among palæozoic rocks of a quartzose type,' is practically valuable on the
Gold Coast. Every mound or hillock of red clay contains one or more
quartz-reefs, generally outcropping, but sometimes buried in the subsoils.
They can always be struck by a cross-cut trending east-west. The dip is
exceedingly irregular: some lodes are almost vertical, and others
quasi-horizontal.

We now take the main road leading to the Ancobra. After crossing the fetid
Besáon by its ricketty bridge of planks, we find on the right hand, facing
Messieurs Swanzy's, a fine bit of rising ground, which I shall call, after
its proprietor, 'Mount Irvine.' Over the southern slope runs a cleared
highway, which presently becomes a 'bush-path;' it is named the 'Dudley
Road,' after an energetic District-commissioner. This is the first Tákwá
line, whose length is described to be about fifty miles, or four days'
slow journey for laden porters. Mr. Gillett, who had covered twenty-six
(sixteen?) miles of it, describes the path as unbroken by swamps or
streams. Further north, according to the many native guides whom I
questioned, travellers pass two rivulets, and finally they are ferried
over the Abonsá, or Tákwá River. The second road follows closely the left
bank of the Ancobra: it is used by the Hausá soldiers, but only in the
heart of the Dries, and it must be impassable during the Rains. Dr. J.
Africanus B. Horton, who contributes to a characteristic paper, [Footnote:
The _African Times_, January 2, 1882. The paper is full of inaccuracies;
it begins by placing Tomento (Tumento) ninety-five miles (for thirty)
along the river-course from the mouth, and he makes steam-launches 'take
from two to four days (say one) to go up to it.'] has never heard of the
former when he says 'from Axim to Taquah (Tákwá) there is no direct
route,' and he justly deprecates the latter. But he cries up the Bushua or
Dixcove-Tákwá line, upon which he has large concessions. I shall return to
this subject in a future chapter.