ON GOLD IN WESTERN AFRICA. 191 



five drachms. In December, after the harvest-home, when the gold- 

 bearing Fiumaras from the hills have shrunk, the Mansa or Shaykh ap- 

 points a day to begin Sana Ku — gold-washing. Each woman arms herself 

 with a hoe; two or three calabashes, and a few quills. On the morning 

 before departure a bullock is slaughtered for a feast, and prayers and 

 charms are not forgotten. The error made by these people is digging 

 and washing for years in the same spot, which proves comparatively un- 

 fruitful unless the torrent shifts its course. They never follow the lead 

 to the. hills, but content themselves with exploring the heads of the 

 water-courses, which the rapid stream denudes of sand and clay, leaving 

 a strew of small pebbles that wear the skin off the finger-tips. The 

 richest yield is from pits sunk in the height of the dry season, near some 

 hill in which gold has been found. As the workers dig through the 

 several strata of sand and clay, they send up a few calabashes by way 

 of experiment for the women, whose peculiar duty it is to wash the 

 stuff, and thus they continue till they strike the floor-rock. The most 

 hopeful formation is held to be a bed of reddish sand, with small dark 

 specks, described as " black matter, resembling gun-powder," and called 

 by the people Sana Mira, or gold-rust : it is possibly emery. In Mr. 

 Murray's edition of 1816, there are illustrations of the various positions, 

 and a long description ("Vol. I., p. 450, and Vol. II., p. 75) of the style of 

 panning. I will not trouble the reader with it, as it in no way differs 

 from that now practised on the Gold Coast and Kaffir lands. There is 

 art in this apparently simple process. Some women find gold when 

 others cannot discover a particle ; and as quicksilver is not used, at 

 least one-third must be wasted, or rather, I may say, it is preserved for 

 a better day. 



The gold dust is stored in quills, stopped with cotton, and the 

 washers are fond of wearing a number of these trophies in their hair. 

 The average of an industrious individual's annual collection may be two 

 slaves. The price of these varies from nine to twelve minkali,* each of 

 12s. 6d., or its equivalent in goods, viz., eighteen gun-flints, forty-eight 

 leaves of tobacco, twenty charges of gunpowder, a cutlass, and a musket. 

 Part of the gold is converted into massive and cumbrous ornaments, 

 necklaces, and ear-rings, and when a lady of consequence is in full dress, 

 she bears from 50Z. to 801. A proportion is put by to defray expenses ol 

 travelling to and from the coast, and the greater part is then invested in 

 goods, or exchanged with the Moors for salt and merchandise. 



The gold is weighed in small balances, which the people always 

 carry about with them, and they make, like the Hindus, but little dif- 

 ference between gold dust and wrought gold. The purchaser always 

 uses his own J 1 tilikissi," beans probably of the Abrus, which are 

 sometimes soaked in Shea butter, to increase their weight, or are imi- 



* May not this word be an old corruption of the well-known Arabic weight, 

 miskal 1 



