232 FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 



generally of denuding the country of its forests, as 

 Locations multiply and Settlements increase, by which 

 large areas have been and are being converted into 

 treeless wastes, taken possession of by rank grasses 

 and undergrowth, and breeding dangerous miasma. 



Of the Gold Coast, I am reminded here of the open 

 space that lies for miles behind the coast line of the 

 Accra district, and of the Elmina plain ; of the 

 present condition of Lagos and its environs : as also 

 of the former wooded islands and banks of the 

 Gambia. 



The open ground, that is now to be seen around 

 Accra and Christiansborg, of the Gold Coast Colony, 

 extending for miles inland and spreading out east and 

 west to some length, has once been covered with 

 forest, which has now for its substitute a plain of 

 rank grass, the monotony of which is broken by the 

 appearance — even there of rare occurrence — of a 

 cassava or calabash farm, a small patch of ground 

 nut for home consumption, or a clump of compara- 

 tively unprofitable but picturesque bush. There also, 

 as elsewhere along the West Coast, the difficulty of 

 securing fire- wood is making itself felt, as also its 

 consequent dearness. 



Further east, in Lagos, from Ebute-metta inland, 

 the country is also becoming denuded of the profitable 

 timber trees, which have to bow to the sawyer's axe or 

 the fire-wood collector's cutlass. You now travel 

 through miles of open country which was not long 



