become very plentiful. Mr. S. Cheetham informs me that the thinner
hatchets, somewhat finger-shaped, are copied in iron by the peoples of the
Benin River. These expert smiths buy poor European metal and, like other
West Africans, turn out a first-rate tool.

Axim seems to have been a great centre of stone-manufacture. Mr. Carr
showed us a dozen huge boulders of greenstone, chiefly at the eastern
angle of the wart that bears, in dangerous proximity to his stores, his
powder-magazine. The upper surfaces are scored and striped with
leaf-shaped grooves, formed like old Greek swords; some of them are three
feet long by three inches wide and three deep. I made a sketch of the
place; Cameron photographed it, and on return carried off a huge slice of
the block, which is now in the British Museum. We afterwards found these
striated stones on the sea-ward face of St. Anthony Fort, in northern
Axim, and on other parts of the seaboard.

Axim, the gate of this El Dorado, has not yet much reason to thank England
for ruling her. A mean economy annually hoards from 20,000_l_. to
30,000_l_, [Footnote: In 1878 the revenue was 105,091_l_. and the
expenditure 68,410_l_., and in other years the contrast was even greater.
The omniscient 'Whittaker' tells us that in 1879 the figures stood at
54,908_l_. income versus an outlay of 46,281_l_.; and there was no debt.]
forwarded to the colonial _caisse_, to be wasted upon 'little wars,' and
similar miseries, instead of being spent upon local improvements. The
unwholesome bush (the Dutch 'bosch') or wood, backed by the primæval
forest, surges up to the very doors. The little plank-bridges are out of
repair, and the merchants will not supply the Government with new boards,
save for ready money; otherwise payment may be delayed for a year. The
highway to head-quarters, Cape Coast Castle, is a yellow thread streaking
the green, a hunter's path trodden in the jungle. For 16_s_. 6_d_. a