142 



FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 



The same reasons, if we substitute Dahomey for 

 Ashantee, and add the intertribal wars now happily- 

 approximated to a close by the Government of Lagos, 

 that have gone on for years in the Yoruba Kingdom, 

 and have militated so much against its development 

 and commercial progress, explain the past depression 

 in this industry in the Colony of Lagos. 



I was glad to find, in 1885, that a long-established 

 and prominent house of West African notoriety, 

 Messrs. Swanzy, took the lead in the Gold Coast 

 Colony in the matter of the development of the Volta 

 Valley export cotton trade. They had and have a 

 •grand inlet and outlet in the Volta River, and deserve 

 every encouragement and success. They intended to 

 utilize the force of the river, and divert some of it 

 towards the working of suitable machinery which 

 they exported to the Gold Coast. Their endeavours 

 find favourable support in the statistics of export in 

 this article from the Gold Coast, inclusive of Lagos, 

 which from 1878 to 1885 were as follows : — 



