To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative by Verney Lovett Cameron;Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 34 of 310 (10%)
page 34 of 310 (10%)
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him of far greater assistance to you than you have any idea of.'
The remarks on agriculture and on capital were equally apposite; and Captain Cameron remarked that these were the 'truest words of wisdom about Africa that it ever was his lot to hear.' They will leave a sweet savour in the reader's mouth after a somewhat acid chapter. But the ingrained idleness of generations is not so easily cleared away. The real cure for Sá Leone will be an immigration of Chinese or of Indian coolies, that will cheapen labour and enable men of capital to farm on a large scale. It may be years before agriculture supplants trade with its light work and ready profits; but the supplanting process itself will do good. At present Sá Leone finds it cheaper to import salt from England than to lay out a salina, and to make an article of commerce which finds its way into the furthest interior. Immigration, I repeat, is the sole panacea for the evils which afflict the Lioness Range. CHAPTER XIII. FROM SÁ LEONE TO CAPE PALMAS. Frowsy old Sá Leone bestowed on us a parting smile. After a roaring tornado at night and its terminal deluge, the morning of January 19 broke clear and fine. We could easily trace, amongst the curious series of volcanic cones, the three several sanitary steps on the Leicester or Lioness Hill. These are, first the hospice of the French Jesuits, now officers' quarters; then a long white shed, the soldiers' hospital; and highest (1,700 feet) the box which lodges their commandant. Even the |
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