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Updated: June 9, 2025
Cameron and I, prevented by the late season of our landing from attempting this interesting exploration, were careful to make all manner of enquiries concerning the best point de départ, and if fate prevent our attempting it we shall be happy to see some more favoured traveller succeed. The easiest way would be to march upon Crockerville, two days by the Ancobra River and three by land.
I met M. Bonnat last in June 1881; he was then going up to Tákwá in company with Messieurs Bowden and Macarthy, and I was canoeing down the Ancobra on my way home. He was suffering severely from a carbuncular boil on the thigh, which he refused to have properly opened.
Embarking about 3 P.M. on board Effuenta, we steamed up the Ancobra, which here looks more like a river and less like a lagoon. The settlements become more important, the first being Nfia-kru, or the 'dog-village. There were many influents, which showed like dark breaches in the rampart of verdure. This name may become memorable.
I left the surf-boat behind, and put my luggage into small canoes hired at Tumento, myself proceeding in the large canoe. We shoved off from the beach at 8.50 A.M. The Ancobra had now, after the late rains, a fair current instead of being almost dead water; otherwise it maintained the same appearance.
Poké is the rock where, according to Barbot, 'the negroes put their wives and children when they go to war. The tradition is that the Dutch mined it for silver. The metal is known to exist in several places on and behind the coast, at Bosumato, upon the Ancobra River south of 'Akankon, and even at Kumasi. Besides, gold has not yet been found here unalloyed with silver.
I named this place the 'Axim Reef. It had been taken by Dr. J. Ogilby Ross, formerly district medical officer, Axim, and now preparing to explore the regions behind the Ancobra sources. He allowed, however, his prospecting term to elapse, and thus it has been secured by Mr. Grant for Mr. J. Irvine. It taught us three valuable lessons.
Most works on mining insist upon those reservoirs, and never seem to think of washing from below by the force-pump. I have shown that the surface of the lands adjoining the Ancobra is a series of hummocks, rises, and falls, sometimes, though rarely, reaching 200 feet; that water abounds, and that it is to be had gratis.
Besides a few humans they contain nothing save lean dogs and etiolated poultry; cattle, sheep, and even pigs are wholly unknown. In the afternoon we pushed through a wild thunderstorm of furious tropical rain, which pitted the river-face like musket-balls. It arose in the south; but throughout the Ancobra valley wet weather apparently comes from all directions.
But the Company, instead of mining, has gone deeply into concession-mongering, and their grants are scattered broadcast over the country. One of them, the 'Mankuma, near Aodua, the capital of Eastern Apinto, extends twenty-six miles, with a depth of 500 yards on either bank of the Ancobra River above the mouth of the Abonsá influent.
The Ancobra, for instance, which often rises and falls from twenty to forty feet in twenty-four hours, suggests that its sources spring from an elevated plane at no great distance from the sea. The lands south of the Kong Mountains are grassy and hilly with extensive plains. This is known through the 'Donko slaves, common on the coast.
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