4 THE GOLD COAST, ASHANTI, AND KUMASSl 



from Cape Coast Castle, the trade has followed this route, and 

 thus the latter place has developed into a town of some commer- 

 cial importance. Palm-oil, palm-kernels, ginger, gold-dust, ma- 

 hogany, monkey skins, camwood, and rubber are exported in 

 enormous quantities to England and the European continent 

 from this port in exchange for rum, gin, cloth, trinkets, and other 

 articles of European manufacture. The castle from which this 

 last-named town takes its name was built by the Portuguese and 

 taken by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, but since 166(> 

 it has been a British possession. It is a spacious, strongly forti- 

 fied, stone building, and back of it at a distance of two miles rise 

 a series of heavily timbered hills, which have an altitude of eight 

 or nine hundred feet. Between the fort and these hills lies the 

 town. Akkra, the seat of government of the Gold Coast colony, 

 is about sixt}^ miles east of Cape Coast Castle. There are numer- 

 ous smaller towns and trading posts along the coast, but their 

 European population is limited to two or three traders and an 

 occasional missionary. 



The shore is difficult of access, as is the case along the entire 

 Guinea coast ; sand-bars block the mouths of rivers, and har- 

 bors are lacking ; consequently passengers and cargo are dis- 

 charged in boats through a heav}^ surf on a frequently dangerous 

 beach, and many a human life and manj^a ton of valuable mer- 

 chandise have been lost in the effort to effect a landing. These 

 surf-boats are English built, of heavy timber, are twent3^-eight 

 feet long, six feet beam, and have long, overlapping bow and 

 stern in order that they may surmount and not cut the breakers. 

 A boat's crew is made up of eleven men and a coxswain. The 

 latter steers with an ordinary long-bladed, straight oar or sweep, 

 while the crew sit on the gunwales of the boat and propel it 

 with paddles, the blades of which are fashioned not unlike a 

 trident. The crew are almost naked, a loin cloth being the only 

 attempt at clothing. They sing lustily while paddling, bestow- 

 ing fulsome praise on the particular individual who has engaged 

 them, and chanting vigorously of the amount of " dash," equiva- 

 lent to the " bakshish " of the East, which he will probably shower 

 upon them when they have landed him in safety. 



The population of the Gold Coast colony, excluding the tribes 

 of the Ashanti confederation, is roughly estimated at 2,000,000, 

 of whom only about 150 are Europeans. There are many dif- 

 ferent tribes of natives, speaking various languages or dialects, 

 but all belonging to the negro race. The tribes of the Fanti 



