Ross found a native 'Long Tom.' It was
a hollowed palm-trunk rotten with age, closed at one end and open at the
other, with a slant downwards; two forks supported it over a water-filled
hollow, measuring ten feet each way by three deep. Ajamera lies a little
west of the peninsula, _Africanice_ Madrektanah, a jutting mass of naked
granite glazed red by sea-water: on either side of the sandy neck, pinned
down, like Pirate's Bay, by cocoa-nuts, there is the safest landing-place.
And now we sight our port, distant some nine miles from Axim.
In front rises Prince's Hill, clad in undergrowth with a topping tuft of
tall figs. At its eastern base lies the townlet, showing more whitewash
than usual; and, nearer still, the narrow mouth of the fiery little Yenna,
Prince's or St. John's River. The view is backed by the tall and wooded
ridge of Cape Threepoints, the southernmost headland of the Gold Coast,
behind which is Dixcove. It is interesting to us because a syndicate has
been formed, and engineers are being sent out to survey the pathless
'bush' between the sea and Tumento on the Ancobra, whose site was at the
time unknown. Cameron presently discovered that the Takwa ridge is nearer
Axim than Dixcove is, and that the line would pass within easy distance of
Kinyanko, one of its _raisons d'etre_.
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