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In another hour, making a total of six miles from Inyenápoli, we reached our destination, Arábokasu, or 'One Stone for Top. We lodged our belongings in the bamboo-house newly built by Mr. Grant, finding it perfectly fit for temporary use. Before I left Axim Mr. C. C. Robertson landed there, instructed by the Izrah Company to choose a fair site for a frame-house mounted on piles.
In so large an area of broken ground, however, there are eminences that command a prospect of the sea and which are within the influence of the sea-breeze. The conditions will, doubtless, improve when the adjacent mining-grounds, Inyoko and Izrah, shall have been opened and the country cleared and ventilated.
A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300l. to 500l., an exceptional article 700l. We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is properly Izíá, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the spot.
Good King Blay, who had formally made over to me possession of the 'Izrah' mine, left us for his own village, in order to cure an inflamed foot. He attributed it to the 'fetish' of some unfriend; but it turned out to be Guinea-worm, a malady from which many are suffering this season. We parted upon the most friendly terms and arranged to meet again.
Our villagers told us strange tales of a magician near Assini who can decapitate a man and restore him to life, and who lately had placed a dog's head on a boy's body. Who can 'doubt the fact'? the boy was there! I will now borrow freely from the diary kept during our five days' inspection of the Izrah diggings. Cameron worked hard at a rough survey of the ground which Mr.
The soft and silky Bahama-grass has been brought from Sá Leone to Axim, where it covers the open spaces, and it grows well at Akankon. There is no trouble except to plant a few roots, which extend themselves afar; and the carpet when thick allows, like the orange-tree, no undergrowth. The 'Izrah' concession is due to the energy and activity of Mr. R. B. N. Walker, who has told its history.
I also had long conversations with Mr. A. A. Robertson, lately sent out as traffic-manager to the Izrah, and with Mr. Amondsen, the Danish sailor, then en route to the hapless Akankon mine. Mr. Paulus Dahse, who was saved from a severe sickness by Dr. Roulston and by his brother-in-law, Mr. Wulfken, eventually became my fellow-passenger to Madeira, where I parted from him with regret.
This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion. Apparently Izíá became Izrah to assume a 'Scriptural' sound; if so, why not 'go the whole animal' and call it the Isaiah? This fine concession is a rectangular parallelogram, whose dimensions are 2,000 yards long from north to south, by a breadth of half.
Some attempts had been made to blast a rock in the skirt of Jama's garment; but all had notably failed. The reeking, unwholesome bottom showed extensive traces of digging and washing. Following the water, we came to the second little mining-village, also deserted. From this place an old bush-path once led directly to the lands we call 'Izrah, but it has long been closed by native squabbles.
Cameron and I agreed that the only way of entering them is by running the boat ashore, unloading her, and warping her round the point, as we shall afterwards do at Prince's. But the best line to the Izrah concession has not yet been discovered. I strongly impressed the necessity of careful search upon Mr. A. A. Robertson, the traffic-manager of the Company.
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