This Being Done, I Was Taken Up An Unmitigated Hill, On Whose Summit
Stands Fort William, A Pepper-Pot-Like Structure Now Used As A
Lighthouse.
The view from the top was exceedingly lovely and
extensive.
Beneath, and between us and the sea, lay the town in the
blazing sun. In among its solid stone buildings patches of native
mud-built huts huddled together as though they had been shaken down
out of a sack into the town to serve as dunnage. Then came the
snow-white surf wall, and across it the blue sea with our steamer
rolling to and fro on the long, regular swell, impatiently waiting
until Sunday should be over and she could work cargo. Round us on
all the other sides were wooded hills and valleys, and away in the
distance to the west showed the white town and castle of Elmina and
the nine-mile road thither, skirting the surf-bound seashore, only
broken on its level way by the mouth of the Sweet River. Over all
was the brooding silence of the noonday heat, broken only by the
dulled thunder of the surf.
After seeing these things we started down stairs, and on reaching
ground descended yet lower into a sort of stone-walled dry moat, out
of which opened clean, cool, cellar-like chambers tunnelled into the
earth. These, I was informed, had also been constructed to keep
slaves in when they were the staple export of the Gold Coast. They
were so refreshingly cool that I lingered looking at them and their
massive doors, ere being marched up to ground level again, and down
the hill through some singularly awful stenches, mostly arising from
rubber, into the big Wesleyan church in the middle of the town. It
is a building in the terrible Africo-Gothic style, but it compares
most favourably with the cathedral at Sierra Leone, particularly
internally, wherein, indeed, it far surpasses that structure. And
then we returned to the Mission House and spent a very pleasant
evening, save for the knowledge (which amounted in me to remorse)
that, had it not been for my edification, not one of my friends
would have spent the day toiling about the town they know only too
well. The Wesleyan Mission on the Gold Coast, of which Mr. Dennis
Kemp was at that time chairman, is the largest and most influential
Protestant mission on the West Coast of Africa, and it is now, I am
glad to say, adding a technical department to its scholastic and
religious one. The Basel Mission has done a great deal of good work
in giving technical instruction to the natives, and practically
started this most important branch of their education. There is
still an almost infinite amount of this work to be done, the African
being so strangely deficient in mechanical culture; infinitely more
so, indeed, in this than in any other particular.
After leaving Cape Coast our next port was Accra which is one of the
five West Coast towns that look well from the sea. The others don't
look well from anywhere. First in order of beauty comes San Paul de
Loanda; then Cape Coast with its satellite Elmina, then Gaboon, then
Accra with its satellite Christiansborg, and lastly, Sierra Leone.
What there is of beauty in Accra is oriental in type. Seen from the
sea, Fort St. James on the left and Christiansborg Castle on the
right, both almost on shore level, give, with an outcrop of sandy
dwarf cliffs, a certain air of balance and strength to the town,
though but for these and the two old castles, Accra would be but a
poor place and a flimsy, for the rest of it is a mass of rubbishy
mud and palm-leaf huts, and corrugated iron dwellings for the
Europeans.
Corrugated iron is my abomination. I quite understand it has
points, and I do not attack from an aesthetic standpoint. It really
looks well enough when it is painted white. There is, close to
Christiansborg Castle, a patch of bungalows and offices for
officialdom and wife that from a distance in the hard bright
sunshine looks like an encampment of snow-white tents among the coco
palms, and pretty enough withal. I am also aware that the
corrugated-iron roof is an advantage in enabling you to collect and
store rain-water, which is the safest kind of water you can get on
the Coast, always supposing you have not painted the aforesaid roof
with red oxide an hour or two before so collecting, as a friend of
mine did once. But the heat inside those iron houses is far greater
than inside mud-walled, brick, or wooden ones, and the alternations
of temperature more sudden: mornings and evenings they are cold and
clammy; draughty they are always, thereby giving you chill which
means fever, and fever in West Africa means more than it does in
most places.
Going on shore at Accra with Lady MacDonald gave me opportunities
and advantages I should not otherwise have enjoyed, such as the
hospitality of the Governor, luxurious transport from the landing
place to Christiansborg Castle, a thorough inspection of the
cathedral in course of erection, and the strange and highly
interesting function of going to a tea-party at a police station to
meet a king, - a real reigning king, - who kindly attended with his
suite and displayed an intelligent interest in photographs. Tackie
(that is His Majesty's name) is an old, spare man, with a subdued
manner. His sovereign rights are acknowledged by the Government so
far as to hold him more or less responsible for any iniquity
committed by his people; and as the Government do not allow him to
execute or flagellate the said people, earthly pomp is rather a
hollow thing to Tackie.
On landing I was taken in charge by an Assistant Inspector of
Police, and after a scrimmage for my chief's baggage and my own,
which reminded me of a long ago landing on the distant island of
Guernsey, the inspector and I got into a 'rickshaw, locally called a
go-cart.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 10 of 190
Words from 9203 to 10226
of 194943
