Some Women, However, By Long Practice, Become So Well
Acquainted With The Nature Of The Sand, And The Mode Of Washing It,
That They Will Collect Gold Where Others Cannot Find A Single
Particle.
The gold dust is kept in quills stopped up with cotton;
and the washers are fond of displaying a number of these quills in
their hair.
Generally speaking, if a person uses common diligence
in a proper soil, it is supposed that as much gold may be collected
by him in the course of the dry season as is equal to the value of
two slaves.
Thus simple is the process by which the negroes obtain gold in
Manding; and it is evident from this account that the country
contains a considerable portion of this precious metal, for many of
the smaller particles must necessarily escape the observation of the
naked eye; and as the natives generally search the sands of streams
at a considerable distance from the hills, and consequently far
removed from the mines where the gold was originally produced, the
labourers are sometimes but ill-paid for their trouble. Minute
particles only of this heavy metal can be carried by the current to
any considerable distance; the larger must remain deposited near the
original source from whence they came. Were the gold-bearing
streams to be traced to their fountains, and the hills from whence
they spring properly examined, the sand in which the gold is there
deposited would no doubt be found to contain particles of a much
larger size; and even the small grains might be collected to
considerable advantage by the use of quicksilver and other
improvements, with which the natives are at present unacquainted.
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