get my passport viseed. Was received 
by a charming flapper, his secretary, the daughter of 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY' 43 
the ~ommandant of police. There are a good many 
French women, wives and daughters of officials, 
employed in the various Government departments, who 
can thus supplement the somewhat meagre pay of their 
menfolk . 
• Sept. 12th. Kati. 
Bade good-bye to all my kind friends here and rode 
over the hills to Kati where I have been asked to stay 
with the officers of the 2nd. Senegalese. Was sorry 
to leave Bamako with its broad shady streets and fine 
buildings, where I had been so hospitably entertained. 
Sept. 13th. Kati. 
This is the Headquarter of the 2nd. Senegalese, 
and there are at present about 4,000 men here. Everv 
officer has his own bungalow, situated in a flowery 
compound, and there is no mess. In the evening every-
one meets at the " Cercie," a fine building on a terrace 
overlooking the Kati valley, and sips aperitifs until 
7-30, when it is time to go home. 
Rode round the station this morning with the 
captaine majeur, Captain Royer and Major Leroi, my 
hosts. There is very little work going on at present and 
nearly all the men are on leave. Every day large 
drafts of permissionnaires arrive from France and hand 
in their kit before going on leave to their homes in the 
Sudan. 
About fifty bullocks are slaughtered daily for 
consumption by the troops, who are rationed by the 
Government. The general discipline seemed to be a 
bit slack, and my hosts commenting on this said that it 
coul'd not be helped until things had become 
normal again. That when the recruiting campaign was 
in progress Clemenceau was reported to have said: 
.. Get the men and give them anything they want, as 
long as you get them, after the war we can re-conquer 
the Sudan, if it takes us ten years." Judging by the 
demeanour and behaviour of the permissionnaires 
I have seen, there will be trouble with them unless they 
are checked and kept in order. I 
44 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
Sold my remaining pony to Captain Royer for 1)0. 
Sept. 14th. Kayes, Sunday. 
Left Kati at half past six this morning. Captain 
Royer and Major Leroi saw me off. Nearly missed the 
train as one is not allowed on to the platform without a 
ticket, and the ticket window was besieged by :; 
struggling mass of permissionnaires all bound for 
Bamako. On the platform was another seething mass 
of people and I had some difficulty in collecting my kit 
which had been dumped there the night previous. 
There were no porters or station officials to be seen, so 
I dashed some of the permissionnaires to put my kit in 
when the train arrived. The train which consisted of 
four light coaches was divided up into compartments 
as in Europe and was crowded with passengers, 
European and African. Most of the latter were 
children returning from their holidays at Bamako to the 
convent school at Kayes. They overflowed into the 
first class carriages and became a nuisance towards the 
end of the long journey. 
Ascending the Kati valley through which the 
Farako, amidst the tufted palm trees, rushes down, 
in a series of cascades to the Niger, we came out into 
the open country, thick scrub and rather uninteresting. 
There was a dining car on the train with a tiny kitchen 
at one end, insufferably hot and stuffy. One had to 
hold the plates with one hand, as the train rocked 
and bumped along. All things considered, however, 
lunch was quite a creditable meal, although the fasti-
dious French styled it " un coup de Fusil." Arrived 
at Kita the headquarters of a Cercle, in the afternoon. 
The character of the country had been gradually chang-
ing and getting more sandy; there were few trees and 
masses of bare gigantic rocks piled up here and there 
in the most fantastic shapes. The coun~ry is very 
sparsely populated and teems with big game including 
giraffe. At Kita our carriage was invaded by passen-
gers irrespective of class, one of whom, a blind Toucou-
leur mall am, sat on the floor and intoned prayers con-
tinously all the way to Medina where he alighted. A 
French officer shrugged his shoulders and remarked! phi-
losophically. "It is the new order of things since we 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 45 
have had 'Les Electeurs' ". So we left the mallam in 
possession and retired to the dining car, where I passed 
the time until dinner, drinking iced beer and teaching 
three French officers to play whisky poker. At nine 
o'clock a blaze of lights indicated our approach to 
Kayes and soon aferwards we stopped at Kayes 
Plateau, where the Government station is, then running 
on down hill through the town lit up by arc lamps, we 
reached Kayes station on the banks of the Senegal. 
The station is a closed one with well-built offices, a book-
ing hall, electric lighting and the last touch of 
civilisation-a ticket collector on the barrier. Five 
minutes' walk brought us to the hotel, and half an hour 
later I was in bed in a stuffy bedroom furnished in 
typical French style; indeed had it not been for the 
intense heat and the mosquito net, one might have 
imagined oneself in any little third-rate hotel in France. 
Sept. IS-18th. /{ayes. 
Four very boring days kicking one's heels here 
until the boat arrived from St. Louis, with nothing to 
do but walk down to the muddy banks of the Senegal, 
and in the evening sit in the Cafe . Kayes has a 
population of about 15,000, including 250 Europeans, 
mosty traders. The town is divided into two parts, 
Kayes Plateau and Kayes Ville, about a mile and a 
half apart; the former inhabited by the official element 
who live in large well-constructed houses, with water 
laid on and electric light. Many of the houses are 
now empty, as most of the officials who used to be here 
have been transferred to Bamako, Kayes Ville lies right 
on the bank of the Senegal and is insufiderably hot. 
It is well laid out after the manner of a little French 
provincial town with its large market square surrounded 
by the European trading establishments, its Church 
and Jardins Publiques. The bulk of the native 
popufation is Toucouleur. a mixed race left by the 
Peuls when they emigrated from Senegal to the 
Soudan. Speakmg the Fulah ·tongue and fanatical 
Moslems, the were amongst the most 
bitter and of the French. when under 
General the country. There 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
are also a number of Djollofs, with a sprinkling of 
Moors from the right bank of the Senegal. 
This hotel run by a Mulatto, all of whose time 
seems to be taken up by cards and his many wives, is 
most uncomfortable. The living rooms form three 
sides of a courtyard, the fourth side being occupied by 
the bathroom, kitchen and lavatory, which latter as 
usual was free to all. The rooms are stifling and there 
are thousands of flies. This morning, the 18th 
September, the Bam arrived. Amongst the passengers 
to land were a party of Nuns bound for Ouagadougou, 
some journey. Hear that the hotels of St. Louis and 
Dakar are crowded out with people who have been 
waiting months for a boat to France. 
Sept. 19th.-21St. 5.5. Bani, Senegal River. 
The "Bani" left Kayes on the afternoon of the 
19th. after much delay and waddled off down stream 
with two huge barges laden with ground nuts lashed one 
on each side of her. She is a small screw steamer 
commanded by a Djollof and belongs to the Messageries 
Africaines. The journey is 370 miles, takes four days, 
and a first class ticket costs {,6. We have on board 
about a hundred European passengers, first and 
second class, including several ladies and two or three 
hundred native passengers packed like herrings between 
decks. The first class passengers were berthed on 
the upper deck, four in a cabin, so small that only 
one person could undress in it at a time. There was 
no lighting or ventilating fan and the cabins opened 
straight on to the deck. Both night and dav they 
were insufferably hot inside, and the bedding was so 
filthy-" infecte" as the French say-that we all 
decided to camp outside under the awning. The only 
washing arrangements consisted of a diminu.tive 
tin basin, but I managed to bathe !D the early mormngs 
by retiring behind the after deck house and getting 
a boy to throw a bucket of water over me. The 
only two conveniences were on the lower deck 
surrounded by a seething mass of deck passengers, 
who used them at will. However, the feeding is 
wonderfully good and there is plenty of ice on board. 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY . 47 
The banks of the Senegal are flat and very uninterest-
ing, the country on either side being a sandy waste 
covered with sparse low scrub. 
The only breaks in the monotony are the occasional 
fishing villages, from which crowds of small boys come 
swimming out to meet us in search of bakshish. Here 
and there on the right bank in Mauretania one sees the 
camps of nomad Peuls and Moors with vast herds of 
grazing cattle. The Peuls or Fulahs in this country 
are very light coloured or tawny, and their women 
tattoo the lips blue. Amongst the deck passengers 
are several Moors with their women, the latter enveloped 
from head to foot in blue cloths which allow only the 
top part of the face to show. 
We stopped this evening at a place called! Podor 
and dropped the Resident who was on board. It was 
a desolate place on a sandbank in the middle of the 
river, consisting of one street containing a few 
European stores, with a barracks at one end and' the 
Resident's house at the other end . It is reputed to be 
the hottest place in Africa; it certainly looks one of the 
most desolate-the French call it " Hell on earth." 
The Resident's two daughters, aged 17 and 18, came 
off to meet him, accompanied by two other ladies. It 
was curious to see smartly dressed women in this 
inhospitable spot, I wonder what sort of a life they lead 
here. The French women are wonderful, they seem 
able to go and to live anywhere, are always cheerful 
and look as though they come out of a band-box. 
Sept. 22nd. Saint Louis. 
The Senegal river flows N. W. as far as Podor 
where it turns West for a distance of 27 miles, after 
which it bends South and' on nearing St. Louis flows 
almost parallel with the sea from which it is only 
separated by a narrow tongue of sand. We sighted 
St. Louis at mid-day. On approaching one has an 
impression of the Orient as one notices the mass of 
solid old-fashioned houses flanked by a larg-e mosque 
at one end, and the cathedral and castle at the 
other, showing white against a background of blue sky, 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
blue water, golden sand, and green tufted palm trees. 
On landing this impression is heightened as one walks 
through the narrow streets by tall white houses with their 
balconies and green shutters, and over all there broods 
an air of dolce jar niente, for St. Louis-scene of Pierre 
Loti's Romance of a Spahi-is a dead city, its former 
glory and importance having departed. 
St. Louis, the capital of Senegal and former 
Captain of French West Africa, was built in 1659, and 
stands on an island near the mouth of the Senegal river. 
It is connected with the mainland on each side by swing 
bridges. On the right is the pont Servatius leading 
to the narrow peninsula of sand known as "la langue 
de Barbarie", where the Governor of Mauretania 
lives. On the left is the fine "pont Faidherbe," 
connecting St. Louis with its suburb, the isle de Sohr, 
in which are situated the terminus of the Dakar railway, 
and the week-end bungalows of the residents of St. 
Louis. Only steamers of shallow draught can cross 
over the bar at the mouth of the river, which shifts 
frequently, and the former maritime trade of St. Louis 
has gone to Dakar. The wharfs and quays are empty, 
save for a few river craft alongside. The town has a 
population of 22,270, of whom 890 are Europeans. 
The streets are narrOW and the houses built close 
together, with jutting out balconies and high wooden 
shutters. The natives occupy many of the old Euro-
pean houses, and European and native live alongside 
each other, in some cases in the same building, the 
Europeans occupying the upper storey and the natives 
the ground floor. There is no system of sanitation, and 
the sewage is dumped into the river by the natives 
every evening. At night the streets are alive with 
innumerable land crabs, scuttling all over the place, 
the unofficial scavengers of St. Louis. The place must 
be very unhealthy, and indeed the plague is on here 
at present, and there is a sanitary cordon round the 
town. 
This evening I went and sat outside the little cafe 
on the plage of "la langue de Barbarie" and revelled 
in the cool breeze from the Atlantic watching a number 
of French children digging and playing on the sands. 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 49 
About twenty paces from the cafe stood a sentry on 
cordon duty to keep one from leaving the town. The 
mortality amongst the natives has been heavy, but no one 
seems very perturbed, the plague being a frequent visitor 
here. 
Sept. 23rd. St. Louis. 
Went to the M.O.H's ollice to get a pass to leave 
St. Louis. Was told by a clerk that I couldn't 
get one for several days and would have to be inoculated 
first. However, by means of "Ie systeme 0" he 
promised to get me a pass to go to-morrow. Spent a 
sleepless night, too hot to sleep. Have a room at the 
cafe Dupitt which is built over the kitchen, and is dark 
and dingy. It was the only room left so I had to take 
it and be thankful. Spent the morning exploring the 
town, and saw a troop of Spahis out exercising, fine 
looking men, well mounted on Arab ponies. The 
garrison here consists of a detachment of gunners, a 
battalion of Infanterie Coloniale, and a regiment of 
Spahis. 
Visited the market, a huge covered-in building, 
badly in need of repairs. There are also separate 
markets for meat and fish. 
I saw a number of Sierra Leone mammies 
in the market, who had come to sell kola. The Oriental 
atmosphere of St. Louis is further heightened by the 
dress of its inhabitants, the bulk of whom are Moslems, 
and by the sight of the desert Moors, swarthy shock-
headed men coming in with their camels to market. 
I noticed a number of very fair skinned, almost white 
men, with European features, dressed in short baggy 
trousers reaching to the knee, spotless white shirts, 
little zouave jackets and tarbushes. These were 
Moorish traders from Fez, and they appeared to be an 
entirely different race from the nomad Moors of the 
desert. 
The hub of St. Louis is the big square in front of 
the old fort, now the residence of the Governor of 
Senegal. On each side stand large stone buildings 
the European N.C.O's quarters and the ollicers' club, 
~o THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
while in the middle is a statue to General Faiherbe, the 
conqueror of the French Sudan. Here the residents, 
European and native, gather in the evening when the 
band plays, before repairing to their favourite cafes and 
hotels, of which there is no lack in St. Louis. 
Sept. 26th. Dakar. 
Got my pass last night and arrived here to-day 
after a railway journey of 200 miles. Hear that the 
Appam is coming in on Sunday. 
Sept. 28th. 
Left Dakar for home on board the S.S. Appam, 
after a sojourn of two years and nine months in Africa. 
OBSERVATIONS ON JOURNEY. 
Distance .-The total distance from Lorha to 
Dakar was 1455! miles, of which I travelled 525! miles 
on horseback, 570 miles by rail, and 360 miles by water. 
The journey from Lorha to Bamako occupied 
thirty-five days, and the remainder twenty days owing 
to my having to wait for a boat down the Senegal river. 
Roads.-The road from Diebougou to Bamako 
was most excellent. The bridges are well constructed 
and, with the exception of those over the larger rivers, 
are made by unskilled local labour. Over an the 
swamps are well built causeways. 
The journey from Bamako to Diebougou by motor-
car now takes four days, but can be done in three, and 
the road is always open to motor traffic except in the 
height of the wet season. 
Transport.-The local transport between Diebou-
gou, Sikasso and Bamako is stin chiefly done by head 
loads, although these are gradually being reduced in 
favour of pack oxen, wagons pulled by horses and oxen, 
and by the increasing motor traffic. The native traders 
use donkeys and! pack oxen. An ox can do from 27 to 
30 miles to a carrier's 18 to 20 miles, and is cheaper 
in the long run. The pay of a carrier is I fr. per day. 
In all the large towns horses can be hired by the 
travelIer from I. So to 2. So fr. per 'diem. Nearly all 
the French officials possess pony-carts in which they 
travel, and bullock wagons for the transport of kit. 
-
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 51 
At Ouagadougou the Administrateur has a Govern-
ment car, and the journey hy car from there to Bamako 
can now be done in four days. 
Rest-houses.-The French rest-houses everywhere 
en route were most inferior to ours. They were 
built, with a few exceptions, far too close to villages, 
were badly situated, generally near a swamp or stream, 
and badly planned. They are free to all, and in a filthy 
state, as the native trader cooks his food inside the rest-
huts, and herds his cattle, donkeys or horses into the 
compound. 
The French political officers hardly ever travel, it 
seems, and when they do, they do not seem to mind 
where they stay, saying philosophically, "c'est la 
brousse. " 
As for the other European travellers from Bamako, 
now that there is motor transport they do not stop at the 
small rest-houses en route, but halt only in the big 
stations; and so the rest-house is neglected, save for 
the casual traveller and the native trader. 
In the large centres such as Bamako, Kayes, St. 
Louis and Dakar there are no rest houses, and the 
official traveller has to stay at a hotel, unless he has 
friends to entertain him. 
ECONOMIC RESOURCES. 
The principal Imports into Haut Senegal are as 
follows :-
By the Senegal river.-Cloths, tinned! foods, sea 
salt, and European foodstuffs. 
From the Sahara.-Cattle, rock salt. 
From the South.-Kola. 
EXPORTS. 
By the Senegal river.-Ground-nuts, rubber, gold, 
gum, butter, wool, skins. 
To Guinea by rail from Kouroussa.-Rubber, 
skins, etc. 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
To Ivory Coast & Gold Coast.-Cattle, sheep, 
goats, horses, donkeys, native cloths, rock salt. 
The principal centres of commerce are-Kayes, 
Bamako, Sikasso, Bobo Dioulasso, Bougouni, Mopti, 
and Ouagadougou. 
Gold is found at Gaoua, Bobo Dioulasso and 
Bougouni . 
There is also a Company working the Faleme river 
which runs into the Senegal at Bakel. 
INDUSTRIES DIRECTED BY 
EUROPEANS. 
Lime Kilns .-At Toukoto on the Bamako Kayes 
railway. 
Electric Light.-Companies at Bamako and Kayes . 
Ice.-Ice plants at Kayes, Bamako andl Koulikoro. 
Cotton.-A new venture to grow cotton has been 
started at Mopti on the Niger. 
Rubber.-There are plantations all along the road 
from Bobo Dioulasso to Bamako and schools to teach 
the natives the cultivation of rubber. 
Cultivation.-Sikasso is 'the chi~f centre of 
cultivation, where corn, maize, millet, ground nuts, 
cassava, tobacco and fonio (semolina) are grown . 
Bamako is the centre for the shea-butter trade and the 
neighbourhood is rich in shea-butter trees . 
RAILWAYS AND RIVER TRANSPORT. 
At present the journey from Dakar to Bamako is • 
made by rail to St. Louis, boat to Kayes, and rail to 
Bamako. The Senegal river is only navigable by 
steamer in the dry season as far as Podor near St. Louis, 
and from there to Kayes the journey has to be made by 
chaland's or barges, which sail, or are poled or toweCl. 
The journey takes from IS to 20 days. 
From Kayes to St. Louis the river Clescends in a 
succession of reaches, separated by sand bars and rocks. 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 53 
In the wet seaSOn during the months of August 
and September the river is navigable by big steamers 
from Bordeaux, which ascend as far as Kayes, and 
the revictualling of the Sudan has to be effected during 
these two months. 
The Kayes railway COmmences at Ambidedi, a 
small port on the Senegal 33 miles South of Kayes, and 
runs to Koulikoro on the Niger, 43 miles north of 
Bamako, from whence the steamers start for Mopti and 
Timbuctoo. 
NEW RAILWAYS. 
A new line is being constructed from Thies on 
the Dakar,-St. Louis railway to Ambidedi on the 
Kayes railway. The line is within a hundred miles 
or so of Ambidedi . 
In the dry season there is a passenger service by 
motor car from Ambidedi to railhead and the journe, 
from Bamako to Dakar can be done in two days . When 
the railway is finished the journey from Bamako to 
Dakar will he done all the way by rail, and will take 
about two days, and a traveller from Ouagadougou 
will be able to reach Dakar by motor-car and rail with-
in a week. 
Projected Raz'lways.-I understand that thf' 
following railways are proposed! for the near future ;-
HAUT SENEGAL. 
Mopti to Ouagadougou . 
IVORY COAST. 
Continuation of Bingerville railway to Diebougou 
Koury on the Volta and Ouagadougou . 
FRENCH GUINEA. 
Continuation of Conakry-Kouroussa railway to 
Bougouni and Bamako . 
GOVERNMENT STATIONS AND TOWNS. 
The majority of the French stations in the bush 
are well laid out, possess more character and seem 
more permanent than our bush stations. 
54 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
Of course, the French official has to do a tour of 
from 24 to 30 months in normal times, is encouraged 
to bring out his wife, and to make himself as comfortable 
as possible. 
In towns such as Bamako there are numbers of 
European women and children, who appear to stand the 
climate very well. 
That there is hardly any attempt at segregation, and 
sanitation does not exist, seems to trouble no one, and 
the average French official thinks that we tre far too fusy 
and fastidious. 
NOTE ON THE TUAREGS. 
The Tuaregs are now quieter and appear to be 
settling down. There is a very little desert trade now-
adays, as the bulk of the trade now goes to the Atlantic 
coast, and there are consequently no rich caravans to 
pillage as formerly. The Tuaregs are the pick of the 
races of the Soudan and it is said became nomads 
and brigands from necessity and not by instinct. 
With the modification of economic conditions a 
number are returning to the semi-agricultural, semi. 
pastoral life led by their ancestors in the North 
and which is still led by their cousins of the Algerian 
and Moroccan Atlas range. They are not very 
strict Moslems except in certain Marabout families. 
They are characterised by a spirit of independence and 
pride which is legendary. Mostly monogamous, they 
show a great deference for their women folk who occupy 
an important position socially. The earliest ancestors 
of the Soudan Tuaregs were said to have been Christains 
and it was not for some centuries later that they embraced 
Islam. In support of this it is noteworthy that on all 
their shields, saddles, sword hilts and decorations, is 
seen the sign of the cross. The women are not veiled, 
but every male goes veiled, and it is said that his best 
friend would not recognise him if he appeared without it. 
Tradition gives the origin of the wearing of the veil by 
the men as follows. The Tuaregs suffered defeat at 
the hands of their enemies, I do not know whether Moor, 
fulani or Arab, and fled from the field without making 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEY. 55 
a stand. On arrival at the first Tuareg village the I 
leaders in the rout met a young Tuareg girl going with 
her pitcher to the well. On asking them for news, she 
found out that they were flying from the victorious 
enemy. Taking off her veil she handed it to the leader, 
telling him to put it on while she went to raise the women I 
to make a stand. Shamed by this the leading Tuaregs 
turned about, rallied the fugitives and won a glorious 
victory . 
From that day the men have worn the veil in order 
to commemorate this, and the women have gone 
unveiled. So says the story, but probably the desert 
with its frequent sand-storms had a good deal to do with 
this custom of covering the mouth. The Tuareg 
disdains to use firearms and fights with lance and 
dagger. In his wars against French with their 
Aeroplanes and Machine Guns he is therefore very 
much handicapped. He must either settle down or it 
will mean race suicide. The Tuaregs are found along 
the Niger and in the following places: 
Zone Saharienne. 
Tombouktou. 
Dori (Haute Volta) 
Hambori. 
Niafunki. 
Territoire Militaire. 
POLICY. 
The French favour the system of direct rule as 
opposed to our system of indirect administration. 
Whereas we believe in the development of the 
native by the native, along the lines of his own thought, 
customs and traditions, under the helping hand of the 
Government, the French system is exactly the opposite. 
A French Commissioner frequently deals directly 
with the people, and in many cases hears complaints 
and tries cases that in British territory would be heard 
by a native court, thereby having double the work his 
British confrere has to do. 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
By aealing direct with the people, by rei::lucing the 
power of the chiefs until they are but little more than 
the. mayors of their villages, and by educating the 
Afncan, the French hope eventually to turn him into a 
French citizen. 
Already the people of Senegal, which is now a 
department of France, possess the vote and send a 
deputy to France. 
The administrative work is centralised as much 
as possible and there are few one-man stations, such 
as those in the Northern Territories andl Ashanti. Of 
course, with good roads and motor transport this is 
possible, and life is infinitely more pleasant for the 
political officer. The French officials, however, appear 
to travel but little, and it is to be doubted whether 
they are in such close touch with the native as our 
officers are, nor are they, I think, as sympathetic 
with native ideas and points of view. Again, in many 
cases they do not preserve their dignity in dealing with 
the people, being apt to be too familiar at one moment 
and too harsh at the next, and the people are quick to 
take advantage. 
As my Senegalese boy said to me: " Je  suis un bon 
citoyen de france." 
He has a vote and believes in the French motto 
" Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite." Aa M. Olivier said 
to me at Bamako, where he explained the French 
methods of Government: "You must have seen 
many things that have surprised you but we are aimin". 
at making this country a part of France and turmng • 
the native into a good Frenchman. At present he IS 
learning. Direct or indirect administration, there is 
good in both, it is too early to say which Will be the most 
successful. Qui vivra vel'ra." 
In conclusion, I wish to put on record the unvary-
ing courtesy and hospitality which I received fro~ 0e 
officials of Haut Senegal, and which put the fimshlng 
touches to a pelightful and intensely interesting journey. 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE. 57 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODE~N MEDICINE. 
By G. F. T. SAUNDERS, B.A., M.B., B.CH., B.A.O. 
(DUBLIN), WEST AFRICAN MEDICAL STAFF. 
When Bowdich undertook his mission to Ashanti 
in 1816 he was instructed to bring with him a large 
quantity of dressings and drugs in order that by treating 
some sick cases the confidence of the people might be 
gained. The Report of the Surgeon attached to his 
mission shows that in many cases the friendship of 
influential Chiefs was gained. To-day, the most 
important article of equipment in any medical research 
expedition is undoubtedly a syringe and a little of one of 
those drugs which clear up yaws . 1 his effect of the in-
jection is almost immediate, and is apparent tothewhole 
community; and the hearty co-operation of the Chiefs 
and people is gained for whatever investigation is in 
progress. 
There are, however, many points in the native 
attitude to scientific medicine that seem strange at first 
to the European--<Jr at least to a member of one of the 
more highly developed European Communities. The 
strangeness is more apparent than real; a very 
moderate acuteness of observation and a very moderate 
profundity of psychological analysis will serve to display 
the ultimate identity of mental processes through the 
human race and the point where divergence took place. 
Medicine intrudes itself into the daily life to a greater 
extent, perhaps, than any other of the new foreign 
forces acting in Africa. The motor-car, the train, 
the telegraph, and the increased spending power that 
these things beget and betoken leave the African with 
much the same essentials of home life, of diet, of 
fundamental ideas. Religion would seem to exert a 
more disruptive force, but here the subtle effects of 
psychological sublimation have full play; the sub-
consciousness of the African will not readily resign the 
58 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
plurality of his gods and his wives; Friday and Ramadan 
are mere interludes in the old routine; and Mecca and 
Stamboul, the prophets and Caliphs, Haroun al Raschid 
and Saladin, take a curiously African shape in the 
mouth of an African narrator. Nor is this phenomen-
on of the survival of the old in the deeper strata of the 
soul confined to Africa, nor indeed to recently converted 
communities. A day's journey from Paris the sacred 
fires of Baal are still kindled at midsummer; a few hours 
from Dublin the ember from the domestic hearth of 
Dana is carried round the fields to secure their fertility; 
and the great twin brethern of classical paganism still 
visit the Italian fisherman under the thin disguise 
of an orthodox saint. But medicine admits of no 
subterfuges and few sublimations. Even in health, 
medicine interferes with the building, the food, the 
drinking water, the market; it interferes rudely with 
the old routine of birth and burial; and regulates in 
very minute detail the entire life of the sick man. 
To many unsophisticated natives the entire activities 
of the sanitary side and much of the activities of the 
medical side are simply sheer incomprehensible 
cussedness. These are the respectable residue which 
occur in every nation, to whom everything new and 
everything foreign are anathema ; all their pre-judgments 
are prejudices; and their function in the psychology of 
the mass is that of ballast, which, however useful it may 
be, is entirely devoid of the fascinating interest of a 
mind open to new impressions. 
To understand the attitude of the more open-mind-
ed native to modern medicine, one must first consider 
the preliminary conceptions of his mind, that mass of 
pre-judgments which constitutes for him "common- • 
sense", and which, like all other masses of common-
sense, is composed of an odd conglomeration of 
truisms and fallacies, of manipulative knacks and of 
muddled metaphysics, of sound reasoning and of gross 
absurdities. And in its ultimate analysis, this group of 
conceptions will be found to consist of elements which 
are abundantly present in the childhood of every 
individual and of every race, and which can be revived 
in many of us up to adult age. Thus, the intuition of 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE. 59 
primitive animism is never far from many of us. Some 
few, indeed, there are, of a higher mystical cast of mind, 
who see always unity in diversity and to whom the 
woodlands and waterfalls recall the Supreme. But in 
many Europeans (at least of Keltic race) the polytheis-
tic instinct is not quite dormant. And here one feels 
the inadequacy of language to voice the content of that 
instinctive recognition of the spirit that inhabits natural 
objects. One can recognize the conception in artists' 
representations of dryads and naiads, of the sidhe of the 
grassy plains and the trolls of the mountains, of the 
cold beautiful icemaiden and the foul fiend of the stag-
nant pool. But still one realises how inadequate is 
the representation. For in some subtle, inexplicable, 
and wholly irrational way, the Spirit of the thing is the 
thing, yet is somewhat akin to the Spirit of man, so 
that one is forced to visualise it with something of human 
shape. Here one finds that CornIe's classification of 
the stages of mental development breaks down; for the 
primitive mind is not wholly anthropomorphic; the 
uncouth savage would fully appreciate the classical 
example of Comte's second stage, of the medical 
Student who explained the action of opium by saying 
that it had a " dormitive virtue" ; yet that virtue would 
be half visualised in his mind; he has never asked him-
self whether the " virtue" is a visible thing, or some 
undefined invisible essence. Whenever we polythe-
ists try to visualise these things, we always leave an 
unpersonified residue. Behind the clearly defined 
deities of Olympus or Walhalla there stand vaguely 
conceived shadowy powers feared by the gods them-
selves; there are secret powers in names and into-
nations which are unvisualisable; and even among the 
strict monotheists of the Talmud one guesses that the 
Tetragrammaton was almost as powerful as the Diety 
whose secret name it represents. Strictly analogous 
to this is the native conception of disease. As clear 
and definite as the Greek conception of the sun-god 
whose arrows cause epidemic disease of men and 
animals is the description given of the Thing of the 
Forest, the Hunter whose invisible arrows manifest 
themselves as the pustules of anthrax. Here we have 
• 
60 THE GOLD COASTIREVIEW 
at first sight an anthropomorphism complete in its 
pictorial detail, and complete in its explanation of the 
phenomena. But if one has the medicine of the hunter, 
one cannot only cure his wounds but one can see him; 
his supernatural power is subject to the control of 
something beyond, which is not at all, or very imperfectly 
visualised. There is a similar double conception in the 
myth of the Tall woman who causes infantile paralysis. 
The more primitive view visualises her as drinking up 
the juices of the shrunken limb; even the enlightened 
malam to whom the Tall woman is a myth,-will say 
•• paralysis has drunk up his leg." But another account 
rejects the simple visualisation, and represents her as 
injuring the fruit of trees, which, being eaten, causes 
the paralysis in some more obscure manner. 
Akin to the conception of disease is the conception 
of medicine. There is no attempt to reduce the action 
of drugs to mechanical or even to chemical processes. 
A medicine is a medicine; it acts because of its inherent 
.. virtue." It follows from this that the most absurd 
instructions are mingled with the salutary rules 
governing many systems of treatment. The patient 
undergoing the .. Mekyea" treatment for yaws is 
isolated lest he should see a pregnant woman, which 
would spoil the medicine. This is accepted as quite 
as reasonable as the rule enjoining starvation before 
administration of a worm medicine. As in mediaeval 
Europe, the therapeutic aspect of medicine is only a 
part of a larger system involving the use of drugs in 
religion and in magic. 
On this basis the technique of native medicine was 
founded. There was definitely a technique, though it 
had never got near to the higher stage of a Science. 
It seems to have been rigidly traditional; and, owing to 
bad business methods, both the number of pupils and 
the number of patients were very small. I have heard 
nothing of hospital system though the Mekyea treatment 
for yaws and the sleeping sickness centres in Dagomba 
and in the Ivory Coast seem to have contained 
the germ of such a system. On the arrival of the phy-
sician at the patient's house he first proceeded with a 
simple examination. The patient probable described 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE. 61 
only his leading symptoms; indeed, among the Brongs 
the patient simply gave the diagnosis and the physcian 
neither questioned nor examined. Among Hausas, 
Fantis, and Ewes the physical examination consisted 
only in inspection and palpation. Inspection seems to 
have been directed to the state of nutrition, the colour of 
the whites of the eyes and of the face, and the state of 
the breasts in women. Palpation was restricted to the 
trunk; I am uncertain to what points attention was 
directed, except that the pleural friction, a well marked 
sign which occurs in the early stage of pleurisy, was 
known to some. The discharges were not examined 
unless reported to be abnormal. On the completion 
of the examination, the physician pronounced his 
diagnosis, distinguishing the primary disease and its 
complications, and naming the prices for the various 
specific drugs for each condition. A certain amount of 
time is spent in bargaining (except, I am informed, 
among the Ewe); the fee is not named in cash alone, 
but certain amounts of various goods must be supplied 
also. At the conclusion of this intellectual exercise the 
physician begins his treatment, but the regimen of diet 
or bathing, which may perhaps be the essential factor, 
is understood to be subordinate to the power of the drugs 
he is employing. 
On this background the picture of modern mei:licine 
is shown. And the first thing that is obvious about it 
is that it is usually practised by a European. To the 
bush native the European is a queer, incomprehensible 
creature. He is obviously a man; but his actions are not 
the actions of reasonable or respectable men. He has 
something of a monkey's ingenuity, something of a 
monkey's irrational curiousity, and much of a monkey's 
purposeless mischievousness. He is grossly immoral 
and indecent from whatever native code he be judged. 
Added to this there is the complicating factor of his 
undoubted and obvious power. The evidences of 
European science, which seem so obvious, are quite 
lost on the native. False teeth, or a binocular micro-
scope, or a conjuring trick, are certainly miracles. 
But a miracle among them "loses its name and its 
since it can scarcely be considered as a 'deviation 
62 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
from the ordinary and established laws of nature." 
An Irish rustic, who was asked by Yates if he had ever 
seen a fairy, replied, " why, I am pestered with them" 
So, the Dagomba people are pestered with the old 
women in hyena form; poisons which act at a distance 
are in frequent, almost in habitual use; and the native 
C.LD. use dowsing as a routine method. It is, 
therefore, only to be expected that Europeans will have 
some magic of their own, but it does not follow that it is 
more wonderful than the home product. Mechanical 
devices like motor cars are not considered wonderful 
at all; their marvellous complexity has quite escaped the 
native. An intelligent schoolboy, able to speak 
English well, asked me once, " Can you make motor 
cars?" I was obliged to admit that I could not. "But 
they are made in your town; if they were made in my 
town, I would go and see and be able to make one my-
self" ;-as he had seen swish houses, and calabashes, 
and cloth, made in his own town. 
In Europe, undesirable aliens are seldom employed 
as reputable family physicians, but are often consulted 
as quacks. And here it is the same. As a rule, in 
serious acute illness the native methods are relied on. 
But in minor or chronic matters, it may be rumoured 
that a certain foreign quack has a medicine for that 
particular illness. Or he may be credited even with 
the possession of a panacea for all minor complaints. 
In the strict sense of the word, he is never consulted. 
The patient comes to buy a certain medicine, or, more 
frequently, for an injection. He would expect his own 
physician to give him directions as to a regimen to be 
followed. But from the foreign quack be buys the • 
medicine and some friend who has had the same 
medicine tells him how to use it ; or he takes a drink from 
the bottle when he feels like it, or when his pains are at 
him. From a foreigner, who is obviously neither intel-
ligent nor respectable, one does not seek directions how 
to use the goods he sells. For the fact that no bargain-
ing takes place during the interview shows th~ low level 
of the doctor's intelligence; and the Impolite, Irrelevant, 
and indecent questions which he frequently asks, hi, 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE. 63 
notorious habit of working with disgusting objects, and, 
above all, his post-mortem dissections, conclusively 
prove his non-respectability. 
That medicine should succeed under these 
conditions its action must be quick and dramatic. It 
is seldom that the physician is given a second chance. 
We have, however, had for some years a drug of which 
the action is rapid, dramatic, and obvious to all. This 
is neo-arsphenamine, the .. 914" of Ehrlich which 
replaced his famous .. 606." The effect of this on 
yaws, which is almost universally present in many 
parts, is bordering on the miraculous. Many late 
manifestations of yaws have never been recognised as 
such by the natives of a large part of the Gold Coast. 
These conditions are grouped together, with similar 
conditions due to rarer causes, in Twi as " Kokoram," 
which is variously translated as syphilis, cancer, or 
abscess, according to the degree of ignorance of the 
interpreter. There is , in fact, no simple English 
equivalent; technically one would describe it a, 
.. infective granuloma"; the local Hausas commonly 
use the Twi word, but if questioned give" Kaba " as 
an equivalent. Robinson's Dictionary suggests that in 
Hausaland the connection with yaws is recognised; it 
may have been known to some of the old Fanti 
physicians; but in general it is regarded as a distinct 
disease. Since, however, this condition is cured by 
neo-arsphenamine, and since it is almost universal, the 
injection of this drug has come to be regarded as a 
panacea. The result is that a patient who is not given 
an injection frequently considers that he has been ill-
used, and that the doctor is actuated by a personal 
animus against him. The effect of this on the 
physician's mentality is that he always tends to look 
for and to emphasise those aspects of the case which 
favour the diagnosis of yaws. Frequently, no harm 
is done, as the disease is so very prevalent; Once or twice 
J have missed other conditions in this way. 
The visualising tendency frequently obtrudes itself 
into a patient's description of his symptoms. Pains or 
blee'dtng from any part of the body are often described 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
as .. piles"; thus consumption is often called .. piles 
on the chest." Of more practical importance is the 
tendency to ascribe abnormal sensations to worms. I 
have occasionally been deceived into giving worm 
treatment to individuals who afterwards admitted that 
they had only felt them moving about inside. In one 
such case the patient had actually pointed out the species 
from preserved specimens kept for the purpose. This 
tendency is not confined to Africa. A patient was in a 
Dublin hospital for a serious abdominal disease. Some 
years before he had had a tapeworm, and he attributed 
his present symptoms to this; .. indeed" he said .. he 
could often feel it sticking its head up into his throttle." 
The bush natives have, in general, little confidence 
in nursing or diet as methods of curing disease. 
Their uncritical belief in .. medicine" and especially 
in injections (not, indeed, that these uncritical beliefs 
are confined to bush natives or even to Africa) is actually 
detrimental when it leads to neglect of more important 
but less mysterious method's. Their horror of surgical 
operations is natural and inevitable; it is shared by 
many in all countries, but is increased by the distrust 
of the foreigner. 
Sanitation is frankly regarded as a nuisance by the 
vast majority. The theories of disease-causation on 
which it is based are received with outward subservience 
and inward contempt. One highly intelligent chief 
has openly expressed his pained! surprise that a doctor 
should waste his time on such things instead of giving 
injections. I once caught a tsetse fly, put it into a glass-
topped box, and brought it into a village. When the 
Chief saw what I had, he tried his best to be polite; but 
the idea of anyone catching a fly and putting it into a 
box was too much for him, and he burst into laughter. 
He was rather relieved to see that I was not offended, 
and asked me to show it to each new arrival, so that they 
also might share the joke. I doubt if any uneducated 
natives seriously believe that mosquitoe .larvae turn i.nto 
mosquitoes, or that tsetse pupae tu~n mto tsetse files. 
Dr. W. Young was once demonstratmg tsetse pupae to 
a bush Chief, who was listening with the usual polite 
incredulity, when one of the pupae opened and a fly 
THE NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE. 05 
came out. But the conclusion drawn by the Chief would 
be, not that pupae produce flies, but that the European 
had put some" medicine" there to make the fly. 
The enthusiastic modern-trained scientist is in 
danger of losing all patience and all sympathy with those 
who obstinately reject the gospel of modern science. 
Mentally, they seem to him grossly incompetent; 
morall y, they seem to be obstinate and contumacious 
heretics, the unforgivable sin to the true believer. But 
he forgets the huge foundation of careful observation 
and elaborate experiment on which his own belief is 
founded; many of the steps in his scientific reasoning 
may have dropped out of his consciousness; and he can 
justify himself to the native only by an appeal to 
authority, which ought to be anathema in matters of 
science. H. G. Wells has illustrated this fallacy in 
a very apt way. Let the scientist imagine himself 
transported to ancient Athens, among the most 
intellectual community in the world's history. Let 
him attempt to demonstrate to the Athenians the 
fundamentals of modern science, while Socrates points 
out the futility of seeking truth with wheels and pieces 
of string such as small boys play with. He would find 
the difficulties almost insurmountable, even though he 
were perfect in the perfectly flexible idiom of Attica. 
Add, then, to these difficulties the difficulty of a dialect 
unadapted to accurate scientific terminology; add the 
almost inevitable fear and suspicion which tends to 
cloud all intercourse with the bush native; and one will 
rather wonder that medicine has gained such confidence 
as it has already done. To understand all is to forgive 
all; to lack understanding is to be in danger of that 
narrowing of human sympathy which is the greatest 
d~aster that can befall the Europ_ean in a bush station. 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
THQEE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST.* 
By " COUREUR DES BOIS." 
1. FROM SOUTH TO NORTH. 
The party left Accra, the seat of Government of the 
Gold Coast Colony, reached Wagadugu in the French 
province of Haute Volta, a distance of 500 miles as the 
crow flies from the coast, visited various stations in the 
Northern Territories of the Gold Coast and returned 
to Accra via Sekondi. .. 
We sent our heavy baggage, stores and water, by 
train to Kumasi and went ourselves by car taking two 
days on the journey. The country near Accra from the 
coast for about 10 miles inland is open undulating grass 
land with stunted bushes and a few trees but, on 
reaching N sawam, an important road junction and 
railway station and the collecting centre for the bulk of 
the cocoa exported from Accra, and crossing the Densu, 
the water supply of Accra, the typical forest country 
is entered! and this extends over the whole colony from 
the narrow coast belt of grass, palms, and scrub as far 
as the steep range of hills north of Kumasi. 
The forest is a mass. of tangled bush, creepers and 
lianas, with beautiful ferns but hardly any flowers, and 
tall slender trees reaching up to the light from the 
undergrowth, of which the most conspicuous is the silk· 
cotton tree. This tree has a smooth pale grey trunk 
and reaches a height of 200 feet and more, and does not 
throw out branches until well over 100 feet. The forest 
soil being continually scoured away by the torrential rains 
the roots of trees have barely a foot or more of earth 
above the rocky sub.soil and consequently extend 
laterally, sometimes for twenty or thirty feet. The 
trees, whose growth is absolutely vertical, are thus 
balanced on a base plate of small roots and are further 
supported by three or four buttresses, triangular growths 
.Tbis article was written over three years ago. 
HAUTE 
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IHREE THOUSAND MILES I N THE GOLD COAST. 67 
from the roots to ten or fifteen feet up the tree about six 
inches thick. As can be imagined, the tornados which 
sweep over the country before and after the rainy season 
proper soon carry out nature's plan of the survival of 
the fittest. 
The drive through the forest from N sawam to Kibi, 
the seat of the educated and progressive paramount 
chief of a large district, on the well kept roads and past 
the enclosures of the European-owned Bunso plantation, 
was made attractive. The winding red earth road, the 
thick green foliage with the sun striking through the 
feathery tops of the tall cotton trees, and the blue sky 
visible only through the alley way of the road cut 
through the forest made a charming picture to which a 
touch of vivid colour was occasionally given by the gaily 
coloured cloths worn by passing native women. 
On reaching Nkawkaw on the railway near the 
Ashanti border we found that our baggage for the night 
had arrived by train and then went to M praeso, about 
twel ve miles up to a mountainous road from Nkawkaw. 
Mpraeso is on a plateau some 1500 feet above sea level 
and is reached by a road which is a triumph of amateur 
engineering. From funds supplied by the chief, an 
Italian contractor constructed this road through thick 
bush, with easy gradients and hair-pin bends up the 
almost vertical face of the scarp which is crowned by a 
fertile plateau. The Mpraeso scarp is a feature of a 
long broken range of hills extending fwrn forty miles 
north of K umasi in a curve to the south-east to a point 
some fifty miles north-east of Accra. It forms, with 
its precipitous southern face, a sharp descent from the 
rolling uplands of northern Ashanti to the forest country 
and is variously known as the Mampong, Mpraeso and 
Aburi scarps. The view from Mpraeso over the forest 
and grass plains to the sea was trury magnificent. The 
Commissioner's bungalow at Mpreaso is reputed to be 
the only house in the Colony having in its living room 
a fireplace, which is used on occasion, and this only six 
degrees north of the equator. 
Returning from the mountain, with its tree-crowned 
cliffs silhouetted against the rising moon, to Nkawkaw 
68 THE GOLD COAST REVmW 
we spent the night at the comfortable brick and concrete 
rest house and after seeing our beds and bedding and 
cook's box booked for Kumasi by train the next morning 
we left for the same destination. Crossing the Ashanti 
border we passed through one of the largest cocoa 
growmg areas, of which the town of Ju aso, with its 
Commissioner's bungalow and court picturesquely 
sItuated on a bluff overlooking the forest, is the main 
collecting centre, where the cocoa is brought in in bags, 
~oaded on the railway and despatched to Kumasi and 
thence to Sekondi, the principal port. 
Cocoa was original! y introduced into the Colony about 
fifty years ago and now nearly half the world's supply 
comes from the Gold Coast, part of whose revenue is 
derived from the export duty levied upon it. The cocoa 
farms are small clearings in the forest, seldom more than 
one or two acres in extent, and the farming is, with one 
exception, done exclusively by the natives themselves. 
The cocoa tree is ten or twelve feet high and bears a 
large number of melon-shaped pods containing the 
beans. When the pods ripen they are split open, the 
beans removed, dried in the sun, packed in bags of a 
standard size, conveyed by head carriage to a railway 
or motor transport collecting centre, where they are 
bought by agents of the various cocoa-buying firms at 
prices which fluctuate according to the selling rate of 
cocoa on the Liverpool market. The cocoa farms lining 
the road in the neighbourhood of J uaso looked very 
attractive with the sun striking through the red tinted 
leaves on to the ripe orange pods with the thick bush and 
tall cotton trees hemming in the small clearings on 
every side. 
The approach to Kumasi from the east was 
disappointing. The stories of the Ashanti wars, the 
besieged Kumasi fort, the formerly: P?werful kIngs of 
Ashanti the Golden Stool, the sacnficlal tree, the final 
defeat ;nd banishment of Prempeh, have all invested 
Kumasi with a romantic history which its present day 
civilised and progressive appearance belies. The view 
of the town from the low hills which encircle it showed 
a portion of the native town, the railway station with its 
goods sidings and warehouses, the tarred roads leadIng 
• 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 69 
to the large merchants' stores and banks and Govern-
ment offices, topped by the further ridge on which the 
newly built Chief Commissioner's Residency and other 
officials' bungalows stand. The old fort was hidden 
by tall modern buildings and all traces of the old native 
town depicted in the war correspondents' accounts of 
Kumasi have completely disappeared. 
We had time to see the fort built in 1897, until 
recently residence of the Chief Commissioner of 
I Ashanti, and now being converted into a club house, 
with its round turrets at each corner and, not far away 
and within range of the fort, Prempeh's well, still the 
main water supply of Kumasi. The rest of the day 
was spent in arranging for a lorry to accompany us on our 
journey to the north and in loading and augmenting our 
supplies of stores and petrol. 
The next day saw us off on the Great North Road 
to Tamale, the administrative headquarters of the 
Northern Territories. Not far out of Kumasi there is 
a flat outcrop of grey rock close to the road, of 
apparently volcanic origin and sparkling with fragments 
of mica. Many deep scorings can be seen on its flat 
surface and it is said that the Ashantis and their fore-
runners used this rock to sharpen their soft iron swords 
and spears. Soon we came to the ascent of the 
Mampong scarp, massive and frowning like its counter-
part at Mpraeso, up which climbs a wonderfully 
engineered road, built by a party of Royal Engineers 
twenty years ago. On a step in the scarp lies Mampong, 
the residence of the senior Queen Mother of Ashanti. 
We were now practically out of the forest and 
another short climb brought us to E jura and the 
savannah country which extends northwards to the 
encroaching deserts of Northern Africa. Looking 
back from Ejura the gaze travelled over a sea of waving 
foliage. The tops of the tall trees extend for miles 
south and west until thev are swallowed up in the 
tropical haze. Ejura and its large agricultural station 
left behind we were running through tppical " orchard 
bush" country, undulating plains covered with stunted 
trees and elephant grass, and began to feel the rays of 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
the tropical sun from which we had been sheltered while 
travelling through the forest. The road running due 
north brought us to Atebubu, a large village, pictures-
que with its brightly clad women, Hausa traders and 
Fulani cattlemen in their flowing robes, and large shade 
trees. atebubu is a great cattle-dealing centre. The 
cattle come down from the north and the basin of the 
Niger along the old caravan route which used to lead 
from Kana in Nigeria through Yendi in Togoland and 
Salaga to Ashanti. Leaving Atebubu we crossed the 
river Pru, a tributary of the Volta, at Prang where it 
forms for a short distance the boundary between Ashanti 
and the Northern Territories, and a little further on 
arrived at Yeji on the Volta, our stopping place for the 
night. The Volta is the great river of the Gold Coast. 
Its two arms, the White Volta and the Black Volta, 
rise in the French Colony of Haute Volta and unite 
in the Northern Territories to form the great stream 
which flows into the sea at the port of Ada. 
Unfortunately it is only navigable by small launches 
for sixty miles from its mouth, though native 
canoes are used on it from Yeji to Kratchi. At 
Yeji it is half a mile wide in the dry season and 
is crossed by a ferry, constructed of four large 
dug-out canoes bolted together at intervals and covered 
with decking to carry two motor vehicles. This is 
poled across, warped to a landing stage by chains, and 
motor cars and lorries can be driven on and off. Deep 
cuttings in the bank run down to the landing stage on 
either side to make an easy gradient. Cattle and 
donkeys are swum across by lining up ten or twelve on 
each side of a large dug-out canoe in which the owners 
sit holding their beasts by the headropes, the canoe bein!1' 
poled across from bank to bank. 
Our quarters at Yeji were a " swish" rest-house. 
Of such rest-houses our exprience during the following 
fortnight was to be large and varied. "Swish" is 
puddled clayey mud and the usual design of the 
swish rest-houses is an oblong plinth of beaten 
swish, sometimes concrete, with a low wall on 
the outer edges. Within this oblong two large 
forked poles are erected near either end, on which 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 71 
the ridge pole is placed, rafters of smaller poles 
are added and fastened together with lianas, commonly 
known as "tie-tie". The framework of the roof 
complete, the swish walls are built leaving a space 
between them and the roof of a foot or more, and the 
rest-house of, usually, a room at each end and an open 
space in the middle is then complete except for the 
thatching, which is done as soon as the wa]ls have dried. 
The completed building is then further embellished, 
sometimes, but by no means always, by the addition of 
• a wooden table and one chair, wooden frames and 
shutters for the doors and windows, and whitewashing. 
Further north the type varies from a large many-roomed 
bungalow to a collection of small round houses. The 
thick swish walls make for coolness, but the thatch roof . 
with its deep overhang, necessary to prevent the interior 
being flooded during heavy tornados, rather shuts out the 
ai• r. 
The next day saw us on the road for Salaga and 
Tamale, the river crossing having been made without 
difficulty by the car and lorry. The flat straight road to 
Salaga was made interesting by the large herds, as 
many as 100 to 200 head of cattle being driven down 
the caravan route which lies parallel to the motor road 
and by the northward bound convoys of pack donkeys 
laden with kola nuts. The kola nut is grown in Ashanti 
and the northern part of the Gold Coast and is in great 
demand by the desert tribes of the Soudan and north 
Africa. Curiously enough this stimulating nut is not 
made use of in any way by the peoples of the districts 
in which it is grown. It is entirely an export crop and 
the nuts find their way north by head carriage and pack 
donkeys, by sea to Lagos in Nigeria and thence by rail 
to Northern Nigeria and, formerly, by camel caravan 
through Timbuktu to Morocco and Algeria. 
Salaga, except for the tree-planted area round the 
government bungalows, is a bare sun-baked village of 
some size containing chiefly a floating population due 
to its position on the caravan route which here goes due 
north through Vendi while the motor road to Tamale 
branches off to the north-west. We reached Tamale 
early in the afternoon and were every kindly invited to 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
stay with the Provincial Commissioner who was then 
acting for the Chief Commissioner absent on a 
commission to delimit a portion of the boundary 
between British and French territory. Tamale is a 
modern station and, apart from its being the seat of 
government of the Northern Territories, has few points 
of interest. After a day's rest we ventured forth into, 
to us, the unknown, beyond any communication with 
the world other than by sending a runner several days' 
journey to the nearest telegraph office. The road to 
the north from Tamale as far as the crossing of the Nasia 
river, a tributary of the White Volta, itself a tributary 
of the main Volta, was under repair and delayed U5, and 
a break in the magneto held us up on the road fca an 
hour and a half, an unfortunate occurrence as this day's 
run was to be nearly 200 miles. However, we pushed 
on past Walwale, where a road branches off to Gambaga, 
the principal station before Tamale was built. Walwale 
is a large village of grey swish round houses with the 
conical thatching common to that part of the country 
and a commodious rest-house distinguished by its 
'Compound being fenced in by a swish wall with a 
trellis pattern in its upper course. 
After passing Walwale there was a noticeable change 
in the nature of the country. The broad undulations 
gave place to deep-cut river beds bordered by ranges 
of low hills piled up with ironstone boulders. Ranges 
of hills formed the distant skyline to the west and north 
while the Tong Hills, where Gambaga lies, were a 
salient feature on the east. The stunted trees of the 
" orchard bush" had disappeared and in their stead 
enormous baobabs stood up at infrequent intervals. 
The whole country was reminiscent of Southern 
Rhodesia and parts of South Africa. The only 
cultivation was small patches of yams near the villages 
and collection of huts . The type of village changed 
too, or rather the village disappeared altogether. For 
instead of the well defined village or aggregation of 
huts at intervals of anything from ten to twenty miles, 
the country was covered, at all events near the road, 
with a sucession of small family "kraals," as they 
would be called in South Africa, five or six round 
-
~ 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 73 
houses, for the most flat-roofed, joined together by high 
walls, to which ingress is gained by a ladder instead of 
an entrance doorway. 
The costume of the people had changed, too. 
Whereas the people in the Gold Coast and Ashanti 
(outside the large towns where European clothes have 
become prevalent and are most un-picturesque), both 
men and women, wear coloured cotton cloths, draped 
from the shoulder when not working and then knotted 
• round the waist, north of Tamale the men wear a small 
loin-cloth only and the women's sale covering is a 
string round the waist from which a bunch of fresh 
green leaves is hung in front and behind. The Hausa 
and Fulani traders, who are mostly Mahommedans, 
are exceptions, for they invariably wear a flowing robe 
hanging from the shoulders and either a small conical 
cap or a turban, and in some cases a face veil showing 
only the eyes. But they are all great traders and the 
main trade routes to the north now ran far to the east 
and west of our road. 
The road surface had altered, too, from the gravelled 
road to one of beaten swish and the hard level surface 
in the dry weather made for easy and rapid travelling. 
The iron and concrete bridges with plank decking of 
the forest country and the Great North Road to Tamale 
were no more and the rivers, owing to the time of our 
journey being at the end of the dry season, with little 
or no water, were crossed by "drifts," that is, the 
roadway was built solid through the river bed to a 
height of three or four feet. Some of these drifts were 
most picturesque with their swish guard walls ending 
in small pylons, from which could be seen parties of 
girls filling large gourds with water from the pools and 
carrying them on their heads up the steep banks. 
Zuaragu, the junction of the north road with the 
road running west from Bawku to Lawra parallel to the 
northern boundary of British territory, was reached in 
the afternoon. Leaving a message for our lorry which 
was following us to stay there, we pushed on to Bawku, 
an administrative station in the far north-east close to 
_ border. This road bad just been completed 
74 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
and ours was the second motor vehicle, and first touring 
car, to use it. Our passage was an amazing attraction, 
not only for the native population, but also for 
innumerable dogs who had a most aggravating habit of 
running out into the road in front of the car. As they 
had no idea of the pace at which it was moving, it was 
most difficult to avoid running over them. Fowls, 
goats and' sheep scattered in all directions but the cattle 
were not in the least alarmed and sometimes made 
lumbering attempts to pursue us. We arrived at Bawku 
just before the darkness that sets in so early in these 
latitudes and were in time to admire at our ease the 
setting sun lighting up the hills across the frontier. 
After a short rest we returned to Z uaragu in the dark, 
much to the alarm of the local residents who had never 
before seen powerful headlights, and found ourselves 
quartered in the collection of round houses forming the 
rest-house. The rest-house, the commissioner's and the 
doctor's bungalows are all that Zuarag u consists of, the 
native village being some miles away and bearing 
another name. The doctor's bungalow might have 
fallen out of " The Arabian Nights", a two-storied 
white building of enormously thick walls with white 
pillared colonades, mysterious recesses and a winding 
staircase. 
Leaving Zuaragu the next morning a short run 
westwards brought us to N avrongo where, after a brief 
halt, we turned north for Wagadugu and after half an 
hour's drive crossed the eleventh parallel, the frontier 
line of the French governorate of Haute Volta. The 
only outward and visible sign that we were no longer in 
British territory was the cessation of the small posts 
bearing a board on which the mileage from Navrongo 
was painted and their substitution by largerposts out of 
which a flat surface was cut and lI1scnbed wIth the num-
ber of kilometres from Wagadugu, and whose tops were 
rounded and' roughly carved to represent the French 
shrapnel helmet, with its cock'~ co~b ridge. A few 
kilometres beyond the frontier bes the French 
administrative station of PO, where we were stopped by 
a Senegalese soldier and directed to the Comma~dant's 
quarters to obtain permission to proceed. ThIS was 
THREE THOUSAND ~!ILES IN THE GOLD COAST . 75 
readily granted without any Customs formalities and 
once more we were northward bound on a Ioo-miles run 
to Wagadugu. 
Up to within a few miles from the capital the country 
appeared to be practically uninhabited. No villages 
were to be seen and very few natives on the road. 
The vegetation up to crossing the White Volta, rising 
not very far west of \Vagadugu , was" orchard bush," 
which we had not seen since leaving the neighbourhood 
of Tamale. The few natives we did pass on the road 
were much more completely clad than those we had left 
on the other side of the frontier. Nearing Wagadugu 
trees became few and far between, the soil grey and arid 
and as the flat -roofed and crenellated buildings and the 
conical minarets of the mosques came into view in the 
late afternoon we felt that we were approaching the 
mysterious country of the Bedawin and the masked 
Tuareg. 
On our arrival we presented ourselves to the 
Commandant de Region who very kindly placed a 
vacant house at our disposal for our quarters for the 
night and invited us to dine . Dinner was quite a 
function and a number of officials and officers of the 
garrison had been invited to meet us. The Comman-
dant's wife, a very charming lady, and his daughter, a 
girl of fourteen or fifteen who knows several native 
languages and acts as the Court interpreter, were 
present and another lady, the wife of an official, who 
was in the highest spirits at the idea of returning to 
France on leave in a week's time. The French officers 
and officials with their wives and, in many cases, families 
spend from two to three years in the Soudan and Senegal 
stations and appear to keep their health. We were 
told that there were fifteen European children in the 
town, several of whom had been born there. This was 
a surprise to visitors from the Gold Coast where 
Europeans do not as a rule stay more than a year to 
eighteen months at a time, their wives from eight months 
to a year, and their children hardly ever. The heat in 
Senegal is quite as severe, hut the atmosphere is drier 
and this no doubt accounts for the greater ease with 
which the climate is endured. Another surprise to us 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
was the electric light and ice, two luxuries which only 
of recent years have been generally available in Accra 
and Sekondi and are still not obtainable anywhere else 
in the Gold Coast, not even at places on the railway. 
And yet Wagadugu is six days' travelling from its port, 
Dakar, four days by train to Bamako and then two days 
by motor. 
The following morning we were presented to the 
Governor of Haute Volta and his two charming 
daughters and then the Commandant escorted us on 
a tour of inspection. Wagadugu is a large well-laid out 
town with wide boulevards radiating from the centre, 
where are situated the barracks, parade ground, club 
and government offices. All the buildings are made 
of terre pise, but owing to the grey colour of the earth 
look as though they were of concrete. The officials' 
houses, with the exception of the Governor's and the 
Commandant's, are of one pattern, rectangular with 
two large rooms at each end and three smaller ones in 
the centre with a verandah at the back and a similar one 
with a portico in front. At one end there is a turret 
which contains a winding staircase leading out on to 
the flat roof guarded by parapet. The Governor's 
res;dence was in a similar style, much larger, and 
beautifully decorated inside. No glass is used in the 
windows which are protected by split cane mats over 
which water is thrown to cool the air. These mats and 
the very thick walls make the interiors a pleasant relief 
from the heat and glare of the day. 
The product of the Wagadugu district is cotton 
and, though cotton-growing is yet in its infancy, 7,000 
tons were exported the previous year. The cotton 
market was a picturesque scene with the mosque in the 
background and the cotton being brought in on donkeys 
in wicker baskets. After having seen the schools, an 
aerodrome with two aeroplanes, a garage to accommo-
date sixty vehicles and the barracks, where a battalion of 
Tirailleurs Senegalais was quartered, we went to th~ 
mission station, a headquarters of the 'Nhite Fathers, 
a Catholic mission whose activities extend over the 
greater part of northern Africa. The Archbishop 
received and most courteously escorted us, showing us 
IHREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 77 
how the well-known Wagadugu carpets were made by 
a number of young native boys and girls. We then were 
taken to the Governor's game preserve, an area of some 
acres on the river, and were charmed with the sight of 
pools covered with pink and white lilies and only the 
plunging of two disturbed crocodiles into the water 
reminded us that we were in Africa. One of the most 
interesting of our visits was to the gardens where, in 
spite of the heat and dryness of the atmosphere and the 
apparent poorness of the soil, enormous cabbages and 
• lettuces were being grown, with peas, beans, asparagus 
and two such diverse plants as strawberries and celery. 
All the beds were protected by palm branches laid on a 
framework a foot or so high and were watered through 
this screen. One garden was reserved for the officers . 
and one for the civil officials and no doubt the trouble 
taken to supply fresh fruits and vegetables has its effect 
on the general health of the European community. 
\Ve left \Vagadugu on our return journey with 
regret that our stay had been so short and with a wistful 
eye on the road leading north-west to Timbuktu, only 
two days' run in a fast car, but the time at our disposal 
did not admit of our going as far as the " mysterious 
city." Arriving back at N avrongo at dusk we were 
quartered in a temporarily vacant palatial red swish 
bungalow and hospitably entertained by the Commis-
sioner. N avrongo, apart from being the headquarters 
of a province and from the mission station of the White 
Fathers, has little importance, the native population 
being chiefly collected at the village of Sandema, a 
few miles away. \Ve passed through Sandema the 
next morning on our way westwards and after crossing 
the ri,·er Sissili, another tributary of the Volta, beauti-
ful between its steep banks, arrived at Tumu. There 
we met the Chief Commissioner and his wife travelling 
in the opposite direction on their return to Tamale. 
The Tumu district is one of the best for shooting and 
lions have often been seen. One, indeed, is said to 
have been shot in the rest-house compound which 
perhaps accounts for the new bungalow there having 
been built up on a solid mass of swish ten feet high. 
\Ve went on to Han that afternoon and stayed there 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
the night. The road led on to Lawra in the north-west 
and another due south to Wa and beyond. The country 
round Han and Lawra was a good deal more broken 
and the native population collected in villages of the 
type near Tamale, not in scattered family groups as 
In the Zuaragu and Bawku districts. 
The next day we sent our lorry on the south road 
to Wa and went ourselves to Lawra, where we stayed 
for a few minutes at the Commissioner's bungalow, a 
really spacious mansion beautifully situated on a bluff 
from which there was an extensive view west and south-
west to the hills in French territory and of the Black 
Volta, the frontier, winding its course southwards. 
Leaving Lawra by a road running south for a few miles 
and then turning east we rejoined the Wa road some 
twelve miles south of Han and arrived at Wa in the 
afternoon. 
Wa is a fairly large native village and a commis-
sioner's station. Cattle and sheep are kept by the 
natives and the commissioner had several half-bred 
cattle from a Hereford bull, imported by the govern-
ment, and native cows, with which he was endeavouring 
to educate the native stock owner. He also had pigs, 
obtained by crossing with native small black pig, 
of which he was very proud. Moreover, he had a 
vegetable garden nearly attaining the standard that 
Wagadugu had set. He and his wife were most kind 
to us during our stay lasting four days. One of our 
party went south to Bole to inspect a new road being 
constructed from Bole to Kintampo, a place politically 
in Ashanti, but in its physical features more akin to the 
Northern Territories, while the remainder enjoyed a 
rest. 
The time of year when we were on our journey 
was the close of what is known as the " Harmattan " 
season in West Africa. The harmattan is a wind blow-
ing from a north-easterly direction across th~ Sahara. 
It has a very drying effect and carnes WIth It minute 
particles of sand which make the sky look overcast a,:,d 
give the setting sun a distinct resemblance to Its 
appearance in a London fog. The harmattan IS hot by 
THREE THOUSAND MILES I~ THE GOLD COAST. 79 
day and cold by night. All leather dries up and it is 
often a difficult matter to pull on boots. The skin 
gets dried up and shaving is by no means a joy, 
especially as the lather dries on the face almost at once. 
The hot dry air is still more trying when travelling 
through it in a fast car. So far from the draught 
caused by the rapid movement having a cooling effect 
it feels more like a blast from the open door of a fur-
nace, and it is particularly hot in the early afternoon. 
Our method of travelling, whenever it could be so 
arranged, was to send off the lorry as soon as possible 
in the early morning, follow ourselves a little later, 
have a short halt about eleven o'clock and stop at some 
convenient rest-house about one o'clock for lunch. We 
carried lunch and emergency rations and camp chairs 
on the car. After lunch we rested during the very hot 
part of the day and started again to complete the day's 
journey about three or four. The lorry meanwhile had 
been going steadily on and had reached, or very nearly 
reached our destination by the time we ourselves 
arrived. 
Our next objective was Kintampo but as the road 
from Wa through Bole had not been completed we had 
to retrace our journey through Han, Navrongo, Zuaragu 
and Tamale, which we did without incident arriving on 
the third day at Prang, 120 miles from Kumasi on the 
Great North Road, where, the harmattan having broken, 
we experienced the first tornado, fortunately a mild 
one. We were now in the tornado season which lasts 
until about Mayor June when the rainy season proper 
sets in. Leaving Prang the next morning we went on 
south as far as E jura, 60 miles from K umasi, then 
turned off north-west on the Nkoranza and Kintarnpo 
road, arriving at the former place in time for lunch, and 
then going on to Kintampo where we were very kindly 
put up for the night by the commissioner. 
Kintampo has a very large floating Hausa and 
Fulani population and in this and other respects is very 
similar to Salaga. It is on the caravan route from 
Kumasi to the Ivory Coast and thence north through 
Haute Volta to the French Soudan. Here again were 
to be seen droves of cattle coming south and convoys 
80 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
of pack donkeys laden with kola nuts going north. 
From the commissioner's bungalow there is a fine view. 
To the south, in the direction of Sunyani, lay the forest 
country with high bush-covered hills in the distance, 
to the west a low line of hills lying between British 
and French territory, and to the north the open country 
similar to that near Wa. Leaving Kintampo next 
!florning we took the road back to N koranza and there, 
having learnt that a new road under construction from 
Sunyani to Kumasi was not yet completed, left the lorry 
and turned south-west to Sunyani, where we lunched 
with the commissioner. 
Sunyani is a large native town very well laid out on 
rising ground from which an extent of forest has been 
cleared. The officials' bungalows are situated on 
another stretch of rising ground divided by a narrow 
stream from which the water supply is obtained. We 
did not stay long in Sunyani but returned that afternoon 
to Nkoranza for the night. Nkoranza was a place of 
some importance before the Great Road was built. The 
old hammock road and caravan route went from 
Kumasi (where it branched to Kintampo) and then 
turned northwards to Atebubu, where it has now become 
the motor road. The telegram line still follows the 
old bush track through Nkoranza and Atebubu, but is 
being reconstructed along the road. Next morning 
saw us on the road to E jura, then down the Mampong 
scarp into the forest and we arrived in Kumasi in the 
early afternoon with one phase of our travels ended. 
We had a rest for three days at Kumasi and one 
evening drove out to the Sacred Lake, Lake Bosumtwi, 
a distance of twenty miles. The lake is circular in 
shape, five miles in diameter and is girdled by a ring of 
hills. No stream flows into or out of it and the water 
level is always approximately the same. It is supposed 
to be the haunt of a powerful fetish, who has forbidden 
any human being to launch any boat or canoe on its 
waters. It is also reputed to be bottomless and the 
bubbles that break on its surface from time to time are 
the breathing of the fetish. These two latter myths 
have, unfortunately, been exploded. The depths of 
the lake have been sounded and the bubbles found to 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 81 
be gas from decomposing organic matter. No boat, 
however, has ever rufRed its surface. The investiga-
tions were made from a raft and the natives, whose tiny 
villages are situated at intervals round the lake, fish 
from planks which they propel through the water by 
lying on them and swimming. The first view of the 
lake as we topped the rise over the low hills was 
wonderful. Its still waters reflected the wooded hills 
around it and the lilies at the rest-house overlooking 
it added a touch of colour which made the picture 
perfect. 
We returned through Bekwai, a large town on the 
railway south of Kumasi, the scene of sharp fighting in 
the last Ashanti war of 1900. Until quite recently one 
of the blockhouses built to protect the river crossing 
could be seen from the railway. Our stay in Kumasi 
drew to its close and one early morning saw us saying 
good-bye to our hosts and boarding the train bound for 
Dunkwa, having sent on the car by goods train the 
previous day. It seemed quite strange to travel by 
train after having been so far by car. On our way we 
passed through Obuasi, an important gold mining centre 
In Ashanti and reached Dunkwa middle day, where we 
found our car waiting in its truck on a siding. Dunkwa 
IS just south of the Ashanti border on the railway 
between the port of Sekondi and Kumasi. Our object 
in stopping there was to endeavour to reach Wiawso, 
a station in the depths of the forest some seventy miles 
west of Dunkwa, by a newly constructed road, and we 
started as soon as the car had been off-loaded. On our 
way, however, we were told that the road was through 
only as far as ten or twelve miles from Wiawso where 
a bridge had not yet been built. We discovered this 
to be the case. A deep river bed lay in our path, its 
sides far too steep to get a car across and the only bridge 
a fallen tree trunk. We went back two or three miles to 
a tiny village called Sefwi Bekwai, where we stopped 
the lorry, which had been obtained at Dunkwa, and 
settled down for the night in a very small rest-house, 
closely surrounded by the forest, and consequently hot 
and airless and much frequented by sand-flies, minute 
gnats who can penetrate the meshes of a mosquito net 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
and give a most irritating bite. We left Sefwi Bekwai 
with some relief next morning to return to Dunkwa and, 
twelve miles outside, turned south for a 20-mile run to 
Akropong a large village and a district headquarters. 
The road to Akropong was so bad that we barely did 
, ten miles an hour and our discomfort was increased 
by the swarms of tsetse flies that flew into the 
car. We got back to Dunkwa in the evening and found 
our quarters in the rest-house made ready for us and an 
invitation to dinner from the commissioner. 
Dunkwa is built over a lot of small rounded hills 
and in the evening looked very pretty with the lights 
from bungalows gleaming through the trees. The 
business quarter of the town is in a hollow near the 
railway station and is extremely hot in the day. We 
had! arrived from Akropong early enough to load the 
car to go down to Sekondi that night by goods train 
and we left ourselves by the passengers train the 
following day, arriving at Sekondi that evening and 
were glad to enjoy once more the comfort of icep Prinks, 
laid-on water, and electric light. 
Sekondi is the principal port of the colony and is 
charmingly pretty with its green foliage, red cliffs and 
wealth of tropical flowers in the compounds of the 
bungalows, which are built on a semi-circular range of 
small hills facing the sea. Although it is hot in the town 
there is always a breeze from the sea on the hills and 
the open roadstead with steamers lying at anchor 
surrounded by lighters and surf boats, and the line of 
surf along the shore on either side, forms an ever varying 
scene of activity. The next morning we paid a visit to 
the deep water harbour being constructed on the 
Takoradi reef. This reef lies some five miles west of 
Sekondi and is forming the foundation for quays which 
will allow several ships simultaneously to load direct 
from trucks and relieve the congestion which now occurs 
every cocoa season. At present cocoa and other 
produce have to be man-handled from railway sidings 
into surf boats and conveyed to the ships lying one to 
two miles out. 
THREE THOUSA ND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 83 
Returning from Takoradi we left on our homeward 
journey midday and, five miles outside Sekondi, turned 
off the main road to visit the Inchaban water-works, 
where the Sekondi water supply is conserved and 
filtered. The reservoir, a lake formed by damming the 
outlet of a deep valley, was a really beautiful picture 
and is a frequent picnic resort. Another twelve miles 
along the main road we came to the ferry across the river 
Prah at Beposo. The Prah rises in Ashanti not far 
from Ju aso and flows almost due south to the sea. It 
is not navigable for any distance, even by canoes. The 
ferry was a similar type to that at Yeji. After crossing 
the river twenty-three miles brought us to the sea at 
Elmina. The road from Sekondi as far as Elmina 
curves inland in order to strike a favourable place for 
crossing the Pra and the country through which it runs 
was undulating and covered with a thick stunted bush 
which merges into the true forest fu rther away from 
the coast. All this coast is very attractive from the sea, 
the line of surf beating on the strip of sand, the red 
earth of the low cliffs, the fringe of palms, the green 
bush and, in the distance, the hills of the forest country. 
Elmina, formerly a port, has now dwindled to an 
insignificant fishing village, but is famous for the 
oldest and most picturesque of the many old forts and 
castles in the Gold Coast, relics of the slave trade days 
when all the seafaring nations were quarrelling for a 
footing in this new El Dorado. The forts were 
laboriously constructed from stone brought out in 
ships and were really fortified trading stations. The 
Portuguese, French, Danes, Swedes, and, Branden-
burgers equipped trading expeditions from time to time, 
built their forts, which frequently changed hands by 
conquest and by sale or barter, until the Guinea Coast 
was finally divided into national spheres of influence, 
developing into the flourishing colonies of the present 
day. 
The existing castle of Elmina is as it was built by 
the Dutch in 1637, who incorporated in it an older fort 
which the Portuguese had built in 1482 and also a 
iDlailer fort built by the French in 1383, which is still 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
known as the Bastion de France. It is situated on a 
rocky bluff at the mouth of the Benya River and is 
protected on the landward side by a double moat, 
complete with drawbridge and portcullis and arrange-
ments for pouring boiling oil on the attackers. 
Spacious quarters are built within the enceinte round 
a large courtyard and above the store rooms and slave 
prisons. The government of the colony devotes a 
considerable annual sum to the maintenance of the 
castle and it is in very good repair. The enormously 
thick iron-studded doors and barred windows still exist 
and the old cannon with their piles of round shot still 
face the sea and the native town. Except for two 
rooms used as a post office, the castle is not now 
occupied. 
The castle at Cape Coast, once the seat of govern-
ment of the colony, eight miles east of Elmina, is a 
much larger building. It was built by the British in 
r662 on the site of a trading station established by the 
Portuguese in the r 6th century and of other trading 
stations built subsequently by the Dutch, Swedes and 
Danes. It has a very fine appearance from the sea 
with the surf breaking on the rocks below it, but tbe 
landward side is not so picturesque owing to the 
proximity of modern mercantile buildings and its use as 
government offices. There is, however, a very fine 
outer courtyard facing the sea and protected by ramparts 
on which the old cannon are still mounted. Cape 
Coast was for many years the chief British trading 
station and port and all trade with Ashanti was carried 
on by a road which ran north to Bekwai and thence to 
Kumasi, and it was along this road that our various 
military expeditions against the Ashantis marched. 
Now Cape Coast is still a flourishing mercantile centre 
and a government residential area has been laid out on 
the hills behind it. 
We did not stay long but continued along the coast 
road to Saltpond, eighteen miles from Cape Coast, 
which was our stopping place for the night. Five miles 
west of Saltpond we turned off the road a short distance 
to visit a fort at Anomabu, a small fishing village. This 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 85 
fort is much smaller than the castles at Cape Coast anell 
Elmina. At Anomabu a trading station was originally 
built by the Dutch about 1640 and later occupied by 
the Swedes and then by the Danes. The original 
building was destroyed and the present fort built by the 
British in 1673. 
Saltpond was reached in the evening, a flourishing 
town situated between a large lagoon and the sea with 
the government residential area on the hills behind as 
in the case of Cape Coast. F rom the bungalow where 
we stayed the lagoon fringed with palms and the well-
built native town beyond made a fine view in the rays of 
the setting sun. The coast from Saltpond to Accra is 
sandy in some places and swampy in others and so the 
road turns inland at Saltpond and, running through 
Swedru, joins the Accra to Kibi road at Nsawam. We 
were, however, anxious to visit Oda, a place in the heart 
of the cocoa region which has increased in importance 
very considerably during the last few years, and is to be 
on the new railway now being constructed from Huni 
Valley, fifty miles from Sekondi on the Kumasi line, 
to Kade, not far from Kibi. Starting early the next 
morning we turned off fourteen miles from Saltpond to 
the north to Oda where we arrived after a picturesque 
run of forty miles through the forest. Oda turned out 
to be quite one of the largest native towns in the colony 
and a busy cocoa buying centre. The cocoa is at present 
sent down by lorry through Swedru to the port of 
Winneba, about half way between Accra and Saltpond, 
or through Swedru to N sawam and thence by rail or 
road to Accra. When the new railway is completed, the 
produce of all this area will be carried by train to the 
deep water harbour at Takoradi. 
We only stayed a few minutes at Oda and turned 
south on the Winneba road as far as Swedru where we 
turned east along the main road to N sawam and then 
south again for the twenty mile run into Accra by the 
same road on which we had started out four weeks 
before. Our first glimpse of home was Christiansborg 
castle, two miles east of Accra, on the site of forts built 
by the Portuguese in the 17th century, o·ccupied by 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
Swedes, Danes, and again by Portuguese, until it was 
rebuilt by the British about 1865, modernised and added 
to some years later, and is now the residence of the 
Governor. A few miles further brought the outskirts 
of Accra in sight and just before dusk we arrived at our 
own bungalows after a most interesting and successful 
journey of 2,5'3 miles, of which 2,346 had been by 
road. 
II. THE LOWER VOLTA AND FRENCH TOGOLAND. 
Leaving Accra middle day we ran north east under 
the Aburi hills to Kpong and thence to the Volta at 
Senchi where there is a very up-to-date ferry with 
well-graded ramps in stone-faced cuttings, a decked 
lighter capable of taking three vehicles end-on, towed 
by a fussy little paddle steamer. Not so long ago this 
ferry was of the same primitive type as that at Yeji, a 
raft of boards belted across two or three dug-out canoes. 
When the river is in flood there is the greatest difficulty 
in reaching the opposite ramp. We had no difficulty 
in crossing and went on to Ho, the administaitive 
headquarters of the southern section of British 
Togoland. We stopped for the night at the village 
of Chito, about fifteen miles out of Ho, where 
we found a very fine rest-house belonging to one of the 
trading firms. Our lorry, which had been sent off from 
Accra earlier in the day, had already arrived and we 
were soon comfortably settled after our 87 mile run. 
The country through which we had come from Accra 
to the Volta is very open. F rom the wooded flanks 
and spurs of the Aburi hils, grass plains extend to 
the sea and the lagoons. Except for towns and villages 
near the road and a few fishing villages along the coast 
east of Accra, the plains appear to be uninhabited. 
Dodowa, 25 miles from Accra to the K pong road, was at 
one time a town of thriving trade, only less important 
commercially than Accra and Sekondi are to-day. Palm 
oil collected from the surrounding district and the Aburi 
hills was brought in and rolled in strong casks 20 miles 
to the former busy port of Pram Pram. The 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 87 
construction of the railway from Accra northwards 
diverted the trade to Mangoase and N sawam and now 
both Dodowa and its port are dead and the large empty 
stores and warehouses are the only witnesses of their 
former prosperity. Dodowa now carries on a small 
trade in market garden produce and firewood while 
Pram Pram is an insignificant fishing village, attractive 
looking in the distance as one tops the rise behind it and 
sees red-roofed buildings standing out against the blue 
sea beyond, but a closer view shows the red of the 
• roofs to be rust and not paint . 
After leaving Dodowa the road passes through 
Somanya, a clean and well laid out little town. Kpong 
lies beyond and is a collecting place for Hausa traders 
who have come down the Volta from the north. 
The country on the other side of the Volta is totally 
different from the Accra side. The grass plains are 
replaced by forest but not the forest of the interior of the 
Colony proper. Tall cotton trees are conspicuous by 
their absence and the foliage appears to be more sub-
tropical than tropic. As we drove along the excellent 
road towards Chito the high hills of French Togoland 
came into view, most of them wooded, but some of them 
with grass uplands, a beautiful picture in the rays of the 
sinking sun. Just before we arrived at Chito we passed 
over a bridge spanning a stream which was the former 
Anglo-German boundary and we were then in British 
mandated territory. 
The Chito rest-house was built some distance up the 
side of a hill facing south and when we woke in the 
early morning the view was magnificent. The low 
ground was covered in dense mist from which rose tops 
of small hills and spurs of the higher ranges like the 
islets and promontories of a fairy coast line. The hill 
of Amejove screening the rising sun had the effect of a 
distant battlemented castle on the Rhine. 
On the way to Ho we passed several gangs ~f 
labourers re-conditioning the road surface where It 
had suffered during rece~t rains and, supervising them, 
we found the commissioner I who Wilrned us thiLt the 
88 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
road south from Ho to the sea that we proposed to take 
was not in very good condition and that the bridges 
would not be up to the weight of our heavy lorry. On 
arriving at Ho, therefore, we transhipped our baggage, 
stores and boys, to a lighter lorry and, without further 
delay, started southwards on a road running along the 
boundary between British and French Togoland. Our 
destination was Denu, on the coast, where we intended 
to stay and return to Ho through French territory. 
The road we found not so bad as it had been painted 
and we arrived at our destination after a run of about 
70 miles in time to have an enjoyable sea bathe. 
The road connected a series of stations of the Gold 
Coast Customs Preventive Service and at one of these 
we stopped for lunch. This station consisted, like all 
the others, of a small guard-room at the entrance, a large 
open spaces, an office,quarters for the native staff and 
police, and a small bungalow, all built of swish and 
white-washed. Everything beautifully clean and spick 
and span. A lawn dotted with gaily coloured cratons 
surrounded the bungalow in which we lunched. The 
whole place was charming. The permanent residents 
of these oases of cleanliness and order in the bush are 
a Customs clerk and a detachment of police and they 
are visited from time to time by the collector in charge 
of that section of the frontier. 
As we drew nearer the coast the bush began to thin 
out and give place to cultivation and clumps of palms 
and, just before reaching Denu, we crossed the end of 
a grass-grown depression extending westwards which, 
towards the end of the rainy season, becomes a lagoon 
stretching for miles and only separated from the sea by 
a narrow strip of land. The commercial part of Denu 
was clustered round the sign post where the road by 
which we had come crossed that running from the mouth 
of the Volta parallel to the coast to Lome in French 
territory, and continued for a mile to the port of Denu, 
which, however, was merely an open surf-battered 
beach, adorned by an unused street lamp, a few bales of 
merchandise covered with sacking, some broken surf-
boats and a ragged watchman. 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 89 
The rest-house where we were going to stay was not 
actuall y at Denu but near a village on the beach a mile 
or so off rejoicini[ in tbe name of Hedzranawe, reached 
by a road leading from the cross-roads past a 
particularly repulsive fetish in the shape of a squatting 
figure with its head plentifully smeared with traces of 
recent sacrifices of eggs. The rest-house turned out 
to be an extremely comfortable double-storied wood 
and concrete bungalow about two hundred yards from 
the sea. -
- N ext day we drove from Denu to the mouth of the 
Volta, some 4 I miles, and back. The road, a very 
bad one, ran on a narrow spit between the sea and the 
lagoons, so narrow sometimes that water could be seen 
on either hand and it became little more than a causeway. 
In heavy gales the sea sweeps right over it. Where it 
was broader small straggling fishing villages have 
established a precarious foothold and about half-way 
to the Volta was the guite considerable town of Keta, 
famous for "Keta cloths", cloths woven jn patchwork 
designs from brilliantly coloured yarns. We called 
on the commissioner who very kindly accompanied us 
to the market, assisted us to buy some cloths and showed 
us the old fort, a relic of the old trading days, now used 
as a prison. Leaving Keta we went on to Atitite, or 
as near to it as we could go by car, for the last half-mile 
was deep sand. Atitite is a tiny fishing village and its 
claim to fame lies in its possession of a landing stage 
for goods and passengers by the launch from Ada on 
the other side of the river mouth. Standing on the end 
of the sand spit, to the right we had mangrove swamps 
and islets, then the broad expanse of the Volta with the 
roofs of Ada shimmering in the heat haze, the tumbled 
mass of waters on the dangerous bar, the sea, and on 
our immediate left the shell of a coasting steamer 
carried ashore and wrecked a few months before. 
Truly a scene of desolation. 
The normal trade route for Keta and Lome is from 
Amedica, five or six miles below the Senchi ferry, by 
launch to Ada, thence by smaller launch to Atitite and 
thence by road. In addition to the seat of the JJfanche 
or Paramount chief of Ada, a village some two or three 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
miles inland, Ada is really two places, Ada Beachtown 
on the sea beyond the bar and Ada Riverside within the 
bar, and is nothing but a landing and transhipment 
station, 'the country behind it ,being practically 
uninhabited grass land and lagoons. 
Returning, we stopped for lunch at Awuna Ga, 
half-way to Keta, in a rest-house built by the chief for 
the benefit of European travellers. Our host, we were 
told, was absent in Keta so we could not thank him ler 
his hosptality. Our picnic lunch seemed rather out of 
place in an enormous room furnished with a huge green 
baize covered table surrounded by chairs as if set for a 
Board meeting. We tore ourselves away eventually 
from such magnificence and from the crowds of small 
children who had eagerly watched our every movement 
and arrived back at Denu in time for another bathe 
before dark. 
Early the next morning we sent our lorry back to 
Ho by the way we had come and started ourselves on a 
180 mile run through French Togoland. Five miles 
from Denu brought us to the frontier station of Aflao 
where there was a perfunctory customs examination of 
such baggage as we carried in the car. Another mile 
brought us into Lome, after passing the imposing 
facade of the residence of the Commissaire de la 
Republiaue, formerlv the heaaquarters of the O. C. 
British Troops, and before that again the palace of the 
Herzog zu Mecklenburg. Its internal accommodation 
is not on the same scale as its exterior, but it was, in the 
Clays of the British administration before Tog-oland was 
C1ivided into British and French mandated areas, 
beautifully furnished and boasted a really remarkable 
painting by a German artist of an elephant charging 
out of bush which had been set on fire and was blazing 
behind! him. 
Driving through the streets of Lome, all planteCl 
with shade trees and lined with the light railway tracks 
which the Germans in all their colonial stations seemeCl 
to prefer to other methods of transporting goods to ana 
from warehouses, we passed the pier, a curiosity in 
West Africa, the cathedral with good stili ned glll!s 
raREl!: THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 9% 
windows, the market and the native quarter, and then, 
arriving at the railway station, turned north on the 80 
mile run to Palime on a very good road which kept close 
to the railway. Lined with shade trees and dead 
straight practically all the way, it was a contrast to so 
many of our roads whose evolution from the winding 
bush track is unmistakable. Crops of corn and 
cassava stretched on either hand and then, climbing 
the rise into Palime, government cocoa and cotton 
- plantations. Behind Palime lay ranges of hills traversed by the Misahobe pass, towards which we 
turned without stopping in the little red-roofed white-
walled mountain town. Half-way up the pass there 
was a fine waterfall in a deep cleft in the mountain side 
which plunged far down into a dim cave of waving 
ferns and' moss spanned by a high stone bridge. At 
the top of the pass the view to the north was magnificent. 
Deep gorges, grassy flanks and tree-crowned crests of 
high hills, stretched as far as the eye could reach . 
Below us lay the British frontier station of Leklebi Dafo 
and we passed the barrier and found ourselves in 
British territory on the road to Kpando, twelve miles 
from Palime, a former German administrative station. 
Kpando village lies high among the hills and the 
village itself is crowned by the commissioner's residen( e, 
a stone building far more pretentious than a mere 
bungalow. The commissioner was away, but we 
climbed up the Right of stone steps and from his veranda 
the whole country lay spread before us. We found 
ourselves on the edge of a cliff with forest far below us 
stretching away to the hills north of Ho, the dark greens 
were splashed here and there with the scarlet of "flame-
of-the-forest", and to the west lay the Volta and the 
game reserve of the Afram plains melting into the 
distance towards Ashanti and the Northern Territories. 
The road to Ho from Kpando was temporarily closed 
owing to reconstruction so we had to return via Pa1ime. 
As we came to the foot of the Misahohe pass the high 
peaks on either side caught rain clouds travelling north-
wards and we drove up the pass in torrents of rain which 
blotted out the distant hills and gave the landscape 
more the appearance of the Western Highlands than 
92 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
of tropical forest. At the head of the pass Palime and 
the two ribands of road and railway leading southwards 
lay before us bathed in the late afternoon sun. Turning 
south-west from Palime on the 25 mile road to Ho we 
passed the frontier station of N jive in the dusk and 
reached Ho to find our lorry safely arrived from Denu 
earlier in the day. 
Before starting back to Accra the fonowing morning 
we made a tour of inspection of Ho, which is really a 
collection of three or four large villages. The 
government bungalows were on a rise about half-a-mile 
from the centre and, built of quarried stone and 
surrounded by gardens of flowers, creepers, and bright 
coloured shrubs, looked very English. On a steep 
hill some distance out, reached by a narrow corkscrew 
road, was the former residence of the German commis-
sioner, commanding a view very similar to that from the 
Kpando station. The Germans' certainly chose very 
charming and heal thy sites but getting to and from 
them before the days when cars and motor cycles came 
into general use in West Africa must have been a 
laborious and heating process. 
Having sent our lorry off on the homeward journey 
earlier in the morning, we left Ho ourselves on the same 
road by which we had come but, after passing Chito, 
turned off north at the small walled village of Asikuma 
up a steep and rocky five mile road' to Anum, on a hill 
overlooking the Volta and its tributary the Afram. 
The country around Anum and Kpando has certainly 
the finest scenery in the colony, even more attractive 
than the Mpraeso and Mampong scarps. We lunched 
at Anum, returned to the main road at Asikuma by a 
detour through the village of Peki, found ourselves once 
more on the Senchi ferry and arrived at Kpong, where, 
instead of going on to Somanya by the 'direct road to 
Accra, we turned south to Akuse, five miles distant. 
Akuse an'd its seaport, Ada, have suffered in the same 
way, though not to the same extent, as Dodowa and 
Pram Pram from railway construction and the develop-
ment of cocoa further to the west. The industry of this 
district also used to be palm oil and Akuse, being at tho 
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD COAST. 93 
highest navigable point of the Volta (there are rapids 
between it and Kpong), was the collecting centre. It 
still, however, does a fair local trade and ships to Ada 
a certain amount of cocoa from British Togoland. 
Akuse being actually a mile or so from the river, 
Amedica is the point of arrival and departure of the 
launches and lighters. It is said that "Amedica" is 
a corruption of " America" and was so called because 
it was where slaves were embarked in the old days for 
• transfer to ships bound for the plantations. One 
hesitates to believe this without corroboration but the 
tale is certainly ben trovato. While at Amedica we saw 
the remains of a river steamer which had unsuspectingly 
been moored far inland during abnormal floods. They 
had rapidly subsided and left her stranded, as some-
times happens to boating parties on the reaches of the 
Thames below Teddington. History does not relate 
the comments of the owners or the fate of the skipper. 
Leaving Akuse we joined the Kpong-Accra road 
at Somanya and arrived home that evening after having 
covered 540 miles in three and a half days. 
94 TO GOLD COAST UVIIIW 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI 
TO MARSEILLES. 
By MRS. A. DUNCAN JOHNSTONE. 
We left Kumasi on Monday. October 20th, rather 
a rush, as the boat left a day earlier than we expected. 
We had a great send off, Prempeh and many of his 
people from the Seychelles, the Serikin longo 
and some ten horsemen, and a crowd of Europeans. 
The journey was more or less cool all the way down. 
It's a far more interesting journey than the one to 
Accra and that helps to pass the time. Captain Burner 
brought us tea at Tarkwa, which was very welcome. 
We went, on arrival at Sekondi, to Swanzy's 
office to fix up about our tickets. We have only 
booked to Las Palmas, as we don't yet know what 
we shall do. There was a slight trouble about our 
tickets, as they charged us more than they said they 
would when we were at Accra, but this is going to 
be attended to. We got away about 6.20 p.m. the 
surf was good and Sekondi looked beautiful in the 
half light. The" Irmgard .. is a boat of nearly 4.000 
tons, takes on board 3,100 tons cargo, so if we fill 
up we ought to have a pretty steady trip. We have 
quite a decent-sized cabin with writing table, sofa 
and a large cupboard. It was dark when we got on 
board. There were two other passengers-Captain 
and Mrs. Burnett-Forestry, going to Axim. They 
had with them a delightful chimp who caused US 
much amusement whilst on board. Our luggage 
did not arrive until a long time after we did, as the 
Customs official, who was coming out to clear the 
ship, went and had his bath first I James had stayed 
with the luggage and he arrived very agitated. After 
it arrived we had a meal, and our first impression of 
the food on board was not good. It was a sort of 
high tea and was a strange meal; first some hot dish 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. 95 
and tea, afterwards sardines and highly-smelling 
and colored sausages I During the meal we weighed 
anchor. We then tried to settle ourselves in but 
were so tired we just got out what we wanted and 
went to bed. We have our meals with the captain, 
first officer, doctor and chief engineer, all of whom 
talk English exceedingly well. They all seem to be 
very pleasant and most anxious to do anything they 
can for us. The chief steward is a very decent man 
and very willing. He was taken prisoner in the 
Cameroons during the War. He talks excellent 
English, also French, Spanish and Portuguese. 
Our next port of call ought to have been Axim 
but instead we stopped at a very small place called 
Akoda, near Cape Three Points. Seen from the ship it 
looked very attractive, with its stretch of golden sand, 
and a long line of coconut trees fringing the beach, 
behind this, tucked away, was the small village. 
We were to take on board 90 odd logs of mahogany 
which belonged to a native named Williams. The 
logs were piled on the beach, having been brought 
down from inland for over three miles. Brought 
down entirely by man power I We were up very 
early and soon after breakfast Angus and I landed. 
The surf was very smooth, which must have been a 
godsend to the men working on the beach. We 
were anchored only about 800 yards from the shore 
so the trip was short and we were towed in nearly 
all the way by the ship's launch. As one got nearer 
the place looked liked a scene out of Robinson 
Crusoe, except for the Europeanly dressed Mr. 
Williams. On landing Angus and I went for a walk 
along the shore on hard sand towards another and 
larger village but after walking for half an hour 
we sat down, as it was very hot. There is a small 
bay here and on the far side is the ruin of one of the 
old castles, now nearly overgrown but still visible 
in parts and most picturesque. The coast here 
is very rocky and coming back we climbed 
over the rocks which were alive with crabs and 
covered with thousands of blood red anemones. 
When we got back we sat and watched the meu 
96 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
rolling the logs down to the water; frightfully hard 
work as each log weighs on an average 2 tons. Once 
in the water a large staple with a ring in it is driven 
into the logs, then they are pushed and pulled into 
deeper water and five to ten are roped together and 
towed by a boat, which again, when outside the 
breakers, is towed by the launch. On arrival at the 
ship the rope is slipped and a man swims about in 
the water fixing the rope into the rings and the logs 
are hoisted on board. The ring is then removed and 
the logs, amid frightful noise and directions from 
everyone, as far as I could see lowered into the 
hold. 
Very few white people ever go near this place 
and certainly very few white women, so we were 
rather a success. The amazing thing, though, was 
that Mr. Williams knew who we were. Angus and 
he had a long conversation and he told him quite a 
lot of interesting things. He told Angus that he 
paid his men 4/- a day and that he was hoping to 
get enough money to get modem machinery to help 
his work. He said he was doing very well and that 
he really couldn't work fast enough: that he could 
never get an Elder Dempster boat to take his stuff 
as they refused to come in, and so all his trade goes to 
the Germans. He spoke a lot about Prempeh, as he 
was in Sekondi when he arrived. And Angus asked 
him why the people of Sekondi were so pleased to see 
Prempeh back and why they had given him such a 
great reception on arrival. He said that it wasn't 
so much for Prempeh, as a demonstration of thanks 
to the Government for their action towards an 
African. This sportsman when we got away, about 
9 p.m., was going back to Sekondi, walking to the 
village beyond the bay, going by canoe to Dixcove 
and then walking on. By Jove. he must have been 
weary. So were we, I suppose it's the strong sea air. 
We arrived at Axim about midnight. It looks 
most awfully attractive from the ship. The old 
castle and the lighthouse and the town nestling by 
the sea, its green hill dotted with bungalows. Here 
the Bumetts landed; again there was very little 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROio! SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. 97 
surf, so the going was easy. To our great dis-
appointment we couldn't land, as there was no cargo. 
Although we might have done so, as the wretched 
boat boys stayed ashore for nearly two hours, to the 
wild annoyance of the first officer. I think they 
were eventually sorry too lOne couldn't help think-
ing while ' we were there of poor Dr. Beamish. We 
got away about 10.30 and the captain was not sure 
where we should stop next, as if there was cargo at 
Half Assini, we should stop there. We had lunch 
and went to bed. The food is now better but we 
still have a funny high tea meal at 6.30. We got 
to Half Assini about 3 p.m. and soon after we landed. 
We are getting used to the" mammy chair" as they 
call it but we really had a most thrilling time with 
the surf. Although it looked quite calm, the surf 
on the beach was awfully rough and we had a most 
exciting time going in, wave after wave, and the 
bows of the boat were almost above one's head 
and then we would come down with the most awful 
bump, the boat shaking one from side to side; most 
exciting. I was held firmly in position by an obliging 
native Customs official I We arrived safely, but 
shaken, and were carried ashore by two rough-
looking gentlemen. 
Half Assini is the dirtiest, dreariest place I have 
seen on the Coast, very squalid too. The sand has 
become dirty with age, it has lost its golden colour 
and is a dirty drab. We ploughed through it to the 
village, just a sandy square with a few stores round 
it, one or two new concrete buildings going up and 
a couple of two storied houses. The sand was inches 
deep and made walking awfully heavy and it must 
be a dreadfully tiring place to live in as there seems 
to be no solid ground anywhere. Some boys were 
playing foot-ball in the square and one could hardly 
see any boys or ball for the dust. There seemed to 
be very few people about an utterly dreary place. 
We walked through the village, and about half a 
mile away on the shore were two very big and well built 
bungalows, one for the District Commissioner and one 
tor the Medical Officer when they were there. They 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
were very neatly kept but seemed so lonely and rooked 
so depressing. Just at the edge of the village was 
the Preventive Station which was the only cheerful 
spot in the whole place. It was most awfully well 
kept, very neat and very well laid out, amazingly so 
considering there was no European in charge. The 
men too looked and were very smart, a good show. 
One man, to whom Angus spoke, had been in the 
regiment with him and the superintendent was also 
an old soldier. He certainly did not look a soldier, 
as he was a small under-sized man with glasses. 
Upon the beach is an old wreck of an Elder Dempster 
boat, the" Batkano," she ran ashore about a mile away 
and has drifted down and is now right up on the beach 
and one can get on board (if you want to !) by climbing 
up her side. She helps to make the place look dreary. 
At the back of the village is a lagoon and round it 
everything is green and fresh, quite a joyful sight 
after the village. We walked out to the bungalows 
and stopped some time at the Preventive Station 
and there a European came up to us and said we 
ought to hurry as at any moment the surf might get 
too bad to let us get back. We had quite a long 
talk with him, he was a l\Ir. Ellis of Millers. They 
are the only firm there and there is only himself and 
the provincial agent. The provincial agent has 
been there for 15 years, I can imagine nothing 
more awful! Half Assini gives one the impression 
of being utterly un-English, more like a Portuguese 
place I should think. There is a tremendous amount 
of mahogany all round and when shipping it a rope 
is taken out to the ship and attached to it, the other 
end is attached to an old engine on the beach and the 
logs are then pushed into the sea and slung on to the 
over-head rope. The agent said it was a heart-
breaking job, as the rope always broke at the critical 
moment. It's the only way they can do it, as the surf 
is always so bad that it would be impossible for the 
stuff to be taken out attached to a surf boat as in 
other places. Millers' have a small narrow gauge 
railway of their own which runs up country for four 
miles, with an engine, which has been in the country 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKOSDI TO MARSEILLES 99 
for 3S years 1 and is still working. I really think it 
ought to have gone to Wembley. Shortly they are 
going to build, I think the agent said, another four 
or seven miles of railways. They have also built 
iron canoes, which they use up the lagoon; they have a 
wooden awning over them and could be made quite 
comfortable I should think. 
The sand is so firm along the Coast here that they 
motor into Axim in the good old Ford lorry; we 
wondered when we got on shore what a lorry was doing 
there. Millers have built a concrete slip from which it 
takes off. It was quite near to Half Assini where the 
West African regiment, which mutinied in 1900, in 
Kumasi, was shelled on its march home by the 
.. Dwarf .. ; even now many of the men are still 
working in Half Assini. An awfully sad thing 
happened to the captain of the" Ba tkano ". He was 
saved when the boat ran ashore, but was drowned 
in a surf boat the following day when going out 
to another ship. His brother was the captain of 
the .. Fulani" which ran ashore at Sierra Leone. 
Unlucky family. Mr. Ellis says the French Preven-
tive is a funny show: the other morning he had hoped 
to go over about some palaver and had to leave 
about S a.m. in the lorry to catch the tide and when 
he got to the French Preventive Station, he had to 
go and wake them up to say he was there 1 He 
was afraid he might not get back if he hadn't roused 
them 1 We left soon after six and the surf was 
really awfully exciting, I expected at any moment 
to be overturned. We had about ten sacks of cocoa 
put into the boat to make it heavier, and away 
we went. Coming in was exciting, but going 
back was more so, as when we hit a wave and came 
through it the boat was almost completely out of the 
water and fell back again with the most awful whack 
into the sea which jarred one all over and one had 
hardly time to recover before the next, when up we 
went with showers of spray all over us and our nose 
right up above us. I was quite glad when we got 
beyond the breakers and had got hold of the rope 
of the launch and were skimming along to the ~hip. 
100 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
The natives of Half Assini are very black, also 
exceedingly lazy and truculent, so it is said. Oh ! 
how I should loathe to be stationed there. But I 
wouldn't have missed seeing it for anything in 
spite of the surf. We couldn't help thinking when 
we got back to the ship again and saw the cocoa 
bags being pulled up, if people could only realise what 
the cocoa has to go through before it is made into 
chocolates, they would appreciate them more. 
• 
We got away soon after 7.30 and by midnight we 
dropped anchor outside Grand Bassam. Again at 
5.30 in the morning the donkey engine lowered the 
boats and we started as soon as possible to take on 
cargo. So sleep flies out of the window and we rise 
and have a walk round the deck and get dressed 
very slowly. We anchored rather far out at night 
but when it was light we came very much nearer in. 
Grand Bassam is a strange looking place, all one sees 
from the ship is a long, stretch of Casuarina trees, 
with here and there a bungalow showing, or the red 
roof of one. Running out from the beach are two 
iron piers, one not used now only wreckage remaining; 
the other runs out into the sea for several hundred 
• yards and was alive with men working with the 
donkey engines loading and unloading, and also 
with the shoots that slide the logs into the sea. 
At the end of the pier, the town end, there were 
a few sheds and one or two bungalows, but other-
wise one saw nothing at all. The whole beach is 
strewn with logs as far as one c~n see, odd ones, 
which have got adrift and have been washed up. 
As a matter of fact the whole way down when 
looking through the glasses onc sees logs everywhere 
then on the beach, there must be the most frightful 
wastage. 
We landed soon after breakfast and satin the 
"mammy chair" all the way as on landing they 
just take you up on to the pier in the Chair. No clinging 
round some one's neck. It was hot when we landed. 
We have had it hot all the time but here the heat 
was terrific. On landing we had to get permission to 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES lOr 
go ashore from the harbour master owing to some 
quarantine palaver. As soon as we left the pier we 
realised why it was that one sees so little from the 
slUp. Grand Bassam is built on a narrow strip of 
land with the lagoon on one side and the sea on the 
other. The town gives one the impression of being 
almost below sea level. Grand Bassam is very 
long and narrow; the main street is really very 
fine, a long straight avenue with a concrete road and 
no native houses anywhere, only European buildings, 
stores, offices, post office, etc.; all good buildings 
but all wanting a coat of wlUtewash with the exception 
of the Elder Dempster building, wlUch shewed the 
others up very much, as it was gleaming wlUte. There 
are no native houses at all along the main street; the 
entire native population lives in the native village 
across the lagoon or at the village right at the end of 
the town. We walked up to the agent's with the 
first officer, who had come ashore with us. We passed 
the Club, a nice looking building, but right in the 
middle of the town with not a tiny glimpse of the 
sea and no ground round it. We then walked round, 
and went to the market, wlUch is by the lagoon. 
Just the same ordinary things, except for two women 
who had the most lovely colored merchandise in 
front of them, bright red tomatoes, yellow and green 
ones and the most gloriously deep purple and bright 
green garden eggs. It was a simply lovely splash 
of colour. They were also selling rice tied into small 
sheaves. The lagoon looked most attractive winding 
away into the distance, with canoes on it and masses 
of figating logs. It is spanned by three large iron and 
concrete bridges on which are bright green electric 
lights. It must look rather nice at night. Running 
from a pier on the lagoon down to the end of the 
pier out at sea is a small railway line on wlUch run 
trollies bringing the logs from the lagoon to the sea. 
The lagoon was covered tlUckly with the logs and all 
the work was being done by the wildest looking lot of 
bushmen. It is labour brought down from the interior, 
they work for six moons and get three francs a day. 
They are completely clothesless except for a small 
-
I~ THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
cloth and there were one or two in weird hats. One 
sportsman had on nothing but the scantiest cloth 
and a bowler hat. They looked rather scared, a 
good many of them, and not too happy. It's one 
way of getting labour any way. They are all 
extremely dirty. They push the trollies with the 
logs on them to the end of the pier, where they are 
shot into the water down a small shoot and then 
collected and roped together and towed to the waiting 
ships. The lay-out of a French town gets us whacked 
every time. There was something so much more . 
homelike in these two long avenues, with the 
Casuarina trees and the fine bungalows. One of 
the most comic sights we saw was the policeman on 
point duty. He had on an exceedingly old pair of 
cast off striped grey-brown trousers, short in the leg, 
a very old blue serge jumper tunic thing, with an 
old belt somewhere near his armpits, closed with a 
rusty buckle. On his head was perched a small 
red rolled fez, The quaintest and most distressful 
sight. They certainly can't dress their people. 
There seemed to be very little traffic except for the 
trollies. I suppose we only saw half a dozen cars. 
It seems so funny after all the traffic we have in our 
towns. 
We walked down past the market and on to the 
part where the bungalows were; they were more 
like villas in the Riviera than West African bungalows. 
They all had rounded red tiled roofs which made 
them look most attractive. Not much in the way 
of gardens, as it was too sandy. We couldn't stay 
on shore after 11.30, as they shut down from then 
till 2.30 p.m., but we had seen the best of what there 
was to be seen. It's most interesting to see how 
other countries run their shows, and one's first 
impression is how infinitely better they are than us 
in building a station. 
There is a big white population in Grand Bassam 
and quite a lot of English people. Back to the ship 
ready for lunch. The ship was surrounded by a lot 
of one-man canoes, with natives selling fish. Amongst 
, 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES 103 
the fish were quite a lot of small sharks, which they 
say are very good "chop." We didn't go ashore 
in the afternoon as it was so hot. We got away 
after "high tea" and got to Grand Lahou about 
midnight. Grand Lahou: it sounds all right, but 
Heavens! what a place. We didn't go ashore until 
the afternoon, as it was most awfully hot . The surf, 
from the ship, didn't look too bad, but seeing it from 
the ship is one thing and being in it is very different . 
Going in, when we got into the breakers, we just 
swung round and round like a cork, our boys were 
not skilful, being Sierra Leone boys. We should have 
done better if we had gone in a shore boat but very 
few came out to us most of them working other 
ships. The" Irmgard" has five boats of her own 
and a launch. What a dreary place! But in spite 
of this there waS the long straight avenue that the 
French always seem to get in spite of all difficulties. 
There were very few good buildings in the town part, 
but the bungalows at the end were very nice; there 
were any amount of ramshackle buildings in the town, 
half falling down, and nothing but sand. We went 
first of all with the First Officer to the Woermann 
Agent's and then we mouched about and went 
into a store to try and buy tobacco for Angus. 
In this we sutceeded and the Agen t took us in 
charge and we had a long talk with him and 
then he took us into his house. Heavens I It 
was the most deplorable bungalow I have ever 
seen anywhere on the Coast. It had been built 
thirty years ago of corrugated iron and wood, and for 
years not a thing had been done to it. There was 
a tiny narrow verandah with three rooms leading off 
it, two bedrooms and a billiard room! complete 
with table. One comer of the verandah had been 
made into the" salon"; in it were four chairs and 
round the comer were four more, all green with age. 
Once they had been covered in leather, now there 
were only bits of leather left and a vast amount 
of horsehair; the wood was splitting and the look 
of decay was really pathetic. On the sideboard was 
a filthy white cloth which must have been there 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
for years. The walls were all bulging and no 
whitewash had been on them for years. The 
steps as you came in, were all breaking away; 
it was an absolute example of what one's ideas of 
bungalows must have been in· the olden days. In 
fact it was first cousin to the bungalow in .. White 
Cargo," it really was awful. The Agent, a nice man 
and full of intelligence, apologised for the awfulness 
and explained that at last they were building him a 
new house, a concrete one just beside it, and that he 
was keeping all the new furniture, etc. But one 
realised that the decay wasn't the decay of a few 
months. The Agent had been out for I7 years and 
was full of awfully interesting stories. He had 
travelled a lot into the interior and told us that about 
twenty miles inland the country is alive with cannibals, 
that they are frightfully wild and savage, always 
having petty scraps. He told us also that one tribe 
• in the interior never buried their dead, but always 
ate them after the so-called funeral custom. He says 
there is an enormous amount of wealth in the country 
and that they nearly always buy their ivory from the 
French Political Officers. That they employ hunters to 
go out and kill the elephants and then they trade it 
with the firms, and so augment their very limited pay. 
He told us Grand Lahou was a dreadful place 
to live in and I believed him. He said they got on 
very well with the French, but that the French 
themselves were always having dreadfully fierce 
quarrels, were not on speaking terms with each 
other for months and then fell on each other's necks. 
He said it was hardly ever safe to ask anyone to a 
groundnut until you had l;couted round to find out if 
your proposed guests were on speaking terms with each 
other. Often several were invited and one on seeing 
who his fellow guest was at once had tummy-ache 
and had to leave! He told us that the French are 
building roads and railways all over the place and 
that the Ivory Coast was a very wealthy Colony, 
but that all the money goes to Dakar and that they 
only get the smallest percentage back again, that 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES lOS 
most of it goes to other parts and the result is that 
they are left very badly off and therefore are unable, 
with the exception of roads, to do anything 
progressive. Think how awful it would be, if the 
wealth of the Gold Coast had to be divided up amongst 
Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia I Of course they 
have got hundred of miles of unproductive country 
in the interior, but at the same time it seems a strange 
policy to let your more hopeful and useful places 
suffer to the extent they do. There was much more 
• 
he told us but it's hard to remember all, when one 
mind is so full of stories and things, as mine is 
just now. 
A warning came up from the beach that we 
ought to leave, as the surf at any time might become 
too bad for us to go out. So we collected the first 
officer and hied us beachwards. We had a talk there 
with the Woermann agent, a very tired looking French-
man. He told us that the surf at Grand Lahou 
was one of the worst on the Coast, and that between 
six and 700 ,000 frs. worth of stuff was lost at sea 
each year! Ordinarily when loading a ship with 
mahogany they can only take out two logs at a time, 
but on a good day, which he called to-day, they 
could rope together anything up to eighteen, most 
unusual. The whole coast as far as you could see 
was strewn with logs that had broken away and had 
been thrown up on the shore for miles and miles up and 
down the beach. The loss in kernels and cocoa from 
boats that upset is awful too. I wonder why they 
chose such a spot for their station. I suppose it was 
because of the river and lagoon at the back of the 
town as Grand Lahou, like Grand Bassam, is built 
on a narrow spit of sand in between the two. They 
called it a good day. Man Dieu! you should have 
seen our return up mountains, down deep valleys, 
smothered in spray. When we arrived back at the 
ship there wasn't one inch of me that wasn't 
absolutely wet through: and that was a good day I 
In the morning I had seen two boats turned right 
over, loaded with kernels. There were three other 
ships in besides ours. One French boat which had 
106 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
been there for six solid weeks loading with mahogany! 
Six weeks, Mon Dieu! Every inch of space seemed 
to be logs, how they could move on board heaven 
knows, and they were taking on more all the time. 
Another ship was an American and in the evening 
a boat paddled by about fifteen American sailors came 
alongside, panting for beer. Even their ships are 
dry, poor devils. No wonder they came round pleading 
for beer. We stayed loading all the next day, the 
slowness was exasperating. The captain was simply 
dancing and I don't blame him. He said that whether 
the stuff was loaded or not he was going. And at 4.0 
we went, without all the stuff. During the day we 
heard really quite an exciting and interesting bit 
of news. On 28th Septmeber a Dutch boat had 
run ashore at a place called Nana Kroo and it was 
on the cards that we were to go and salve the boat 
and the cargo. If we did, it meant perhaps a week's 
wait. But what matter, it would be rather exciting 
and interesting. Nothing would be definitely known 
until we got to Cape Palmas so we just had to wait. 
We got in about 12.30 midday next day. Cape 
Palmas is a most picturesque place in a bay with 
a small river flowing into the sea. The town is 
built on a narrow arm of land running out into the 
sea. It is a high rocky spit of land, with a few trees 
but some extraordinarily fine bungalows. Bungalows 
of three or four stories with red roofs. Down below 
were the Customs sheds and then started the town. 
Running round the bay was a lovely golden sandy 
beach, with grass down to the shore and a few palm 
trees, two large wrecks, red with rust, one having 
been there from 1876. The color was lovely though 
against the sand and green background. As soon as 
we anchored a Mr. Morris, Woodin's Liberian agent, 
came out about the salvage of the wreck. He is also 
Lloyds'representative. With him came a Herr Weber, 
Woermann's agent. We then heard that, if an 
amazing lot of difficulties put up by the intelligent 
officials of the Liberian Government were got over, 
we were to proceed to the wreck. A great many gentle-
men in khaki kit with large badges on their caps 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. I07 
came out to the ship and after a long time we heard 
we were to go and try and salve as much cargo as 
possible, and the ship, if it could be done but 
first we were to take on cargo at Cape Palmas. We 
didn't land till the afternoon. A very calm sea and 
we easily got over the bar and came up alongside a 
small quay. What an amazing place. On landing 
there were several sheds running along for some dis-
tance, high above on the cliffs were the bungalows and 
a huge white four-storied house belonging to some 
American Mission. The whole of Liberia it seems is 
full of American Missions. From the quay we walked 
up into the town. Round the bay were a lot of small 
native houses, square, very low, with roofs of palm 
and banana leaves. Then came the town itself I 
an astounding place.-A narrow grass-grown road, 
with large ruts in it. Dirt of every kind everywhere, 
but, curiously, very little smell. The houses were 
the most extraordinary erections you can imagine. 
They were most of them on piles three or four feet 
off the ground. On to this was built what looked like 
large two storied hen houses. How anyone walks 
about or lives in them without crashing through 
I don't know. They are built of wood, nailed 
together very roughly, with iron roofs. Many of 
them are just one room below and one above reached 
by a ladder. Quite a lot have very unsafe looking 
verandahs on both the upper and lower stories. Some 
of course are bigger and slightly better built. But 
the place gives one the impression of a town built 
by a lot of children for fun. The one thing about 
them is that most of them have made attempts to 
make a garden, round which they have placed a 50-
called fence with a gate. They nearly all have a list 
to one side. Most of the rooms inside seem to have 
the walls papered with newspapers mostly German 
and an amazing number of people seem to live in them. 
Almost every other house had washing spread out 
round the house and garden. I have never seen 50 
much washing any where. I suppose they make a 
living by taking in each other's washing, or else are 
amazingly clean. There are at least a dozen churches; 
108 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
one or two quite fine buildings with towers and well 
finished off. There is quite a lot of grass land and on 
this were grazing the tiniest cattle I have ever seen. 
Nearly all of them black and white. So small that 
from a distance we thought they were pigs. The 
calves are the size of small sheep-rather attractive. 
There are two main streets of these amazing 
houses both full of ruts and grass-grown. The 
inhabitants are all more or less dressed in European 
clothes and the whole place is very like what I imagine 
one of the Southern States Negro towns must be 
like. Some of them are not bad looking and many 
are very light in color. We walked through the town 
and then saw quite a good road in the distance so we 
went down it. Not at all a bad road as far as we 
went, but it stopped at once on leaving the town I 
We were told afterwards that the road is there but 
useless as there are no culverts or bridges and no 
causeway over the swamps. So you perhaps have 
a mile of decent road and then blank, then another 
bi t of road, blank, and so on. 
Some of the gentlemen inhabitants wore queer 
clothes. A cloth which reached to their feet, a 
morning, frock, or overcoat on top, and on their heads 
bowlers, top-hats, straw hats and one very smart in a 
huge pale grey helmet, several sizes too big for him. 
In one group alone I saw all the above mentioned 
costumes. The women seemed better dressed. Every 
one was very polite and very curious, all passing the 
time of day with us. All the same there was rather 
an air of depression over the whole place, I can't tell 
you exactly what it was, there was a sort of dull 
feeling. We walked about for a long time, very very 
• intrigued by it all. I felt rather as if I was in a cinema 
picture I Walking back we went through the" native 
part of the town," very squalid indeed and very 
dirty. The huts were so dark that the only light 
coming in was through the doors, very low, so that 
to get in one had to stoop almost double. During 
our wanderings round we had seen stuck up a Dotice 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. 109 
that there was to be a meeting of Boy Scouts on the 
"parade ground" at 5 o'clock, so we went and 
talked to Herr Weber for a bit, a charming person 
and full of information having been out for 17 years. 
Then the doctor, Angus and I went up in the hopes 
of seeing something really amusing. We waited for 
three quarteTs of an hour and all we saw was one 
energetic young man rushing round blowing a whistle, 
which seemed to have no effect whatsoever on his 
fellow scouts. So we left a herd of small cows to 
hold the parade in their place, and departed from 
the quay about 6 o'clock, getting back on board in 
time for our " high tea." Herr Weber and another 
man from his firm came out to chop. Herr Weber 
was really an exceedingly nice man. His confrere 
was a typical German, very fair hair, blue eyes and 
fair eye brows, very finely built, but entirely lacking 
the charm of Herr Weber. It was a most amusing 
day. The total and complete change of the place, 
people, houses, etc., was most interesting. When 
we got back we found Mr. Morris on board, as he was 
coming to the wreck to see what was to be done. He 
is a most interesting little man, with a wealth of 
stories about Liberia and Liberians. At the moment 
he is foaIning with rage against them, as only a short 
time ago they arrested him when he came off a certain 
ship he had been visiting and marched him through 
the street with armed guards to the so-called police 
station, where he was charged with having committed 
a frightful crime against the custom laws. He was 
allowed bail of 1,500 dollars and after a short time 
the Circuit Judge tried the case. He says the trial, 
if it hadn't been so tiresome, was the most comic 
opera show you can possibly imagine. Well, after 
hours of talk, it was absolutely proved that he had 
been arrested under a law that never existed or ever 
will exist, a trumped-up case entirely. The Court 
was claiming from him a fine of £250 or imprisonment I 
He is of course furious and is claiming against the 
Liberian Government for false arrest. But he says 
.. of course I shan't get it, as you never do get any-
thing in this country." He is also demanding that 
rIO THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
the judge and custom officials concerned should 
be dismissed. He also told us that when you go to 
the court here most of the first day is more or less 
taken up with reading the minutes of the previous 
sessions, so your entire morning is wasted listening 
to astounding workings of the law in no way 
concerned with your own case. He is an excellent 
imitator and his description of the whole thing was 
like a farce. This is an amazing country, you can it 
seems get arrested for anything. They spend most of 
their time thinking out new things to arrest people for. 
They arrest white men, or used to, for wearing shorts, 
for indecently showing too much leg! They arrest 
you for bathing, if you bathe with no clothes, either 
black or white. They arrest you for riding a bicycle 
on Sundays, unless you have bought a permit. They 
arrest you for walking about on Sundays in shirt 
sleeves without a coat, etc. Surely a comic opera 
country. Mr. Morris was taken prisoner in the War 
in the Cameroons, when the Germans gave him a very 
poor time and treated him rottenly. 
In this country it seems you have to spend your 
time in being careful in case you should be arrested. 
Help I 
We saw also rather an amusing notice stuck up 
in the town; there had been some show for a Court-
martial and all the Militia had been called up and 
over 80 had been absent and their names had all been 
posted up threatening dire punishment. 
We moved off about 8.30 p.m. to go to Nana Kroo 
and got there in the early hours. Soon after dawn they 
started away with the old donkey engines lowering 
the boats to get them away to the wreck. There she 
was, looking from the distance perfectly all right, 
about 3! miles out, as if she was making straight 
out to sea. We were a good way off but the intention 
was that after the captain had been over to the wreck 
and taken soundings, to come up as close as possible. 
He hoped to be able to take the ship off the rocks 
as well as saving the cargo, and to tow her to Dakar 
to a dry dock. At eight the captain, the chief 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. III 
engineer, Mr. Morris, Angus and several others left to 
go to the wreck, we at the time were about two miles 
away from her. I thought of going too, but they said 
it would be difficult to get up and also when they left 
I wasn't dressed; and very glad I was afterwards 
that I hadn't gone. Angus said it was simply too 
awful for words, the nauseating smell when they 
started to go round the ship; it was in an appalling 
state. The entire ship had been looted of every single 
thing possible and impossible, there was absolutely 
nothing whatsoever to see anywhere, except a certain 
amount of cargo. Everything had gone. Beds, . 
food, furniture, fittings, all the panelling, curtains, 
the seats from the settees, all the wireless, even the 
hand basins had been pulled off and thrown on the 
floor and smashed. Every bit of wood-work had 
gone: nothing remained. Even the charts and papers 
had been taken and tom up into tiny bits and scat-
tered all over the place. The only things the Kroos 
had been unable to take were the two baths in the 
bathrooms. She was very full of water in the holds 
and the smell of the rotting kernels, hides, cocoa, and 
the latrines which had not been emptied, was over-
whelming. The natives from all along the coast had 
simply cleared the sihp utterly and absolutely. 
Not only the ship's stuff had gone, but a huge amount 
of cocoa and kernels also, hundreds and hundreds 
of bags full. There were in the holds about 250 
casks of oil as well as cocoa, coffee, piassava (a sort 
of fibre used for brooms, an enormous amount of which 
we have on board), kernels, etc. The bags of cocoa 
had been cut open by the dozen, I suppose to see 
what they contained, these were everywhere rotting 
and cocoa once wet with the sea is useless. The kernels, 
it seems, don't matter if they do get wet. The wreck 
is a Dutch boat and rather strangely built, in that she 
has only two very large holds and so the damage is far 
more than it would be had the holds been divided up, 
as in this ship. They returned about I2, glad to get 
away. Then the fun began, as the Customs officials 
at Nana Kroo started to put up one objection after 
another, they claimed that as the ship had been 
lIZ THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
wrecked on the Liberian Coast they had a right to 
everything. All day long there were palavers, 
which still continued at nightfall. The hopes of 
salving the ship are not many as she is badly holed 
and the water is getting higher and higher all the 
time. But they think they can save over £3,500 
worth of cargo. The next afternoon the palavers 
having finished we started loading with kernels, 
which Mr. Woodin's agent had with the help 
of a Liberian officer and four soldiers found on 
shore. Hundreds of bags. The natives are all 
feeling very glum and life is not so bright for them, 
they had hoped to make large sums by their theft. 
It seems that the wreck was in charge at first of a 
man at a place called Grand Cess, a small way up the 
coast, a Dutchman, who was working in Lloyds' 
interest; a known ruffian, who cabled to Mr. Morris 
that the ship was a total wreck and that he would 
offer £200 for the cargo. A jolly good job that 
Mr. Morris came himself. Pretty good effort on 
the part of the Dutchman. 
Next day I had a rotten headache, so I stayed 
in bed all the morning, but Angus went ashore with 
a Mr. Edwards, the Assistant sent down here by 
Mr. Morris fDm Cape Palmas. He, incidently, had 
to come down 60 miles in a surf boat! A pastime 
I could do well without, merci! Angus came back 
highly amused with life, and Liberian life especially. 
Nana KlOo is a small town, mostly just native huts 
with a few of the hen-house type of house. There 
was an officer and four Liberian soldiers there, of 
whom Angus took a photo as a really good souvenir, 
a truly amazing sight. The men were dressed any-
how with carbines so rusted that it was almost 
impossible to see down the barrels. The shore along 
the cost is very attractive, with the long stretches of 
golden sand palm trees fringing it and the small 
huts just to be seen. Angus said that everywhere, 
browsing along the shore, are cattle, fat and healthy 
looking, but very very tiny. The place is stiff with Cus-
toms officials each filled with his own great importance 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. II3 
The Customs House was a travesty of a place, 
just a few pieces of corrugated iron thrown together 
and the rest left to good luck that they joined up. 
All day we had been loading with kernels and in the 
evening we moved up nearer to the wreck, going 
very slowly, sounding every inch of the way as we 
did not want to land ourselves on the rocks. We 
dropped anchor half-a-mile away. Next morning 
we moved nearer and are now about 500 yards away 
- or less, and the smell that came to us on the morning breeze, Mon Dieu! But it was nothing to 
what it is now that, they are bringing the rotting 
kernels on board. Its awful. Words utterly fail me. 
But in spite of words failing me I will try and describe 
it to you later on. The whole of that day we stayed 
on board, passing the day in different ways. A gTeat 
amount of the time taken up with eating and sleeping. 
As it was a day with nothing to relate, I think the 
time has come in which to give you a fuller description 
of our life on board a cargo boat, also of our fellow 
passengers and the officers. 
We are really very comfortable indeed and once 
one has got used to the strangeness of the food and 
the rather odd hours at which it is served, it is very 
good. Beefsteak and fried potatoes, with coloured 
sausages and bright yellow cheese is not one's idea 
quite of a good old English breakfast! Lunch is 
the big meal of the day. This consists of soup, meat, 
sweets, cheese and once again the multicoloured 
sausages. This is at I2.30. Tea and biscuits at 
3.30. Slightly disturbing to slumber if you are lucky 
enough to be sleeping, but sleep in the afternoon is 
not so very good owing to the hold and donkey engine 
being within a few feet of the cabin. High tea at 
6.30; a hot dish first, with tea, and followed by the 
multicoloured sausages. These sausages haunt all 
meals and if before going to bed you are hungry our 
old friend is made into sandwiches. A trusted friend 
and one I rather think will be rather in demand, as 
to-day the Steward informed us that he was beginning 
to get rather short of food; he had hoped to get 
!OI1le at MolU'Qvia and alsQ §Qrne in Sierra Leonll 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
and we shall be several days late there now owing 
to this wreck salvage. The Officers and men are 
exceedingly nice and nothing is too much trouble 
for them, always arranging for us to go on shore and 
doing all they can to help when we do land. They 
all speak English very well indeed and are full of 
many stories and anecdotes. The first officer, the 
doctor and the steward had all been prisoners during 
the War. The Doctor is quite a nice man, young, 
just on the trip for experience. All Woermann cargo 
boats carry doctors since the War which is more 
than Elder Dempster cargo boats do. At first he 
was shy, but now we get on very well together, and 
Angus and he play chess together a lot, and it is 
proving a godsend to them both as during this hanging 
about, time is becoming rather heavy on ones hands. 
The steward is a great conversationalist and one never 
passes by him without at least five minutes conver-
sation, and he often comes before a meal and in husky 
tones, I suppose because he is afraid that someone 
else might hear, mentions to me what there is for 
the next meal I We had one queer meal which is, 
it seems, the great meal for Saturday night. It was 
pickled herrings followed by a glass of Kiimmel, given 
free! then Irish stew and tea! 
The cabin is quite a good size, the saloon isn't 
bad, and on the upper deck on one side there is 
quite a decent space for walking about. The bath-
room is perhaps the only real snag. It is a young 
inferno, having no attempt at a window. The first 
morning I very nearly met my death there. I was 
just about to get into the bath when suddenly boiling 
hot steam poured into the bath-room, clouds and 
clouds of it. Well, it's very difficult when you can 
absolutely see nothing and you wish with all speed 
to depart from the room, to find the necessary clothing 
to make oneself decent, to say nothing of being sticky 
with salt water and nearly blind with the boiling 
steam. My exit was neither diguified or very decent, 
I forgot the step and fell, which is not the thjng 
to do when Qne's decency depends on finnJy grasping 
your balf-put-on dressing gown. So ten mjnutes 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. lI5 
later, after the outbreak had been dealt with by the 
steward, I with some trepidation returned. So one's 
bath is not the best moment of the da y. Still it is a 
bath. 
The boat is full of monkeys of all kinds. Also 
one sad goat, which was given to the captain some-
where and which lives on God knows what, as it has 
a rooted objection to anything but its native chop. 
I have tried to tempt it with biscuits, but it scorns me 
and passes me by. On the bridge the captain has a 
large hen run, filled with the most dismal and indecent 
chickens. Indecent because they have removed from 
each other's bodies as many feathers as possible, 
owing, I suppose, to the lack of something better to do. 
They are an unpleasant sight. There are quite a lot 
of deck passengers, who, poor devils, never suspected 
the long wait and are therefore getting more and more 
depressed, and I don't blame them, poor things, 
huddled up in the stem with barely any room to move. 
Most of them are going to Monrovia. 
The time passes in an amazing way and we seem 
to get through the day. The longest time is after 
dinner, I mean high tea, which is finished soon after 
seven. Quite often we have gone to bed soon after 
8.30, which is really very good for us. Chess is 
Angus' chief pastime, as the Doctor and Mr. Morris 
both play, while I sew. On Thursday Mr. Edwards 
came from Nana Kroo, which is a row in a surf boat 
now of nearly five miles and when he came on board, 
we heard that he was going to land further up the 
coast to try and find one of the ship's boats that had 
been left tied up to the WTeck and which had been cut 
away by some natives during the night and pinched. 
Also hewas going up a river to trace some of the cocoa 
and kernels which had been stolen. We jumped at this 
and asked if we could go, as we were slightly fed 
up with the ship owing to the absolutely frightful 
smell. Many of the sacks of the rotting kernels had 
now been brought on board and the smell was simply 
appalling. It is like all the main drains of Liberia 
heaped together and theQ SQ1I\I, It is one of the 
n6 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
most unpleasant smells I have ever smelt. We went 
and rapidly changed into bush kit, collected some beer 
and sandwiches (made of our multicoloured sausages 
ca va sans dire) and were heaved into the waiting 
surf boat in the now well known mammy chair. 
The surf was excellent and it took us about hall-
an hour to get to the shore. The boat was run up 
on to the beach and we were just lifted out. I am 
getting very used to placing myself in the arms of 
many and various African gentlemen . Our first place 
to visit was a small village just along the coast where 
Mr. Edwards had heard there was a lot of the stolen 
stuff. We walked along the beach for a bit, then 
turned inland along a sandy path and carne to the 
village. A poverty-stricken looking place, with about 
twenty to thirty huts and a place which we learnt 
afterwards was a church, made of a few pieces of cor-
rugated iron thrown together. The huts they live in 
are most unusual, I have never seen anything like them 
before. They stand about eight feet from the ground, 
the walls being made of plaited palm sticks, very closely 
woven with a thick roof of palm and banana leaves 
shaping up to a point. They are square with 
a door at either end, with a passage running in 
between. The houses are divided into two, and 
inside, about three feet from the ground, is a platform 
on piles made of palm stalks. On this they live, 
right off the ground. It was most quaint to see the 
fireplaces inside upon these platforms, the roof sticks, 
which are of bamboo, absolutely jet black with the 
smoke. The curious thing was that in spite of there 
being no proper outlet for the smoke the hut was 
more or less clear of smoke. The people got in and 
out either by the door or the windows, which have a 
sort of shutter on them. It was most quaint and 
certainly interesting. The natives were an exceedingly 
poor looking lot, the women with a better physique 
than the men. The men were the poorest speClmens. 
The children were thin and poor-looking, with 
innumerable sores. Some of them, both men and 
women, were dressed in sacking. Some of the tiny 
babies were better and very light colored. But tho 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. 1I7 
whole place gave one the idea of great poverty. It 
was filthy too. On arriving at the village we went 
to the Chief's house, which was different from the 
rest. The Chief was a truculent looking gentleman 
in an overcoat and a round woolly hat. We were 
met there by a lieutenant of the Liberian Army. a 
gentleman in whom I should have no confidence 
in time of war! With him were four Liberian 
soldiers; they had been chasing round and had done 
quite a good bit of work and had found. hidden all 
over the village. 354 sacks of_kernels which had been 
stolen. These were all piled up in one of the huts. 
much to the rage. as you can imagine, of the 
inhabitants. If they had only had the sense to have 
taken them and hidden them up some of the creeks, 
no one would have ever found them and they could 
have got rid of them .. softly. softly," but they 
thought all the hunting for stolen goods would be 
in Nana Kroo and so they just left them. We sat 
down under a tree where we at once became the 
centre of great interest. a white woman being a great 
novelty to them. We sat there for some time and 
drank cocoanut milk and then we went down to the 
river about half a mile away, where one of the boats 
had been brought over the bar. The missing 
steamer boat had also been found, tucked away up 
one of the creeks. The Chief. who was evidently the 
culprit, was called up and ordered to take the boat 
back; he insisted that he had found it on the beach. 
but as the tide sets in absolutely the opposite direction 
and, if the boat had broken loose. as stated. it would 
have drifted in entirely the opposite direction. his 
story of finding it so conveniently near his village 
was one that unfortunately. for his sake. was not 
belieVed. When we got down to the river we got 
into the boat and we were rowed up for some distance. 
It was most awfully attractive, at the bar the water 
was clear, a bright green showing the yellow sands 
and the grey rocks below. The river was quite wide at 
the bar and there were many pretty little tiny bays with 
bright green trees coming right down to the water. 
Just as we pushed off up the river the Chief who had 
uS THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
taken the boat, and who lived on the other side, came 
and got into his canoe. They had no paddles but used 
the end of a palm leaf where it joins the tree as their 
paddle, it looked inadequate but seemed to work 
quite well. The river was deep and swift nmning, 
with creeks up all the way on either side, with man-
groves thick everywhere. It was very prettily wooded 
on the right bank. We rowed upforabout half an hour 
and then landed with the idea of having our lunch. 
We walked inland for a short distance in open country, 
covered with grass, and got into a palm grove with 
bracken which is just the same as bracken at home 
all around it. Here we waited for the boys to bring 
our rain coats to sit on as the ground was frightfully 
wet, but they didn't appear. They were supposed 
to be following in another boat, so we decided to go 
back to the boat and to pull her under a very con-
venient tree and have our meal there. Of course as 
soon as we got back the other boat arrived. We 
had lunch of the multicoloured sausage and bright 
yellow cheese and beer, and after that Angus and 
Mr. Edwards potted at empty beer bottles with their 
revolvers. The men in our boat had in the mean-
time gone into the village and were bringing down 
some of the stolen sacks which they had to take back 
to Nana Kroo. The river had taken a big bend and we 
had landed just behind the village. We pushed off 
after lunch and came back to the ship, quite a long 
pull for the boys who, as soon as we were over the bar, 
divested themselves of most of their garments and 
put their backs into it, singing all the way out a weird 
monotonous chant, nothing like the songs of the 
boat boys of the Gold Coast, it was more like a round 
one after the other taking it up time after time the 
same thing, until we had to ask them to change it as 
we could bear it no longer; they therefore started 
another, equally painful after a time, but they con-
tinued until we got on board. It had been a topping 
and awfully interesting day, with only one snag and 
that was that the camera broke. Angus and the 
chief engineer tried to mend it but could do nothing, 
we are most awfully disappointed for we shan't be 
A COASTING VOYAGE FROM SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES. II9 
able to take any more photos till we get to Sierra 
Leone where we shall try to buy another, but just 
when we wanted it most the wretched thing failed us. 
Next day was the most awful day, it never 
ceased to rain from early mom till dewy eve. It 
was frightful, the surf was awfully bad and we rolled 
from side to side and on the wreck they must have 
had a dreadful time. Words fail me utterly to 
describe to you the frightful smell there was every-
where. The kernels were spilled all over the deck 
and the water on them made them, if anything, 
worse than before. It was like a hundred drains 
and we all felt sick. I decided to wash my hair and 
asked the steward if he had any petrol, which he 
produced, and I hung over a basin and washed it in it. 
I thought it was funny that it did not dry at once, 
as it usually does, when to my horror I discovered 
that it was kerosine, not petrol, he had given me. 
I was the greasiest mess you can possibly imagine, 
with an appearance infinitely worse than before. 
I was plunged into inky gloom and smelt too horrible 
for words. Petrol it seems is the name for kerosine 
in German, benzoline being petrol! Luckily 
Mr. Morris has some proper petrol on board and 
yesterday, I was able to re-do it and clean myself, but 
I was a nasty sight. 
All yesterday, which luckily was fine, we rolled 
about watching them bring the stuff on board and 
reading and filling the day as best we could, all of us 
feeling rather dicky and sick. We heard an awful 
rumour that we might be here for another four days 
and so Angus and I planned to leave the ship and go 
and live on shore as we simply couldn't stand it any 
longer. You can have no idea how simply frightful 
the smell is. 
(To be continued.) 
I20 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
TOE TH~EE OLD MEN OF NKO~ANZA. 
By THE OMANHENE OF WENCHI, 
(in Standard III}. 
-
The name Nkoranza was given to the town 
because of a certain royal in Amokomu named 
Baffoh. Baffoh's uncle was the chief of Amakomu 
and his father was the king of Ashanti. The name 
of that king was Osei Tutu. The story runs that 
the chief of Amakomu said that his nephew had 
played with a woman and Baffoh told his father that 
he would not stay there any longer because of this 
matter. His father agreed to this and permitted 
him to go. Then he started his journey, and rested 
at a certain place which is now known as Swedru. 
There he sent a message to his father that he had 
reached a certain place in the bush and was resting 
there. Then the father said, if so, I will go and 
accompany my son on his journey. Then he started 
out to go and accompany his son. When he reached 
that place, he gave the name Swedru to the village, 
which meant" where I have carried to." The next 
day Baffoh with his father and the servants started 
to go forward on their journey till they came to a 
place where they built their huts and stayed there 
for one day, and it is now called Tetrem. There 
they made an African porridge and it was so hot 
that no one could eat any of it. And they were in 
a hurry to go forward, but the food would delay them, 
as it was so hot. The king, his father, said, spread 
it so that the children can eat some when it is cold. 
One of the servants who was sitting by gave a name 
to that village, that it should be Tetrem which meant 
" spread it." They did as the king had said. And 
after the children had finished eating their food, 
they continued their journey to a place in the bush. 
1'HE THREE OLD MEN OF NKQRANZA. 121 
There they rested that night, and in the morning the 
king said to his son, "son I I am leaving here, so • 
comfort your heart and go, and when you have found 
a place send me a message." Then one of the servants 
again said this place is called Chichiweri, which 
meant "Comfort your heart," Then the king 
returned to Kumasi and the son Baffoh continued 
on his journey to a certain place where he said, " now 
that father has gone I will eat here." And the ser-
• vants answered and said, "but there is no water here, 
how can we cook?" Baffoh then lifted up his eyes 
and saw a silk cotton tree near by and he commanded 
the servants to go and see perhaps there may be 
water. The servants did as they were told and went I 
to see if there was any water and truly found water _ 
there. They took some of the water to the village 
and made him some fufu. In the morning when 
they were ready -to go, he said "because of the 
sweetness of this water it should be called Ayinasu," 
which meant" cotton tree water." Then as they 
started the journey they came in contact with a big 
tree named Odum. They sat down to rest, but to 
their surprise it was soon dark, so that they had to 
sleep there, and so they slept there. When they 
awoke the next morning, Baffoh found that one of 
his servants called Sekyireh was still sleeping. He 
waked him and asked what was the matter with 
him that he had slept so long? He answered and 
said the air under the tree was sweet and that made 
him late that day. Then he gave a name to the 
place connected with the man's name, which is 
known as Asechedumaseh, which meant Sekyireh 
and Odum. Then they started again till they came 
to two junctions and at one of them he saw a hunter 
and asked him, where does this junction lead to?" 
he said one leads to Donkoroh, and the other to the 
village of three old men then he said, now that I have 
found men, I will sleep here." Then he slept there 
and in the morning he said, " I will go and stay with 
the old men," so he continued to the village and met 
the men sitting beside their morning fire. He bade 
them good morning, and asked where they camo;: 
I22 - THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
from? They told him, "we are three old hunters 
of Ohin Amiyaw, owner of the town Tekiman." 
Then he said, "well, I will stay with you." They 
agreed and he stayed with them. He also went to see 
the Ohin Amiyaw and spoke to him about his stay. 
He agreed also and Baffoh stayed with three the 
men. Then he sent a message to his father the king 
saying he had found a place where he was going to 
stay and there was an Omanhin like him in that 
land of Tekirnan. "So I will attempt him, so that -
you can come and make war against him." When 
the father heard this he started out, and Baffoh 
started his temptation by saying to the king of Teki-
man that he was the son of the king of Ashanti and 
he knew he would come and fight him so he would 
show him a plan. Then he said "gather all the 
guns of your land, bring them to me all." The king 
did what the prince had said, and brought them to 
him. He asked, "is this all?" The king answered, 
"yes, my lad." Then Baffoh said, "send me one 
hundred men to carry them to a river, so that when 
my father comes, they will be new and your men 
can fight with them properly." This people, not 
knowing anything about what he was saying, took 
the guns to a river and put them under the water, so 
as to be new. When the guns had been hidden, it 
was forty days when the king, his father, arrived. 
He at once started the war without giving notice to 
the other king. Then Baffoh said, "what are you 
doing? go for the guns." They went to the river 
and took their guns. But when they started to 
shoot, the guns did not work at all, but only broke 
like pieces of wood. Then they threw the gnns 
away and some went to their farms and brought 
yams, and put them in a fire and when they were 
done they took, and threw them at the Ashanti. 
Then the Ashanti ate yams and shot them after-
wards, but the Ohin Amiyaw was not caught, he 
vanished in the ground. Now it came to pass the 
king of Ashanti came to share the property he got 
after the war was over. But when he gave his SOD 
some of the jewels, he said, "father, I do not waDt 
THE THREE OLD MEN OF NKORANZA. 123 
anything but the remaining villages and the land," 
and what he asked was given to him. After the 
war all that ran away came into their village and 
by that they were Baffoh's people. But during the 
war Baffoh hid the three old men. And after the 
war was over, he brought them from their hiding 
place and said to them that it was through them he 
had got the whole land of Tekiman, so he was going to 
give the town the name of " three old men" which 
. meant in Twi, Nkokuraza. But now we call the 
town Nkoranza. So this is what I know about 
.. three old men" and of Baffoh and Nkoranza. 
, 
• • 
\ 
124 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
THQEE TOUQS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFQICA. 
(IgOI TO 1906). , 
By CAPTAIN A. W. NORRIS, 
GOLD COAST POLITICAL SERVICE. 
Compiled in 19O9 from letters, and memory, etc. 
(This accotmt was handed over by Captain Norris 
to the Gold Coast Regiment to form part of the 
Regimental Record. Permission for publication 
was, with the consent of Captain Norris, kindly 
given by Lieutenant-Colonel MacDonell, D.S.D.) 
In writing this account of my service on the 
West Coast, I simply intend to put before the reader 
the life of a British officer at one of the outposts of 
the Empire. I am rather handicapped by the fact that 
I have lost my rough diary, and perhaps shall not be 
able to put things in the proper order; and again, I 
have to be careful not to say anything that may be of 
offence to anyone who was on the coast at the same 
time. If I do-I ask for forgiveness. 
CHAPTER 1. 
I was stationed at Gibraltar when I sent in my 
name for service in West Africa. I was accepted 
and came home in the s.s. Persia to England in 
order to get my kit. The Colonial Office gave me 
three weeks to get ready. With the help of rough 
pamphlets on the West Coast, I managed to get 
everything I thought I wanted and sailed from 
Liverpool in the s.s. Borneo. On the landing stage 
I met Burgess, who belonged to my battalion out at 
Gibraltar and was also going out to the West Coast. 
We had both been seconded to the Gold Coast 
Constabulary and our passages had been taken to 
Accra. The Borneo was on what was called the 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST DF AFRICA. 125 
" express service," and ran right through to Sierra 
Leone. She passed Grand Canary one night at about 
10.30 and signalled with flashes. There were several 
old Coasters on board who took a keen delight in 
trying to frighten those who, like myself, were going 
out to the Coast for the first time. According to 
them it was a common thing for your gTass roof to be 
burnt over your head-to find snakes of all sorts in 
your bed-for monkeys of huge size to raid your hut, 
and various other little unpleasantnesses of that sort. 
• The betting was 20 to one that you would die in three 
months. The conversation was something of this 
sort:-" Hullo, Brown, so you are going out again, 
are you? Had any news from Cape Coast while you 
were at home?" "No, not much, they had rather 
a bad time at the Bank-three dead and two sent 
home. Young Smith died of blackwater on the way 
home, and Johns was killed by one of his boys putting 
gTound glass into his chop." 
That was something else for us new coasters-
" Ground glass." One or two of us began thinking 
of taking the first steamer back as soon as we landed. 
Then the advice we got about fever, etc. One 
would say-" Take five grains of quinine every day 
before first chop." Another would say-" Don't 
take any except when you have fever on you." Some-
one else "Don't take quinine at all-it gives you 
blackwater. Take arsenic." 
One morning at about eight, we sighted Sierra 
Leone. It did look beautiful with all the hills around 
covered in trees of a green shade that one does not see 
in England. We anchored at about I p.m. and 
having made up parties, prepared to go on shore. 
The steamer gangway was surrounded with boats, 
each having two yelling black boys, who all declared 
at the tops of their voices that their boat was the best. 
A Port officer of some sort tried to keep order, 
and informed them they were black men (himself being 
the colour of coal). 
The Customs officer came alongside in his gig-
crack, bang, right into the midst of the whole lot. 
I26 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
More language. 
I remarked-" What funny cards these niggers 
are." An old coaster standing near said-" You 
must not say that on shore. "Nigger" is a form of 
abuse, and if you say it, you will be had up like a shot 
and fined £5." I afterwards learnt that they were 
.. gentlemen of colour !!" 
I went on shore with three or four others and 
wandered round the town. It was all very quaint 
to me, but Sierra Leone has been so often described 
by better pens that there is no need for me to do so. 
We called on the Sierra Leone Frontier Force mess, 
and I had my first" cocktail." 
We left Sierra Leone that evening, and the day 
after called at Monrovia, where the Postrnaster-
General carne off to sell stamps (at least I was told 
that he was the Postmaster-General). We then 
called at Grand Bassam for Kroo boys. 
All ships going down the Coast take on Kroo 
boys, who work the cargo at the ports of call and 
help stoke, it being too hot for white men. 
Our next place of call was Axim. This is the 
first place steamers touch at on the Gold Coast. 
Murphy, a District Commissioner, had a wire 
telling him to land there as one Commissioner had 
died and another had been invalided home~elightful 
place. Then on to Sekondi, where several engineers 
landed, as Sekondi was to be the starting place of the 
Kumasi railway. Then Cape Coast Castle, the big 
trading town of the Gold Coast, with its old fort 
showing up white against the green back ground. 
Then on to Accra. 
At all places on the Gold Coast one lands in 
" surf boats" paddled by ten or twelve Kroo boys, 
half of whom sit on each gunwale with the big toe 
of the foot that is nearest their side of the boat in a 
loop that is fastened to the rising of the boat. They 
paddle with a single-bladed paddle with a shaft about 
three feet long, and a big blade at the end about a 
foot in diameter. 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 127 
The back lash from the surf is generaJIy so bad 
that one cannot climb down the ladder to the surf 
boat, but is slung over the side in a "mammie chair" 
i.e., a big tub with a seat in it. Two people generally 
go and each time there is a jerk and a jar, and one is 
swinging out over the side and the surf boat is under 
you, rising and falling now r6 feet, now 30 feet. The 
mate watches, lowers his hand, and down you go-
bump-with luck into the surf boat or perhaps if the 
boat has sheared, you get a ducking . 
• 
One's kit is slung over in slings and stands the 
same chance of either getting into the boat or getting 
wet. 
Then good-bye to the "Bomu." Shouts of 
good-bye to the captain-Captain Hely-who stands 
up on the deck with his cheery red face-and one is 
off. 
The Kroo boys sing all the way, putting their 
paddles in with jerks that make the boat move. 
When one reaches the fringe of the surf, the 
steersman stops them, and you wait, tossing up and 
down, till he sees a good chance. Then with a yell 
you rush in on top of a wave, hanging on like grim 
death to the side of the boat. You see a native canoe 
in front of you capsize. You think of taking off your 
boots. There is a thump-the boys jump over the 
side into the water, and you are on the beach. 
Well-there we were-three of us. Neil, a 
Secretariat cadet, Burgess and myself, surrounded 
by a mob of natives all wanting" a dash" for doing 
something or other. None of us kne ,{ where to go 0 r 
what to do. 
At last we saw a white face coming down from the 
Customs House. It was Poole, one of the Secretariat 
cadets, who had come down to meet Neil. He was 
very surprised to see Burgess and myself. It turned 
out that wires had been sent to meet us at Axim, 
saying that we were to get off at Cape Coast Castle. 
We found that all the Gold Coast Constabulary had 
been moved up to Kumasi and that we had to go up 
there. 
128 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
Burgess and I went up to the Secretariat and saw 
Mr. Hunter, the Acting Colonial Secretary. He was 
very good to us and did all he could. 
We got our boxes up and had them carried to an 
empty bungalow, and then went round to Mr. Hunter's 
bungalow where we had chop. I shall never forget 
that night! We had no boys, and no mosquito net, 
and we slept in our clothes. The next day, after 
early chop with Mr. Hunter, we got our things taken 
down again to the beach, and got on board the 
5.5. Gran, where we both enjoyed a wash and a shave. 
The Gran did not leave till late at night. 
We were turned out of our bunks at S.30 in the 
morning, having arrived at Cape Coast Castle. We 
again had to go through all the discomforts of land-
ing; if anything, worse than at Accra. But what a 
difference on landing. Mr. Hunter had wired to the 
"Base Commandant," Captain Skinner of the 
W.I.R., and to the Transport Officer and we found 
carriers waiting for us. Rooms had been engaged 
at Acquah's Hotel and we now felt we had arrived 
on the West Coast. 
CHAPTER II. 
We followed the carriers and, at the end of about 
IS minutes' walk, found ourselves at a large mud 
house, three stories high. Acquah, the landlord, 
was a big, well-educated native, who had started 
this hotel mainly for the miners going up country. 
He knew his place, and did not dress in European 
clothes like most natives do as soon as they can 
speak a word of English. He was content with the 
big native cloth thrown over his left shoulder. He 
gave us a very good dinner, and we went to bed 
tired out. The next day, we went down to the fort 
and, after a good bit of trouble, found the Transport 
Officer, who told us that he hoped to be able to gpt 
us off on the morrow. We paid official calls on the 
Commandant, whom we found in bed with bad 
fever, and also on the District Commissioner. I 
tried to engage a boy, but was not able to do ...s o. 
THREE TOURS ON THE ~ST COAST OF AFRICA. 129 
Burgess had got hold of a good Kroo boy at Accra 
called Sam; he (Sam) said he would try and get 
one of his brothers to come with me. It seems that 
the reason boys are so scarce is that miners coming 
out have their boys paid for by the Company to 
which they belong-the result is that the wages 
have gone up from about 25/- a month to £3 a month 
for a good boy who can cook. That is simply one 
example of how money is wasted on these West 
African mines. 
In the evening, I was very glad when Sam 
brought up another Kroo boy called Bestman, who 
agreed to come with me. 
We dined that evening with the various Govern-
ment officials who ran a little mess together. We 
had a very merry evening. We left at about 
10.30 p.m. as we wanted to get ready for the march 
next day. 
We did not get off, as carriers were not available, 
Captain Skinner told us we should have to take 42 
Yoruba recruits up to Kurnasi with us, and that 
there were two old soldiers going back to K urnasi 
who would help us. Also, a trading company 
asked us if we would escort a box of specie up to 
Kurnasi for them. Burgess said he would. 
We got an advance of £10 each out of the local 
treasurer, and fitted up some chop boxes for the 
road. Everything tinned, of course, but we felt 
ourselves very proud. I had no idea what a lot of 
nice tinned things one could get. 
That evening Captain Skinner and two other 
people dined with us and we had a very merry even-
mg, finishing by running go-cart races down the 
main street. One of the native policemen tried to 
stop us, but found himself head first in a water barrel 
before one could say knife. 
The next day at 6.30 our carriers arrived, 
twenty for each of us that is, eight bammock men 
and twelve to carry loads, 
130 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
The hammotks are carried by four men at a 
time-the other four carry one's little things, like 
helmet case, despatch box, sword, etc. 
A load is supposed to be about 60 lOs. but a 
carrier will often carry more if it is a compact load. 
We got off at about 8 a.m. and at the end of an 
hour's stiff climb, were on the top of the range of 
hills that run right along the coast. We then had 
to go down the qther side and at about the end of 
another hour's march, left cultivation behind and 
got into vast swamps covered with bamboo. It did 
look strange. The bush track wound in and out 
among the swamps and the carriers and recruits all 
going in single file looked like a long snake. We 
went on till about mid-day, when, having got out of 
the swamp on the rising ground, we stopped for mid-
day chop. 
The menu as far as I remember was-
Brawn. 
Tin of preserved plums. 
Dutch cheese and bread. 
Weak gin and water. 
We stopped for about three quarters of an hour, 
and then on again through undulating coun try, not very 
thickly wooded, till about 4 p.m. when we reached 
Dunkwa, where there is a Government Rest House. 
The boys made us some tea, and our camp beds 
having been put up, we had a sleep. 
The recruits and carriers found sleeping places 
themselves in the village. -
The next three days' march were Just the same, 
starting off at about 6.30 in the morning, and march-
ing till about 12 mid-day chop, then on to the night's 
resting place, doing about 20 miles each day. We 
then reached Prahsu, the river Prah being the 
boundary between the Gold Coast and the Ashanti 
administration. There is a very good rest house 
there. Just after we got in we saw a perfect caravan 
come down to the other side of the dYer, and come 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 131 
over in the ferry barge. It was a native officer of 
the Gold Coast Constabulary named Ali, who had 
just retired after 42 years' service. He was on his 
way to the Coast with his wives, family and servants; 
there were almost a hundred of them. 
We got across the Prah, and slept the next 
night at Fumsu, a small rest house teeming with 
flies, mosquitos, etc. Our boys killed three snakes. 
• The next day we got off at sunrise, as we knew 
we had a bad day in front of us. The first two miles 
were through a swamp with hugh cotton and odum 
trees on both sides of the path. 
We were now in the real forest belt of West 
Africa, the vastness and beauty of which I cannot 
describe. Hardly a sound to be heard, and the sun 
every now and then showing through the thick over-
head leaves. At about I p.m. we arrived at Brofoye-
dru at the bottom of the Moinsi Hills. The path 
runs straight up the side of the hill at a slope of about 
I in 2, and in some places it is 2 in T. One has to 
catch hold of the tree roots and haul oneself up. It 
took us about one hour to go up and then we enjoyed 
a good rest. We could see the carriers climbing up. 
How they managed it I don't know. We then had 
to go down the other side of the hill into Kwissa, 
where there was an out-station of one company 
under Captain Lonsdale. He was very glad to see 
us, as he had had no mails for two weeks, and wanted 
to know how the Boer War was going on. 
The next day on to Esumeja, which is not far 
from Bekwai, where they had a big fight in 1900. 
One of the old soldiers pointed out the paths to me. 
That evening, just after we got to the Esumeja 
rest house, we had our first experience of a tornado. 
We could hear the sound of it a long way off, and 
then the rain came down like a sheet. We woke up 
in the morning, knowing that we only had IS miles 
to do to get into Kumasi; so we got off early, so 
that we could be in by 12 o'clock, thereby saving 
the stop for mid-day chop. At about 11.30 we 
I32 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
arrived at the top of a long straight hill, and could 
see Assumeja (one of the suburbs) below us, and to 
the left the fort, showing up gray against the 
bush behind. 
We halted, and got our swords on, and then, 
having got the recruits into fours, marched on. 
Just at the bottom of the main road the band 
met us, and we were played up past the fort to the 
hutments in fine style. 
Lieut. Sweetzer, the acting Adjutant, met us, 
and Burgess having handed over the recruits, we 
went into lunch which was about half-way through. 
We were made to feel at home at once, and soon 
were hard at work on some stewed beef. 
Everybody wanted to know about the war. 
They had heard nothing for some time, as the wire 
was in its usual state, broken down. 
After chop, Lieut. Kortright, the Acting Pay and 
Quartermaster, took me off to his room that I had to 
share with him. He also told me that I was taking 
over "B" Company from him. It seems that they 
were very short-handed, so many officers were at 
home on long leave after the 1900 campaign. It just 
ran round, now that we had come, that there was one 
white officer per Company. 
In the afternoon, Burgess and I called on the 
Chief Commissioner, Sir Donald Stewart, and on 
the doctors, Dr. Crow and Dr. Thain. Kumasi then 
was very different to what it is now. There were 
eleven officers in quarters that had been built for 
four or five. The rest of the day I spent in unpack-
ing my kit, and getting straight. 
Mess was at 7.30. Everybody laughed at Burgess 
and myself. We looked so spick and span with our 
English washed shirts, etc. All the others were 
wearing shirts that had been native washed for 
months. 
What a difference from an English mess. Sheets 
for table cloths. Salt in empty cigarette tins, tin 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 133 
plates, whisky and soda out of tin tea cups-in fact, 
we were all using the plates, knives and forks out of 
our field canteens. 
After mess, when smoking time came, I lit my 
cigarette and blew the match out. I was jumped on; 
"Matches are valuable" someone said, and I then 
struck another which went all round the table, every-
one taking two puffs quickly and passing it on for the 
next to light his cigarette . 
• 
After mess I had a long talk with Sweetzer, who 
put me up to a good many tips about the native 
troops. I asked him if there was any chance of a 
rising. He said that he did not think so. There 
had been a few weeks before, but three companies 
had come from Nigeria-two from Southern and one 
from Northern. He then told me that I ' need not 
turn out early in the morning, as the Colonel, or 
rather, the Inspector-General, would see me in the 
• 
morning orderly room, time 9.30. Then, feeling 
very tired, I turned in. 
CHAPTER III. 
It would perhaps interest the reader if I retraced 
my steps to Cape Coast Castle and wrote down my 
impressions of the West Coast from there to K umasi. 
Cape Coast Castle is the old capital of the Gold 
Coast Colony. The fort is about 300 years old, and 
is built out on some rocks on the shore. The sea 
side of the fort runs in places right down into the 
water. There are two gates, one on the land side 
and a small one leading down to the beach from the 
right-hand side looking from the sea. 
The native town, as is only to be expected, 
shows signs of the European hand-nearly all the 
houses are two or three stories high, with well-made 
doors and shutters to the windows. There are 
several good stores, as the majority of the rubber 
and native produce comes to Cape Coast and are 
there bartered for trade goods such as knives, look-
ing-glasses, beads, tins of sardines, soap, scent, etc. 
• 
134 TIlE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
There is a big Government school there, and a 
ban1e Just outside the town there is the hospital, 
built originally as the Governor's official residence, 
but never used as such, the capital having been 
changed to Accra. It is a splendid, big place, but 
wasted, as there are generally only two doctors and 
an English nurse there. Down in the town, not far 
from the Castle, there is Gothic House, that was 
used as quarters for the civil authorities. Just 
near this was the old hospital, a big, old-fashioned 
house four stories high, with a big garden, now used 
as a residence for the Provincial and District Com-
mI• ssI• Oners. 
When I went out to West Africa, the mine boom 
was in full swing, and as one marched up country, 
one came across pieces of machinery lying by the 
path. It seems that the carriers used to be given a 
load and a big advance of pay. They used then to 
start off with their load, go about a day's march, 
dump the load down, and then return for another 
one. It almost made one cry to see such wicked 
waste. Very often, when the mining engineer who 
had been sent out to start some mine that his Com-
pany had a concession for arrived up country, he 
either found that there was no such place, or else 
that there were already other representatives of 
various Companies already on the ground, and fight-
ing like cats over it. 
All this trouble arose, I think, from two causes. 
First, that the Boer War had caused such a lot of 
mine speculators to come home to England, where 
they were kicking their heels having nothing to do ; 
so they sent out prospectors to the West Coast to 
prospect and buy concessions. In some cases the 
prospectors were honest, but I am afraid that in a 
great many cases they were scoundrels. Some of 
them would stop down at Cape Coast and buy con-
cessions that the natives hawked round to them 
and then go home, and the result would be the flota-
tion of a Company. 
l'HREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA . I35 
Others would go up country and buy a conces-
sion and a lump of gold quartz, and then go home 
and act in the same way. 
A few, however, would possibly prospect and 
try and act straight all the way along the line, but 
even then there would often be a mix-up caused by 
my second reason, viz: that the country had never 
been surveyed . 
• 
What happened was roughly as follows :-A 
prospector wished to obtain a concession of a certain 
tract of country. He would go to the chief and 
say that he wanted a concession for a bit of land, 
starting from such and such a village, boundaries to 
be N.W. 3! miles, then West for two miles, and so on, 
enclosing the tract he required. The chief would 
say that he did not understand that, but he would 
grant a concession along such and such a path, and 
then follow such and such a stream, etc. The result 
was that in the end the chief granted the concession, 
but the boundaries not being understood by the 
natives, they nearly always overlapped ~omeone else. 
Again, there being no proper office to register 
the concessions, the wily native often sold the same 
one two or three times. 
The amount of money that was wasted in the 
sham mines was cruel. I saw myself men that at 
home were ordinary working miners drinking 
champagne and living like fighting cocks, all of 
course, at the expense of the shareholders. 
Of course, that state of things did not last long, 
as the bubble soon exploded. 
The country round Cape Coast is well cultiv-
a ted, the villages on the whole clean and well built. 
A good many of the houses are two stories high and 
roofed with shingles. The natives have taken into 
use many European articles of furniture, such as bed!;, 
tables, chairs, etc. 
Nearly every village of any size had its carpen-
ter and blacksmith, most of whom were, for the 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
natives, well educated and could read and write 
English, and had been taught their trade by the Basel 
Mission. 
As one got further up country, one saw very 
quickly that one was leaving civilisation behind-
the houses become one storey, with thatched roofs, 
and by the time one reached the Prah, i.e. about 80 
miles from Cape Coast, one only saw the mud hut 
with grass roofs. On the Ashanti side of the Prah . 
one enters the Adansi country and, as I said before, 
the West African forest belt. There is a little more 
comfort to be got here, the natives using big palm 
leaves for roofing their huts. All the villages have 
a big open space in the middle, with one or two shady 
trees. The people look a fine set of men and have 
a brave appearance. 
Fomena, just beyond Kwissa, was, when we 
passed through, a ruin, having been burnt during 
1900. It must have been a fine big place. It is the 
chief town of Adansi. 
A few miles beyond Fomena one gets into 
Ashanti proper, where one is more struck than ever 
by the fine appearance of the people. 
They are of a good average height, lightly made 
and hold themselves well. The houses here are the 
real Ashanti-that is, a square block with four rooms, 
one on each side, all opening on the central space, 
which is used for cooking. The floor of each room 
is built about 18 inches off the ground, and has a 
splendid surface-as the natives continually wash 
them with a mixture of mud and water, which when 
dry, gives a splendid gloss. All the native villages 
have a lot of fowls running about, also pigs; the 
latter act as scavengers. These are greatly aided in 
their duties by the carrion vulture, a hideous bird-
but a bird that does more than anything on the West 
Coast. I believe in the Colony it is a £5 fine to shoot 
one, and quite right, too. 
Once on the way up we saw a troop of monkeys 
in the trees, but much to our carriers' disgust we 
tHREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 137 
were not able to shoot one. They hoped to get a 
free meal. There were some lovely butterflies in the 
woods, but I was very much struck by the absence of 
orchids. The trees were mostly cotton trees, red 
and white odum, and teak trees. The cotton trees 
grow to a great height, often over 100 feet. 
Odum is a sort of bastard cedar, I should think 
by the smell. It is very hard, and is practically the 
only wood that white ants cannot tackle. If trans-
• 
port by water was only easier, what a fortune there 
is to be made out of the hard woods of the West 
Coast. But most of the rivers have such bad rapids 
that logs would get broken to pieces. 
CHAPTER IV. 
The next day I attended orderly room and 
the Commanding Officer told me that I was to take 
over B Company (Burgess took over G Company) 
from Lieutenant Kortright. 
Kortright sent for the Company Sergeant-Major, 
who came and reported himself to me. His name 
was Marmadu Dambornu. A splendid type of man 
with the Bornu tribe mark down his nose; and the 
little cuts on the temple. He took me up to the lines 
and showed me where the company fell in. I then 
asked him to pick me out an orderly who could 
speak English. He said he would do so. 
I walked down to some waste land with him, 
and watched the Company at fatigue. They struck 
me as being a very fine set of men. I should think 
that the average height was over 5' 9". In the after-
noon I went down to the fort and got the Company 
pay clerk to explain the pay sheets to me. They 
were very much simpler than the English pay sheet. 
It might be as well to put down the strength of 
a Company and the pay. 
I Captain . . .. £400 per year. 
3 Subalterns . . . . £300 and 
White £350 per year. 
I White Non-comrnis- £120 per year. 
sioned officer. 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
I Company Sergt.-Major 3/- per diem. 
8 Corporals . . . . 1/3 per diem. 
Black 4 Lance-Corporals .. 1/1 per diem. 
2 Buglers . . . . 1/- per diem. 
ISO Rank and File .. 1/- per diem. 
Then there was the duty pay and subsistence 
money when on the march. 
The officer actually in command of the Com-
pany received £4 per mensem command pay. 
1st Class European Sergeants received £2 extra 
and all Europeans Sergeants received 2/6 per day 
in lieu of rations. 
Officers on the march received 5/- per day field 
allowance (it was 10/- but was reduced to 5/-). 
Black troops on the march. The Company 
Sergeant-Major 6d. a day and other ranks 3d. a day 
subsistence money. 
Men over ten years service received long ser-
vice pay as follows:-
Coy. Sergt.-Major . . . . 4d. per diem. 
Sergeants . . . . .. 3d. per diem. 
Corporals . . . . .. 2d. per diem. 
Rank and File .. . . . . Id. per diem. 
They also had Id. per diem good conduct pay 
for each badge. Badges were given for every three 
years' good service. 
There are no pensions given, but at the end of 
their service, the men receive a gratuity. 
They are enlisted for 6 years, re-engage for 12 
years, and then for 21 years. They used to be able 
to re-engage to complete 15 years. 
Each Company also has a Company pay clerk 
who does the pay sheets. They begin at £40 per 
annum. As B Company was a Mahommedan com-
pany, I had a malam or priest attached also, who 
drew corporal's pay. 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. I39 
Things were in a state of transition, as the 
various constabularies of the West African Colonies 
were being brought under one central authority at 
the Colonial Office and the names were being changed 
from Constabulary to Regiment and all the regi-
ments were being combined into the West African 
Frontier Force. Native officers were being done away 
with, as the authorities thought they might clash with 
the English non-corns. Companies were being formed 
. into Race Companies, all the same race being drafted 
into one Company. All this took a long time to do, 
and in fact was not finished till the beginning of my 
second tour. But what was aimed at was as 
follows: 
The Constabulary to be divided into two bat-
talions, one in Ashanti, with headquarters at 
Kumasi, and one in the Northern Territories, with 
headquarters at Gambaga. 
The Ashanti, or 1st Battalion Gold Coast Regi-
ment, to be composed as under-
I Artillery Company 
9 Infantry Companies. 
The Artillery Company was armed with the 
millimetre gun and 7- pounders. The men were 
picked men from the Battalion. The Infantry Com-
panies to be divided up into the following races :-
A. Wongara (from behind Senegal). 
B. Rausa (from N. Nigeria). 
C. Yoruba (from Lagos). 
D. Fulani (from French Sudan) 
E. Mendi (from Sierra Leone). 
F. Timni (from Sierra Leone). 
G. Moshi (from N. Territory). 
R. Yoruba (from Lagos). 
L Grunshi (from N. Territory). 
E and F Companies, however, are very soon 
combined in one Company, E, and there 
was no F Company. 
140 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
When I arrived at Kumasi-
D Company was on outstation at Mampon. 
A Company was on outstation at Kwissa. 
G Company was on outstation on the West-
ern F ron tier. 
The other Companies were at Kumasi. 
A good many of the Companies were over 
strength, B was almost 180 strong. It did seem a 
huge company to drill after an English Company, 
which very often only paraded about 40 strong, 
Afternoon parade was at 4.30, and as it was the 
first parade of the Company I had taken, I naturally 
spent a long time examining the men and the belts, 
etc. 
They were armed with the .303 M.M. carbine 
and had the old black Martini equipment. Both 
were in a terrible state, the bores of the carbines 
being almost smooth and the equipment in nearly 
every case being joined together with string. I 
found that each man carried twenty rounds of ball 
ammunition on him always, and had eighty in his 
hut. The reason being, I found out afterwards. 
that active service regulations were still in force, 
and that B Company being the only" old soldier" 
Company at headquarters, the Commanding Officer 
thought it advisable to have some men always ready. 
The Company, as I said before, was over 
strength, but it was very short of non-corns. There 
were only the Company Sergeant-Major, three Ser-
geants, two Corporals, and one Lance-Corporal, and 
one of the Sergeants was no good for parade. He 
was an old man, crippled with elephantiasis, and 
acted as Provost Sergeant. I told the Sergeant-
Major to put the Company through some exercises, 
which he did very well. I was glad to see that words 
of command were given in English. 
At 5.30 I dismissed the Company, and the 
Sergeant-Major brought me up the man he thought 
would do as orderly, a private named Abba Beriberi. 
• 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. I41 
I found that there was a .303 Maxim belonging 
to the Company, which was kept in the guard room. 
It was thick with rust and I could hardly move the 
lock. 
That night was guest night, and several of the 
officers of the Nigerian Companies came up. 
I was surprised at the way the band played, but 
• was told that several of the men had been to England 
and had gone through Kneller Hall. After mess we 
all went outside on to the verandah and watched 
the natives dancing, wbile the band played native 
tunes. It was very funny to watch them jumping 
about, clapping their hands in time with the tune. I 
was hard at work for the next few weeks picking out 
men to promote and trying to learn their customs, as 
it was no uncommon thing for a man to come up 
and ask his officer to settle some dispute for him. 
But I shall have more to say about that afterwards. 
As the country was under martial law, there 
was a Court Martial always sitting. Three officers 
on duty by the week. I learnt a good deal about 
native customs and laws in that way. But I am 
afraid that the procedure would not always have 
passed the Judge Advocate General. Things grad-
ually got more comfortable in the mess, as we got 
up stores, etc., from the coast, but living was still 
rough. 
About a month after I arrived there was a sham 
fight. I was sent out in the morning with 40 men of 
H Company with matchets, axes, etc., to cut down 
trees to make an imaginary stockade. I was told to 
go about 21 miles out on the Juaben road. We left 
about 10.30 a.m., and I found a very nice place where 
the path twisted and the bush was very thick. There 
werf~ several big trees by the path, and I cut down 
three, one across the path and the other two on each 
Bank. The men enjoyed the fun of the thing, and 
the native sergeant who was with me put all sorts of 
things in front to act as ju-ju like the Ashantis do. 
, 
142 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
We were attacked at about 3.15 p.m. The 
advance guard walked right up to us before they saw 
us-if it had been a real show, they would all have 
been killed. The Colonel then attacked, sent flank-
ing parties out on one flank, and brought up a 
7-pounder, which fired blank charges. The stockade 
was then supposed to have been breached, and the 
" cease fire" was sounded, followed by the" charge." 
There was a yell and a howl and before I knew where 
I was a great big form was over the stockade followed • 
by a mob of yelling men all w!th fixed bayonets. It 
was Watson of Cape Coast fame, with his Company. 
I had got tea ready for the officers, but a tornado 
came on, and we legged it back to Kumasi and arrived 
like drowned rats. The next day the Colonel 
received a note from the Chief Commissioner saying 
that one of the main roads into Kumasi was stopped, 
and that produce could not come into the market. I 
had to send half the Company out to cut a way 
through the trees and open a path up. 
One very funny thing happened. It might have 
had serious consequences, but luckily did not. We 
had nothing in the mess to keep our filtered water in, 
except empty whisky and gin bottles. Now the 
great drink at mid-day chop was" orange squash ," 
the juice of two or three oranges squeezed into a glass 
and filled up with water. One of the officers came 
into chop very hot and tired, having been on the 
range since about 6.30. He seized hold of the squash 
that his boy put by him, drunk about half at a gulp 
and then fell back on the floor gasping. His boy had 
filled it up with neat gin ! 
The same thing happened to another officer 
some time after. But this time it was paraffin; 
worse than gin I should think. 
Life up at Kumasi passed very quickly. Every 
day was just like the one before, as there was nothing 
to mark the time by. One did the same things day 
after day. The English mail coming in was the only 
, 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 143 
break in the week, and the only excitement was when 
someone arrived, either from England or from out-
station on their way home. 
My programme for the day was almost always-
6. 0 a.m. Called-cup of tea. 
7. 0 a.m. Parade. 
S.I5 a.m. Breakfast. 
S-45 a.m. Company orderly room. 
9.30 a.m. Commanding Officer's orderly 
• room. 
10 a.m.-I2 noon Company on fatigue. 
12 noon Mid-day chop. 
2 . 0 p.m. (Either have a shut-eye or 
check pay sheets, etc). 
3.45 p.m. Tea. 
4.30 p.m. Parade. 
5.30 p.m. Rush off parade, change and 
have a game of tennis. 
6.30 p.m. Sit outside mess. Have a 
cocktail and yam. 
7. p.m. Bath. 
7.30 p.m. Mess. 
9.30 p.m. Tum in. 
The mails were very irregular; sometimes we 
did not get any for weeks, and then perhaps two in 
the same week. Naturally, I looked out for the mails 
very eagerly. It used to take about 22 to 25 days to 
come out from London to Kumasi. 
When I had done about five months, I was able 
to shift into a hut by myself. 
Such a lot of officers had come out that the 
colonel had had a set of three quarters built by the 
Mendi carriers. I was lucky enough to get one. 
A nice big room about 30 feet square with grass roof. 
It was very comfortable. 
My Kroo boy left me at about this time. He 
did not get on well with the other boys. Alfred, the 
mess cook, handed over his brother Joseph to me, a 
little chap of about II years old. I got another 
144 THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
little fellow, an Ashanti, to help him, and got on very 
well. Joseph stayed with me all the rest of the time 
I was on the Coast, coming back to me when I returned 
from leave each tour. He was a smart little fellow, 
a Popo boy and talked English very well. 
The colonel was rather anxious to fonn a sort of 
pioneer section and asked me if I would see what 
I could do. Using only the men's matchets that they 
carried with their equipment, and the ti-ti (a thick 
creeper used insteatl of rope) and the ordinary trees 
on the spot, I taught them how to make a " single-
lock bridge" in camp, sending them out in fatigue 
time to bring in ti-ti and poles. The colonel then 
suggested that I should take them out to a stream on 
the Cape Coast road, about three miles out, and try 
making one over it. I started off one morning at 
about 6.30 a.m. taking some chop with me, and got 
out to the stream at about 8 a.m. I divided the 
company half on one side and half on the other. 
I threw out sentries, etc., so as to make it seem 
real, and set to work making a frame on each side. 
I pointed out the trees I wanted cut down. • 
While I was on the Kumasi side of the stream 
watching the men working, I heard the cracking of a 
tree and then a clang, and a coil of telegraph wire 
swished past my head. The sergeant in charge on 
the other side had felled a tree the wrong way and it 
had broken the telegraph wire. I thought" This is a 
good start," and sent a man back to Kumasi with a 
note saying what had happened, and asking for a 
linesman to be sent from the telegraph office. 
Things then went fairly well, and I got the frames 
finished, launched and locked. 
I then sent out two men to lash the frames 
together. One man slipped, and fell into the stream, 
spraining his leg. By I p.m. I had the bridge finished, 
and after a good long rest, marched the whole com-
pany over it to test it. Of course, one man fell and 
broke his big toe. I got back to Kumasi in a big 
tornado and the colonel asked me how I had got on. 
• 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 145 
I reported-" Built the bridge broke the telegraph 
wire-two men injured, and now in hospital." It 
was a long time before I heard the end of my bridge 
building. 
The majority of the men lived in little grass huts, 
as there were not sufficient quarters for them all. 
These were continually catching fire and the fire alarm 
used to go nearly every week, sometimes two or three 
times during the week. It was very disturbing to 
ope's rest, but one always had to bolt to one's company 
lines, as we were always afraid that the Ashantis 
had started the fire and would take advantage of the 
tumult. 
We had alarm posts once or twice a month, and 
then there was a fine game of "general post." The 
men used to enter into the spirit of the thing, and 
leg it like stags to their various posts. It was a really 
fine sight to see the gunner company with their guns. 
All the men nearly 5 ft. II in high, rushing up the road 
with the guns as if they weighed nothing. 
But one night the alarm was sounded in earnest. 
The rouse had just sounded at 5 a.m., when there 
was the report of a gun and after a pause, the alarm 
went. I caught hold of my revolver, slipped on 
shoes and a jacket, and ran for the lines in my 
pyjamas. Just by the lines I caught up Colonel 
Wilkinson and Lieut. Sweetzer. We went on past 
the guard room, and found Company Sergeant-Major 
Sukah (a fine specimen of the Fulani), sitting on the 
ground bleeding like a pig, and swearing like any-
thing. He told us that a man had run amok. The 
colonel told me to go back to the hospital and get a 
stretcher, and tell the doctors. I did so, and found 
them cutting a spear head out of a man's side. I 
then ran back to the lines, and found that nearly 
all the company had fallen in ; just after the man was 
caught and put in the Guard Room. 
At the enquiry it turned out that he was a 
corporal of A Company, who was on leave. Having 
nowhere to sleep he slept in the guard room. He 
woke up with the noise the Guard rnadfl turning out 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
when the bugle sounded the rouse, caught up his spear 
and stuck it into the lance corporal of the guard, 
who was taking his equipment off, drew a great big 
matchet that he had and hit a gun-carrier, who was 
prisoner, over the head (cutting his skull open), 
snatched up the carbine and equipment that the 
lance corporal had let drop, and rushed out of the 
Guard Room, took a shot down one of the lines at a 
woman he saw (who turned out to be old Sukah's 
wife), C.S.M. Sukah rushed out and he was shot 
through both legs. The man then ran down the 
lines into an empty hut, where after some trouble 
he was caught. I managed to get hold of the matchet 
afterwards, and still have it. It is of a most peculiar 
shape and people who have been on the coast for 
some time say that they have never seen one like it. 
Sundays I generally spent writing letters all the 
morning, and in the afternoon we alI used to go down 
on the range and have a shooting match. 
One Sunday we were disturbed by hearing a 
row up in the lines. We ran up and found that it 
came from near Bantama. The Regimental Sergeant-
Major (Augustus) said that Hand E Companies 
were having a fight. Everybody ran to their company 
parade grounds. As my parade ground was the 
nearest to the row one fell in about 40 men and 
doubled up. But the C.O. and Sweetzer had got the 
men almost under, and I was ordered back. The 
real reason I think was that my men had fixed 
bayonets and the colonel thought that it might 
make things worse. I left the men with the Sergeant 
Major and went back to see if I could help the colonel. 
I managed to get hold of a beastly-looking ju-ju that 
one of the Yorubas was waving over his head, and 
urging his brothers on. The colonel would not let 
me give it back afterwards, so I kept it. My boxes 
were broken open three times before I went on leave. 
The Yorubas were trying to get it back, but I did 
not keep it in a box, my boy having given me the tip 
that they were trying to get it back. I simply hung 
it on the wall and hung a great coat over it. They 
did not dream of looking there for it. 
, 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 147 
I had been having a good bit of fever, and the 
doctor said that if I could get away on a march for a 
few days, it would do me good. I was very pleased 
and an opportunity soon occurred. There was a 
detachment of a corporal and nine men stationed at 
a mine called Bipossu out by Lake Busumchwi, 
found from my company. The detachment was 
changed every month. The colonel thought it would 
be a good thing for me to go out with the new detach-
ment ru:d bring the old one back and see how things 
were gomg. 
I started off on the 31st of the month with the 
new detachment and got to the first village on the 
lake at about 4.30 p.m. having done about 24 miles. 
The Lake is, I should think, the remains of an old 
volcano. It is almost round and has, as far as can be 
seen, no exit. I should think it measured about 
four miles by 41- miles. The water is gradually rising; 
one can see the stumps of trees sticking up out of the 
water about 400 yards out. The natives told me 
that they have to move their villages back about every 
five or six years. The lake is one of the big Ashanti 
fetishes, the fetish in this case being that no boat 
may be put on the water and no string net used. The 
result is that the mesh of the fishing nets is made of 
narrow strips of bamboo woven into each other and 
the natives sit straddle-legged on logs when they go 
out to fish, paddling with their hands. They balance 
themselves in a wonderful way as the logs are only 
about 7" in diameter and about 10 feet long. 
There are a lot of pelicans, cormorants, fish, 
eagles and other birds on the lake. The pelicans j 
looked so pretty on the water, shewing up white. 
As is to be expected, the natives on the lake live 
almost entirely on fish, the result being that there are 
a lot of lepers. 
One has to come down quite a steep hill to the 
lake. From the top one sees it all spread out like 
a map under one. 
The next day I got to Bipossu, getting in at 
about 3.30 p.m. 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
The mine was not being worked. They were 
" proving" it. There were two mining engineers 
and four white miners. They had got quite a lot 
of nice looking-stuff out. I was made to feel quite at 
home. They were very glad to see a strange face 
and to hear the latest news. I stayed there two 
days and enjoyed myself very much. 
I shot my first monkey out there. A big 
" Bishop monkey:" such a pretty beast, with a long 
tail. The skin was a very good one and afterwards 
made up into a splendid muff. I went down the 
shafts and saw the gold in the quartz. It was 
marvellous to see. I was very sorry to leave. The 
change had done me the world of good. I got back 
to Kumasi, having been away a week. I took three 
days to do the march back. 
We had a sham fight one day out on the Patasi 
road, the road by which Governor Hodgson had 
escaped when the Ashantis were besieging Kumasi. 
One of the old soldiers, I think it was Sergt. Alfred 
of E Company, pointed out several human bones, 
etc., lying by the side of the road. I was very glad, 
at about this time, at having two European sergeants 
passed to the company, Sergt. Butler of the Buffs, 
and Sergt. Farrel of the Bedfords. Very good men 
both of them were, and worked hard. They improved 
the drill of the company very much. 
Soon after this, there was a public hanging in the 
market place, and I had to take the company down 
to form a cordon round the scaffold. The prisoner 
was the chief of a village on the western frontier, 
where a white man had been murdered when the 1900 
show broke out. I did not mind the hanging much. 
It was the waiting afterwards that was so trying, 
watching the poor chap swinging. There was 
another hanging just before this, when rather a 
laughable thing occurred. By mistake the band 
turned out and played the company that was forming 
the escort down to the market place. I was told 
that they went down playing" You've got a long 
way to go " and came back playing" Poor old Joe." 
) 
THREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. J49 
I don't know if it is a fact, but that is the yarn that 
went round. Just at about this time the Inspector-
General of the West African Frontier Force came out 
on his tour of inspection, General Kemball. I was 
ordered to form a " guard of honour" of So rank 
and file for him. I just managed to get So men all 
with two medals, and all with two or more good con-
duct badges. I was very proud of them. The 
general gave us the most awful doing, but I think 
• that everything went off all right. He then went to 
the outstations with the colonel. 
I was very glad to hear soon after this that there 
was another chance of a march. There was a lot of 
specie to come up country from Cape Coast Castle. 
H Company was ordered to go down, and bring' it 
up to Kumasi, and B company was told to be ready 
to take it on to Kintampo. 
H. Company had two loads stolen on their way 
up. i.e. £400 (£200 of silver roughly weigh about 
60 IDs. 
There was a good bit of good humoured rivalry 
between B. and H. Companies and myoid Company 
Sergeant Major came to me with the news. They 
had heard of it before we did. It is marvellous how 
news travels out there. He was just going on leave 
at the time, but when he heard of H company's 
mishap, he asked to have his leave cancelled until 
B Company got back from Kintampo. I told him 
that his leave was gran ted and that I could not bother 
the C.O. about altering it. He got very wild, and 
without saying another word to me, went off to the 
e.0. himself. I heard afterwards that he had told 
the C.O. that H Company had spoilt its name and 
that he was not going to let B Company's name be 
spoilt. That if B Company went, he went, and with-
out more fuss he went to the company store, drew his 
kit and carbine uut again and returned to duty. 
We managed to get up to Kintampo without 
losing anything. The boxes of specie were piled 
every night in a hut. A guard finding six sentries 
t 
ISO THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
was put on every night, and when I used to get up in 
the middle of the night to see if everything was all 
right, I always found the old company sergeant-
Major asleep on top of the pile. He used to wake up 
when the sentries challenged and when he saw who 
it was, would say, "All right, Baba, B company no 
be tief man, B Company no go spoil its name." 
On the march up I was in my hammock one 
afternoon and I heard a shot fired. I jumped out, • 
thinking that one of the carriers was trying to bolt 
with his load, but found that it was one of the men 
who had suddenly gone mad, and blazed off. The 
old Sergeant-Major (who was the whole day running 
up and down the line of specie carriers counting the 
loads) came rushing up in a fearful stew, but when 
he found out what it was, said-" That no matter, 
Baba, no matter if plenty men head go spoil; dat 
small palaver, but B Company go lose money dat 
bad palaver plenty too much." 
I was very glad I was not going up by myself. 
Luckily there were three Northern Territory officers 
going up, Captain Brock, Captain Luckman and 
Captain Warden; also two European non-commis-
sioned officers. We arrived at Kintampo all right 
and I handed the specie over to the treasurer, 
Mr. Christian. The seals on three of the boxes were 
broken, and he opened them and checked them before 
taking over. The old Sergeant-Major was watching 
and would not go to his quarters until I told him that 
everything was all right. 
We stayed at Kintampo three days, as I wished 
to give the carriers and men a good rest. 
Kintampo seemed a very fine station. It is 
right in the open country which is very much like an 
undulating English moor. There was a very good 
market there, and I bought several things. I also 
bought about 30 loads of guinea corn to take back to 
Kumasi for the colonel. He wanted some for his 
horses. 
1 
tHREE TOURS ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 151 
I went out shooting with my orderly and got a 
bush fowl of Sorts. 
I had sacked the man I mentioned some time 
back as my orderly, and taken on a man called Baburi 
Kanu. He had been a sergeant in Northern Nigeria 
and on taking his discharge there had traded across 
to the Gold Coast and enlisted in the Constabulary. 
He had been, I believe, orderly to Sir James Willcocks 
in Nigeria, and knew what to do. I came back to 
. Kumasi in fine style, as I had over 200 carriers with-
out loads. The officers going on to Gambaga engaged 
fresh men at Kintampo. I was therefore able to 
put two or three men on to my little loads, and also 
was able to relieve the men of their blankets by mak-
ing them into a bundle and giving them to some of 
the spare carriers. 
We got back in four days to Kumasi. When I 
arrived, I found that Captain Bishop, D.S.O., had come 
out, and he took over command of the company. 
Also another subaltern was posted to the com-
pany, Lieut. Mackay, R.G.A. It may seem rather 
funny to the reader, a gunner officer being attached 
to an infantry company, but there were several of 
them, all without exception very nice follows. But 
it was rather galling to have a man of another branch 
put over you. In some cases they knew nothing of 
infantry drill and had to learn it. But I suppose that 
the Colonial Office was so stuck for officers that they 
would take anyone who was willing to be seconded, 
irrespective of what branch he belonged to. 
I had now done about 10 months of my tour and 
was beginning to look forward to going home. 
Colonel Williamson had already gone on leave 
and Major Reeves of the Leinsters had taken over 
command. He ordered the company out to a village 
called Ticheru, about five hours from Kumasi on the 
Juaben road. There is a big open piece of country 
there, just suitable for open order work. He came 
out with us, and Captain Bishop and I went with the 
company. We had a good hard week's work out 
( 
THE GOLD COAST REVIEW 
there and came back feeling very fit after it. It did • 
the company a lot of good. The King's Coronation 
Day came along (7th July) and we had a Review, 
Sports, etc. in the afternoon. Lieut. Henderson, R.N., 
the Acting Chief Commissioner, gave a dinner in the 
evening, after which there was a torchlight tattoo. 
Naturally, the telegraph wire was down (I had 
not broken it this time) and we did not hear till two 
days after that the King was ill and that the Corona-
tion had been put off. • 
Captain Haslewood had taken home a detach-
ment of 33 N.C.Os. and men to England to form part 
of the Colonial troops at the Coronation. B Com-
pany had sent a corporal and four men. 
I was due to sail for England by the first steamer 
after the 10th August, from Cape Coast. 
There were five penal servitude prisoners to be 
sent down to Elmina Prison, so I left Kumasi on 
August 2nd, with the prisoners and an escort of 15 
N.C.Os. and men. I marched down to Cape Coast by 
the same road as I had come up. Captain Sedgwick 
was in command at Kwissa. 
I got a very bad go of fever at Fesu and had to 
stop a day there. 
I got down to Cape Coast on the loth August, 
Coronation Day. 
I lodged the prisoners in the prison and the men 
found quarters in the Castle. I reported myself to the 
Officer in Command at Cape Coast, a Major of the 
West India Regiment. I think his name was Fister. I 
then went back to Hockman's Hotel. Acquah's was 
full. 
Rather a funny thing happened when I was 
marching in. Just at the outskirts of the town there 
was a bugle band in the uniform of the West India 
Regiment. Knowing that there was a detachment of 
the W.I.R in Cape Coast, I called the escort t? atten-
j 
tion, when I passed them. Much to my disgust I 
THREE TOURS ON THB WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 153 
found, when I had done so, that it was only a boy's 
brigade band that had copied the W.I.R. uniform. 
I never heard the end of it. In the afternoon at 
5 p.m. Mr. O'Brien, the Provincial Commissioner, 
held a reception in the grounds of the old hospital. I 
went to it. That afternoon there was a procession 
of the local schools round the town. They came into 
collision with some of my men, and fearing a big row, 
Mr. O'Brien stopped the procession. I think it was 
.as well, as my men were spoiling for a fight. The 
Hausas hate the coast natives. I took the prisoners 
to Elrnina next day and handed them over. A very 
sad thing happened while I was there. Vernon, the 
District Commissioner, died of blackwater. He was 
well-known in the cricket world, I think. He was 
very brave, I am told, and just before he died turned 
round to the W.I.R. lieutenant who was in command 
of the detachment, and said-" Well, old chap, we 
have made a good fight for it, but it is no use." 
Elmina is only about seven miles from Cape 
Coast, and I got back the same evening. A steamer 
had come in that afternoon, and had landed a new 
officer for us, named Gwyther. I handed over the 
escort to him and he marched off up country next day 
with them. I kept my orderly though, as my steamer 
had not come in. She came in on the 13th. It was 
the BUTutU on her maiden trip home. I was glad to 
find that the captain was Captain Hely, with whom 
I bad come out in the Bornu. 
(To be continued). 
,-
Year The Government of IVo\. IV. No.1. 
1928. the Gold Coast. January-June. 
. 
THE 
I . .G OLD COAST REVIEW 
1"11= = 
CONTENTS. 
1 • PAGK 
ADANGBE (AOANGME) HISTOR.y----.stnlcluded • 3 
By Noa Akullor Aguae Azu. 
(Arranged and translated by E. Azu). 
DIARY OF AN OVERLAND JOURNEV FROM LoRHA, NORTHERN T£RRll"ORIES, 
GOLD CoAST, TO DAKAR. SENEGAL, AUGUST 2ND TO S~praMBER 26TH. 
1919-&o",luded ••....... 3' 
By A. Duncan Johnstone. ;"U ·;ii ;I;::"!I ' ... 
THB NATIVE ATTITUDE TO MODERN MEDICINE 57 
By G. F. T. Saundcra. 
THIlItH THOUSAND MILES IN THE GOLD CoAST • • 66 
By Coureur des Bois. 
A COASTING VO"AGlt FR.O)I SEKONDI TO MARSEILLES • · · . 94 
By Mrs. A. Duncan Johnstone. 
THB THREE OLD MEN OF NKRORASZA • . • · · • • 120 II!: By the Omanheoe of WCDcbi. 
Ta. ... TOURS ON THE WasT COAST OF MRICA • • • 
By A. W. Norris. 
1=====-=-·_--· =.= = 
EDITED BY C. W. WELMAN. 
Secrdary for N4five Affairs, Gold Coasl. 
a £' III tIda lie. .... aft 011 ... at. ttl!! omoe (If tbe Ooloolal ~lt't.l"J'. Aocn, the Drown ~t. fOf 
... M - , .. "In.nk, W. ... mimter. Loodon, B W.l., anri the Gnt<! Cna:.t. Commercial wtdligtDCIe 
IkI _II, AIJbeJ Dome. Wc.tmiDder, Loodon. S.W.I. 
Price 01 thi. Numher-2 SIIiIlin ••. 
.-