Accra

“ But no man ever comes along the coast now, now that the slaves are not, and the gold is not, and the elephants are gone. The place is held solely for the benefit of the negro, and the dust has settled on everything. There are customs clerks and telegraph clerks, but they are negro, and as yet they do not care. Neither do the English who dwell and rule from Accra, for Accra is far, when the only means of progression is a man's pace, and the rulers say, “These old shells of castles are not worth preserving.” ”

“ The Accra, a clever race, are to be found in all the towns of the West African coast as artisans and sailors. They are employed by the interior tribes as middlemen and interpreters. On the right bank of the Volta occupying the low marshy land near the sea are the Adangme. The Krobos live in little villages in the midst of the palm tree woods which grow round about the Kroboberg, an eminence about 1000 ft. high. Their country lies between that of the Akim and the Adangme. In the west of the colony is the Ahanta country, formerly an independent kingdom. ”

“ Three or four miles behind the town is fine land for cultivation, but between that distance and the town the soil is sandy, mixed with shells and other marine substances, leaving no doubt that the sea, at a former period, covered the surface. Gaming and drinking are prevalent here to a great extent. Cards, and a game called Adjito, are the principal [Pg 90] games. Draughts are also played in Dutch Accra.
English Accra, according to my estimation, contains about seven thousand inhabitants. Stock of different kinds is abundant ”

“ They say they are importing iron railings for Accra to circumvent the negro; for the negro, be it understood, does not mind going to prison. He is well-fed, well-sheltered, and the only deprivation he suffers is being deprived of his women ”

“ Since 1875 the old Danish citadel of Christ ianshorg^ has been the official capital of the British possessions, but Accra is the chief centre of European life, and the governor resides in the neighbourhood of the fort, which was much damaged by the earthquake of 1862. ”

“ And now we sail on to the present seat of Government for the Gold Coast Colony, Accra. This is a fine country, a flat, table-like land along the front, with the hills of the hinterland rising in the background. The landing here is somewhat dangerous in the rough season, and great care has to be taken by the men handling the surf-boats to avoid them capsizing. Many lives have been lost here in days gone by. ”

“ He is the principal merchant here, and transacts a large business with the natives, who come from two or three hundred miles in the interior, and constantly crowd his yard. There they sit, in almost perfect silence, receiving their goods, and making payment in gold-dust and ivory. Towards us Mr. Bannerman showed himself most hospitable, yet in a perfectly unostentatious manner.
Accra is the land of plenty in Africa. Beef, mutton, turkeys and chickens abound; and its supply of European necessaries and luxuries is unequalled. ”

“ Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast, was reached without incident late on the 5th September, and on the following day the Governor, who had seen the Regiment off from Sekondi exactly two years and two months earlier, came on board the Magdalena to welcome and inspect the troops, and to thank them on behalf of the Colony whose name they bear, for the splendid fashion in which, through all the trials and dangers of the East African campaign, they had upheld its reputation. ”

“ Spirit of Africa We have just returned from the Accra meeting of the Heads of African States and governments, where fresh evidence was adduced that the spirit of Africa grows steadily more powerful and all -, pervasive, and that Africans shall continue to march together, in unity and oneness, into the promise of the future. ”

“ She enjoys the liberty of dying at her own discretion. But Accra, almost alone of the Coast towns, boasts the presence of two or three English ladies, and I have known men overjoyed at being ordered to appointments there. Not that they were any more devoted to the society of ladies than we all are, but they hoped for a better chance of surviving [Pg 4] in a place where ladies live. Vain hope; in spite of cliffs and clearings, in spite of golf and polo, and ladies, too, Death counts his shadows at Accra much the same as anywhere else. ”

“ There is something in the tight-fitting clothes of civilisation that is utterly unsuited to these sons and daughters of the Tropics, and the man who is a splendid specimen of manhood when he is stark but for a loin cloth, who is dignified in his flowing robe, sinks into commonplaceness when he puts on a shirt and trousers, becomes a caricature when he parts his wool and comes out in a coat and high white collar.
Money is spent in Accra as it is spent nowhere else in the Colony. ”

“ But the negro mind seems to rather revel in secret societies, trial by ordeal, and tortures. Christianity, the religion of love and pity, has been preached on the Coast for many a long day now, and yet in this year of our Lord 1911 there is behind the Church of England in Accra, down on the sea beach, a rock which is generally known as Sacrifice Rock, and here those who know declare that every yam festival, which takes place just after the rains in September, they sacrifice a girl in order that the crops may not fail. ”

“ And, moreover, they had sent a cart for me, drawn by three Kroo boys.
I have said many hard things about the English women in West Africa. I had begun to think, after my visit to Accra, that only the nursing Sisters were worthy of the name of capable women; but, when I went to Addah, my drooping hopes revived. For I met there, in Mrs Dyson, the transport officer's wife, a woman, charming, pretty, and young, who yet thought it not beneath her dignity to look after her husband's house, to see that he lived well here in the wilderness, and who enjoyed herself and made the very best of life. ”

“ They are broad-shouldered, sinewy men, clad generally in the most elderly of European garments cast off by some richer man, but always they are to be known from the surrounding Ga people by the broad vertical band of blue tattooing on their foreheads, the freedom mark that shows they have never been slaves. In Accra the white people are something under two hundred, the Governor and his staff, officials, teachers, merchants, clerks, missionaries, and artisans, and there are less than thirty white women, so that in comparison the white faces are very few in the streets. ”

“ The road to Accra from Sekondi is along the seashore, and so, to be very Irish, there is no road. Of a truth, very few people there are who choose to go by land, as it is so much easier to go by steamer, and the way, generally speaking, is along the sand. Just outside Sekondi the beach is broken by huge rocks that run out into the sea, apparently barring the way effectually, and those rocks had to be negotiated. My hammock-boys stopped, and I got out and watched my men with the loads scrambling over the rocks, and one thing I was sure of, on my own feet I could not go that way. ”

“ Ethiopia's decision to take part in the deliberations of the Conference Of Independent African States to be held at Accra this month springs from her desire to exchange views with the other sister African states and formulate ways and means of cooperating with each other on matters vitally affecting our continent. We strongly believe that each nation has an inherent right to shape its own destiny and to seek its own way to the high state of advancement which the free nations of the world have attained. ”

“ Of the former, several have been educated in England, and are very respectable men, who have done much for the improvement and appearance of Accra. Their houses, as far as is consistent with the climate, where the [Pg 86] thermometer ranges from 82° to 87° in the shade, are built on the English plan, with large gardens and pleasure-grounds, laid out at an enormous expense, though not very productive, as the soil in the immediate neighbourhood is chiefly sand or gravel, and very dry and barren. ”

“ The natives of Accra are allowed, by all other [Pg 87] people from Cape Coast to Benin, to be the greatest and most expert thieves along the whole coast; but my experience does not enable me to perceive any great difference in this respect, for I have found them all a great deal more dexterous than was convenient, white men being always considered as lawful prey in all cases. Even in the market they will always ask four times the proper price from an European. The population is much mixed here as well as at Winnebah ”

“ At Montford, Shallo, and thereabouts, they make up the Deficiency of Rice and Corn for the Voyage, the Country appearing fruitful, and with better Aspect than any of those we have passed to Windward, intermixed with Hills and Vales; at every League almost, a Town; many Corn-fields, Salt pans and other Marks of Industry, particularly about Accra, which shews they are extricated out of those Difficulties with their Neighbours behind them, that the manner of persuing the Slave-Trade exposes others too. ”

“ This custom was introduced by some of the slaves brought from the interior; as I observed the same practice in several towns on the banks of the Niger when there in 1841. In Accra this operation is performed upon the children generally at the age of ten or eleven years, after which a square grass mat, about the thickness of coarse canvass, is worn by the boy till the wound is healed, by which those who have undergone the operation are easily distinguished from others.
Many of the natives, both male and female, go entirely naked, till they are twelve or thirteen years old ”

“ Bosman refers to the Old Mammy or Anancy stories in his work on Africa, and it is said that in Accra "there are men who have a repertoire almost as copious as the Arabian Nights, and to which Europeans listen with curiosity and wonder, if not with admiration." ”

“ During the dry season the natives very seldom sleep in their houses in any part of the west coast of Africa, but lie on a thin grass mat outside of their houses, without any covering. Country cloths are manufactured at Accra, but not extensively. Drip or filter stones are made from an excellent stone found here, superior to any other for that purpose. The same stone is also used for building. Fish is very abundant generally, amongst which is one of a very peculiar flavour, much esteemed, and not found on any other part of the coast, called by the natives pogie. ”

“ I was six Weeks attending the Trials of the Pyrates at this Castle, and treated very civilly.
The Factory have every now and then a large Demand for Salt, made and brought hither from Accra. The Sale appears like a Fair in the Castle, and many of those Negroes whose Ivory or Gold would not purchase half a Bushel, I was told had travelled some hundred Miles; they chusing to go in Bodies when Seed-time is over, as a better Protection from wild Beasts, and their wilder Countrymen, who frequently make Incursions from several parts of the Coast, and sieze them for Slaves, when few and defenceless. ”

“ Bannerman and his Hospitality—Danish Accra, partly Demolished—Occasion of this—Attempt to assassinate the Governor—English Accra, its Trade much reduced by Competition with Americans—Currency—Merchants’ Houses—Fruits and Flowers—The Coromantine Apple—Natives most expert Thieves—Population—Circumcision—Mode of Carrying Children—Sleep in the Open Air—Manufactures—Fish—Difficult Landing—Salt Lake—Soil—Gaming and Drinking—Population of English Accra—Stock—Cruel Treatment of Horses—Want of Natural Affection—Sail for Ahguay—Boarded by an English Brig—Mr. ”

“ The next morning the ship was off Accra. Here the scenery had entirely changed. The hills had receded, and a wide and slightly undulating plain extended to their feet, some twelve miles back. The captain was going to land, as he had some despatches for the colony, and he invited Frank to accompany him. They did not, as Frank expected, land in a man of war's boat, but in a surf boat, which, upon their hoisting a signal, came out to them. These surf boats are large and very wide and flat. They are paddled by ten or twelve negroes, who sit upon the gunwale. ”

“ Accol′ti, a Tuscan family, of 15th century, famous for their learning.
Accor′so, the name of a Florentine family, of 12th and 13th centuries, great in jurisprudence.
Accra (16) , capital and chief port in British Gold Coast colony.
Accrington (39) , a manufacturing town 22 m. N. of Manchester.
Accum, Friedrich, a German chemist, the first promoter of gas-lighting (1769-1838) .
Accumulator, a hydraulic press for storing up water at a high pressure; also a device for storing up electric energy.
Acerra (14) , an ancient city 9 m. NE. of Naples; is in an unhealthy district. ”

“ If our victory is great enough, we can hope to unite under our hand the whole of Central Africa with our old colony South-west Africa; Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Dahomey, well-populated Nigeria with the port of Lagos, Kamerun, the rich islands of San Thomé and Principe with their splendid ports, the Katanga ore district, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Mozambique, and Delagoa Bay, Madagascar, German East Africa, Zanzibar, and Uganda ”

“ Barca and Tripoli remain subject to the Porte. Tunis and Algeria pertain to France, whose influence reaches down across the Sahara and Sudan to the northern slope of the Congo basin. On the west coast below Jlorocco is the small Rio d'Ouro possession of Spain. Then come the French Senegal, British Gambia, Portuguese Guinea, French Guinea, the British Sierra Leone, Liberia, another block of French territory, the British Ashanti, German Togoland, French Dahomey, the extensive British Niger territories, and German Kamerun. ”