Henry
King, maintained by his sons, Richard who hated men-of-war, and William
who preferred science, and it is kept up by his grandsons for legitimate
trade.
The ships--barques and brigs--numbering about twenty-five, are neat,
clean, trim craft, no longer coppered perpendicularly [Footnote: Still
occurs sometimes: the idea is that as they roll more than they sail less
strain is brought on the seams of the copper.] instead of horizontally
after the older fashion. Skippers and crews are well paid for the voyage,
which lasts from a year to fifteen months. The floating warehouses anchor
off the coast where it lacks factories, and pick up the waifs and strays
of cam-wood, palm-oil, and kernels, the peculiar export of the Gold Coast:
at times a tusk or a little gold-dust finds its way on board. The trader
must be careful in buying the latter. Not only have the negroes falsified
it since the days of Bosnian, but now it is made in Birmingham. This false
dust resists nitric acid, yet is easily told by weight and bulk; it blows
away too with the breath, whilst the true does not. Again, the skippers
have to beware of 'fetish gold,' mostly in the shape of broken-up
ornaments of inferior ley.
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