We know exactly as
much about it in A.D. 1882 as in A.D. 1670, when Ogilvy wrote, 'Six miles
beyond Jak, in Jakko, [Footnote: Bosman's _Jaqui-Jaqui_] is the
_Bottomless Pit_, so called from its unfathomable deepness, for the
seamen, having Sounded with their longest Lines and Plummets, could never
reach the bottom.' It would be interesting to know whether it is an area
of subsidence or a volcanic depression. The adjacent Gold Coast suffers
from terrible earthquakes, as Accra learnt to her cost in 1862.
At 10 A.M. we made Grand Bassam, where the French have had a _Residence_
for many years. Here the famous Marseille house of Regis Freres first made
fortune by gold-barter. The precious ore, bought by the middlemen, a
peculiar race, from the wild tribes of the far interior, appears in the
shape of dust with an occasional small nugget; the traders dislike bars
and ingots, because they are generally half copper. We have now everywhere
traced the trade from Gambia to the Gold Coast, and we may fairly conclude
that all the metal comes from a single chain of Ghauts subtending the
maritime region.
Grand Bassam is included in the French _Cote d'Or_, but not in the English
Gold Coast, which begins east of the Ivory Coast.
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