In another hour, making a total of six miles from Inyenápoli, we reached
our destination, Arábokasu, or 'One Stone for Top.' We lodged our
belongings in the bamboo-house newly built by Mr. Grant, finding it
perfectly fit for temporary use. Before I left Axim Mr. C. C. Robertson
landed there, instructed by the Izrah Company to choose a fair site for a
frame-house mounted on piles. It was presently made in England, but
unfortunately not after the Lagos fashion, with the bed-rooms opening upon
a verandah seven to nine feet broad, and a double roof of wood with
air-space between, instead of thatch and corrugated iron. The house
measures 52 x 32 feet, and contains four bed-rooms, a dining-room, and the
manager's office. A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300_l_. to
500_l_., an exceptional article 700_l_.

We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is
properly Izíá, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on
the spot. This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion.'
Apparently Izíá became Izrah to assume a 'Scriptural' sound; if so, why
not 'go the whole animal' and call it the Isaiah?

This fine concession is a rectangular parallelogram, whose dimensions are
2,000 yards long from north to south, by a breadth of half. The village
stands outside the south-western angle, and the Fía rivulet runs through
the south-eastern corner. The surface is rolling ground, with a rise and a
depression trending from south-west to north-east. The whole extent,
except where 'bush' lingers, is an old plantation of bananas, manioc, and
ground-nuts. There is an ample supply of good hard timber, but red
pitch-pine or creosoted teak from England would last much longer. Amongst
the trees are especially noted the copal, the gamboge, rich in sticky
juice, the _brovi_, said to be the hardest wood, and the _dum_, or African