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And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane and Tarzan, standing upon the deck, saw the lonely figure of the shaggy anthropoid motionless upon the surf-beaten sands of Jungle Island. It was three days later that the Cowrie fell in with H.M. sloop-of-war Shorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystoke soon got in communication with London.
It appears singular, that there should have been no rain at Accra, where their crops were failing for the want of it, although it rained every day at Cape Coast. There were several heaps of shells on the beach at Accra, principally consisting of the common cowrie, and the large muscle. They had been collected for the purpose of undergoing the process of calcination.
They are in all manner of shapes, strings of mucuna and poison-beans; carved images stuck over with feathers and tassels; padlocks with a cowrie or a mirror set in them; horns full of mysterious "medicine;" iron- tipped poles; bones; birds' beaks and talons; skins of snakes and leopards, and so forth. We shall meet them again upon our travels.
This is wound on for good; and must be worn day and night and all the time, a cumbersome and tremendously heavy burden. A dozen large loops of coloured beads strung through the ears, and various strings and necklaces of beads, cowrie shells, and the like finish them out in all their gorgeousness. They would sink like plummets.
The distance that they set between themselves and the bourgeoisie, their very exclusiveness, gave them a certain elevation, and enhanced their value. Each noble represented a certain price for the townsmen, as Bambara Negroes, we are told, attach a money value to cowrie shells.
The surfaces of some were smooth and highly polished; others were scolloped, or fluted, or marked with wave-like undulations. There were little rice and cowrie shells; mottled tiger shells; spider shells, with their long, sharp spikes; immense conches, rough, and covered with great knobs on the outside, but smooth and rose-lipped within, and of many delicate hues.
Giving up the religious argument as a failure, I resolved upon more practical inquiries. The Turks had only arrived in the Latooka country in the preceding year. They had not introduced the cowrie shell; but I observed that every helmet was ornamented with this species; it therefore occurred to me that they must find their way into the country from Zanzibar.
Within this subsistence economy, each tribe or locality tended to specialize in certain fields of agriculture or manufacture which necessitated a vigorous and constant trade between all of them. However, within the trading centers, money had come into regular use. It usually took the form of cowrie shells, iron bars, brass rings, or other standard items of value.
But Michael had already reached him; the fleshless figure lay bathed in the dying light of the afterglow. Hanging round his neck, a neck which looked like the neck of the dried mummy in Freddy's wonderful tomb, there were many strings of cheap beads, and suspended from a bright green cord the Prophet's green was one white cowrie shell.
They burn their dead, after which they inclose the bones and ashes in chests, which they hide in holes of the mountains. Gold is found in great plenty, yet both here and in Cangigu and Amu, they use the cowrie shells which are brought from India.
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