GOLD AT ASHANTEE.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1829, 2 June 1874, Page 3

GOLD AT ASHANTEE.

The special correspondent of the laily News, writing from Cape Coast Castle on February 27th gives some interesting particulars of the public sale of the "loot" taken at Coomassie. Nearly all the articles for domestic use have gold about them, and the quartz reefs are. reputed lo be enormously rioh, with gold plainly visible in thick bimls. We give the following extracts from his letter

" It was not a little amusing to observe the look of horror with which more than one of those who held posaossion of some ■ souvenir to which tliey had become afc-V ,■ tached entirely withuut respect to its value, learnt the piiee.thaf Was' lired upon it by the gold-assayer. Kvery little ornament in Coomassie is almost recklessly mended and patched with gold.' Common pieces of crockery, whioli might bo perhaps repaired iu Kngland by the not very elegant procss of sowing in brass wire, are found quite as roughly, or even' : more roughly, repaired in Coomassie, but with gold instead of brass. The effect is not in the leant better; the difference in price, as determined by an" ' assayer, may be imagined..; [t really was a serious misfortune,in some,ways, that ;ij it was impossible to p'ck up any little innocent articles, costing a few pence or a tov shillings, which the mm could carry away. . . . There were an immense number of common Ashantee.clay pipe- i bowls and pipes, a few silver-worked pipes, aud two pipes which had belonged to the King himself of which the bowl in each case consisted of'soli l worked gold of very curious pattern, while the stem was > elaborately entwined with pure gold wire worked into various devices, and with: a golden mouthpiece. Ihe competition for, _ these was, as it may well be believed, from their entirely unique character, very severe. The number of ornaments used, by the ladies of Coomassie, and especially. by the Kind's favourite wives, was very grea', chielly in the form of golden neck* ' laces, earrings, armlets,;.: rings, Ac., the work being almost always : without addition of stones-or anything , : for which it is employed as a setting—so far as I know, not even the richly-coloured beetles of the coaa ry being used for this purpose. The most effective article, to my mind, were those iu which the simple rough ingots were used, some!imes almost by themselves, sometimes in contrast with the more finely-brought, metal. . . . Any notion that lias been formed of the natural wealth of the goldfields of the Coast is probably not over, but vastly under, the mark. Concurrout reports of officers sent to very different.portions ;j ., of (lie country lead to the conclusim that ' there must be at least patches of no inconsiderable extent : upon the Gold Coast; ■ which exceed in mineral wealtli anything . | that we have known anywhere else in the , world. ' Such was the report that 'was''' brought after his travels amiiigthe triboi of liastrrn Wassaw by.Captain Thompson . within the first two months of our arrival on the Coast. The story which Captain Butler has furnished of what lie has seen in Ashantee country'proper, lo the west, during the continuance of the iuvanon' which ho cond icted, is even moro taking. . A s i have every reason to hope that Captain Builer'S; experie iee i: this, as in other respects, will be narrated by tuO pen which has so brilliaully described tho Cardiff'rent regions of the ' Great bono Laud' aud the ' Wild North. Land,' I must not spoil their interest for future readers. Bat I may at leist whet s their,. curiosity by saying that I luve heard ? Captain Bitler express bis. bdief that, ./, if the gol t miners of the regions which . he has known had the faintest conception..,i of tho naiure of the veins of gold which permeate tlie country in which he recently::' was, not all the fears of African climate, or of Ashantee treachery and crtfclly would prevent an im nitration whioh must ere long com (lately uiiaiue tlie tace of these regions, whatever terrible loss of life occurred during the earlier period,of setllemmt. Captun Butler lius hud no inc msiderahle expsrieiiee of som * ,ot ;) the ricnesc goldlields oi the world, but ho says that hu hns • never seen yet any couutry which could hive pii.i lor tho ' f labour necessarily expended in obtaining ': the ore, by the cude processes in operation in Ishantce. Whereas the ordinary system in a.decently managed g iliilield'.is to make one shaft down to the vein till it is struck, aud tnen >to worlt! along,it, in i'i Ashantee the .method adopted is to make asu icession of ehiirely indspendebt holes, which are dug completely turough the soil to a depth in ui:iny i tntauces of" thirty or forty leet. Of course something., must be allotved for the recdoss expenditure of barbaric and especially oi slave live, but when every deduction is mado tho inherent <vealth of the ountry must ' be prodigious. Hut natural wealth is one- ' tlii'ig," and aceuinuUted, accessible pro-' jery is ■ q li'.e anotiier. The mistake ' which Alva mule in the days ot tlie tyr.inny over the Aetheriaii-ls lias never bjen yet so thoroughly exploded, but that sbiiio relics 'of his notion aull liauiit the public mind eveii iu the nineteenth oentury. It is aUays half believed that a barbaric and despotic monarch whoeaui lay his hnu.i at will upon Hie property of r any'Oiiii of his subjects when: no pleases;^ must have at'any gifcnniJinentenormoiis and,, tangible resources._ vJertaiuly. th 0,.,, tacts in Aslianteo, at all' oveuts, ai'e. dt-' rtctly contrary," ;,' ."; ' '