MISCELLANILE’S.. 
them to do so, now that the slave- 
trade is abolished, and that the 
excess of population is forced to 
provide for itself: for, notwith- 
standing the enormous exportation 
of human beings being stopped, 
they have still their helots: these 
are Negroes, who are slaves either 
from being taken in war, from 
being insolvent debtors, from 
having lost their personal liberty 
at play, or from being sold by 
their parents. As to malefactors 
and rebels, they are uniformly 
sold to Europeans. 
The Negroes, therefore, work 
only the auriferous sands and the 
gneiss or schistuus beds and banks 
of granite, which constitute the 
base of their mountains, and which 
being friable are easily dug into. 
If they attack the sides, they dig 
a fosse in the first place from 
twenty to thirty feet in depth, on 
an indeterminate breadth, until 
they begin to be alarmed for the 
crumbling down of the earth ; the 
gold, as being heavier than quartz, 
schorl, and feldspar, the constitu- 
ent principles of primitive granite, 
has been deeper seated in their 
common fall: they begin to find 
it, however, at the depth of three 
feet: they had no idea of using 
props of wood until they were 
taught by Europeans, aud nothing 
in the world could induce them to 
make a regular pit, or bury them- 
selves under ground. In propor- 
tion as they advance in the work, 
the lumps are put into pouches fix- 
ed round their waists, and some 
miners get very rich, as they only 
pay the king a fixed and daily al- 
lowance. In 1790, the king of 
Assianti had six hundred slaves at 
work for him, each of whom en- 
gaged to supply him with half an 
541 
ounce per diem, and some of them 
had so much good sense as to 
form a sort of company, and throw 
into a joint stock the fruits of 
their labours. The earth thrown 
up during the digging, is laid in 
heaps on the edges of the fosse, 
where other miners, their wives 
and children, receive it in bags 
and carry it to the nearest river 
on their heads, for the Negro 
never carries any thing on his 
back. They wade into the river 
up tothe middle, and then dexter- 
ously dipping in their bags, they 
wash and shake its contents, so 
as to make the gold fall to the 
bottom: they then pour off the 
sand and earth, and the gold-dust 
remains. 
As to the gold-finders on the 
banks of rivers and the sea-shore, 
they are less fortunate in their re~ 
searches, and itis generally women 
who are thus employed. They 
conduct themselves precisely like 
the mountaineers, who in their 
turn are more fortunate than those 
on thesea-shore: the latter collect 
in bags the sand thrown up by a 
tempest, and act precisely like the 
former by washing, &c. In ge- 
neral the price of gold is fixed in 
Africa, and never fluctuates: in 
Europe it is supposed to yield 25 
per cent profit. 
But it is not so considerable 
now as it has been; for several 
African princes more powerful 
than others, and anxious to secure 
a monopoly have compelled. the 
weaker to renounce all searching 
for gold. Thus the sovereign of 
Akim, who has been conquered 
by the king of Assianti, dares 
not any longer work his rich 
mines : they used to furnish up-. 
wards of 80 ounces of gold per 
