District-commissioner, after its bombardment during the Ashanti war. The
main streets, or rather roads, running north-south, are avenued with
shady Ganian or umbrella figs. I should prefer the bread-tree, which here
flourishes. These thoroughfares are kept clean enough, and nuisances are
punished, as in England. Cross lines, however, are wanted; the crooked
passages between the huts do not admit the sea-breeze. Native hovels,
also, should be removed from the foreshore, which, as Admiralty property,
ought to be kept for public purposes. The native dwellings are composed of
split bamboo-fronds (_Raphia vinifera_), thatched with the foliage of the
same tree. They are mere baskets--airy, and perhaps too airy. Some are
defended against wind and wet by facings of red swish; a few, like that of
the 'king' and chief native traders, are built of adobes (sun-dried
bricks), whitewashed outside. Of this kind, too, are the stores and the
mining establishments; the 'Akankon House,' near the landing-place; the
'Gold Coast House,' in the interior; the Methodist chapel, a barn-shaped
affair; the Effuenta House to the north, and the Tákwá, or French House,
to the south.

'Sanitation,' however, is loudly called for; and if cholera come here it
will do damage. The southern part of the narrow ledge bearing the town,
and including the French establishment, is poisoned by a fetid, stagnant
pool, full of sirens, shrimps, and anthropophagous crabs, which after
heavy rains cuts a way through its sand-bar to the sea. This _marigot_ is
the 'little shallow river Axim,' the Achombene of Barbot, which the people
call Awaminísu ('Ghost's or Deadman's Water'). To the north also there are
two foul nullahs, the Eswá and the Besáon, which make the neighbourhood
pestilential. In days to come the latter will be restored to its old
course east of the town and thrown into the Awaminísu, whose mouth will be
kept open throughout the year. The eastern suburbs, so to call them, want
clearing of offal and all manner of impurities. Beyond the original valley