The whole of this coast, as far as Axim,
is so dangerous that men land with their lives in their hands. They
disembark when outward-bound and re-embark when homeward-bound, and in the
interim they never tempt surf and sharks.
The _Senegal_ left Grand Bassam at 5.30 P.M., to cover the eighty-five
miles separating us from our destination. The next important feature is
the Assini River, also the outlet of enormous navigable lagoons, breaking
the continuity of forest-backed sands. It lies fourteen to fifteen miles
(which the chart has diminished to seven) west of the French settlement,
of old Fort Joinville. The latter shows a tiled and whitewashed
establishment, the property of M. Verdier, outlying the normal ant-hill of
brown huts. In 1868 Winwood Reade here found a _poste_ and stockade, a
park of artillery, a commandant, a surgeon, and a detachment of
_tirailleurs senegalais_ levied amongst the warlike Moslem tribes of
Senegambia. Like Grand Bassam it was under the station admiral, who
inspected the two once a year, and who periodically sent a gunboat to
support French interests.
By night we passed New Town, not on the charts, but famed for owning a
fine gold placer north of the town-lagoon.
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