Prick-eared curs, ducks, and fowls compose the bestial
habitants, to which must be added the regiments of rats (and ne'er a cat)
which infest all these places. There were no mosquitoes, but the sand-fly
bit viciously on mornings and evenings between the dark and sunlit hours,
confining one to the dim cage and putting a veto upon the pleasant lounge
or seat in the cool open. We found lodgings in the guest-hut of the
headman, Kwako Juma, like most of his brethren, a civil man and a greedy.
But the Krumen, boatmen and carriers, were also lodged in the little
settlement, and these people always make night hideous with their songs
and squabbles, their howling voices, and hyaena-like bursts of laughter.
It is very difficult to 'love one's neighbour as oneself' when he appears
in this form under these circumstances.
By times next morning we woke too soon the villagers, who enjoy long talks
by night and deep slumbers in early day. They appear much inclined to
slumber again. But both Apo of Asanta and Juma of Nanwa were exceedingly
anxious to know when mining-works would begin, and, that failing, to
secure as much 'dash' as possible.
The Ingotro concession, the largest we have yet seen, measures 3,000
fathoms square, the measurements being taken from the central shaft.
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