mahogany (_Oldfieldia africana_), well known in Ceylon as excellent
material for boat-building. There was an abundance of the Calabar-bean
(_Physostigma venenosum_), once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied
by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints. The 'tie-tie,' as
Anglo-Africans call the rope-like creepers, was also plentiful; it may
prove valuable for cordage, and possibly for paper-making. I was pleased
to see the ease with which the heaped-up jungle-growth is burnt at this
season and the facility of road-making. Half a dozen Kru-boys with their
matchets can open, at the rate of some miles a day, a path fit to carry a
'sulky;' and the ground wants only metalling with the stone which lines
every stream. At the same time I hold that here, as in Mexico, we should
begin with railways and tramways. Nor will there be any difficulty in
keeping down the jungle. The soft and silky Bahama-grass has been brought
from Sá Leone to Axim, where it covers the open spaces, and it grows well
at Akankon. There is no trouble except to plant a few roots, which extend
themselves afar; and the carpet when thick allows, like the orange-tree,
no undergrowth.

The 'Izrah' concession is due to the energy and activity of Mr. R. B. N.
Walker, who has told its history. In March 1881, when he first visited it,
there had been a black 'rush;' the din and clamour of human voices were
audible from afar, and on reaching the mine he found some 300 natives hard
at work. I was told that the greatest number at one time was 2,000. The
account reminds us exactly of the human floods so famous in other parts of
the mining world. The men were sinking pits of unusual size along the
south-eastern slope of the hillock, where the great clearing now is. The
excitement was remarkable; and, negroes not being given to hard and
continuous labour without adequate inducement, the bustle and the uproar,
and the daily increasing numbers of miners flocking from considerable
distances, were evidence sufficient that there was an unusually good