89
Highest temperature on April 5 and 14, 96? (1881).
Lowest temperature on June 14, 66?.
Highest rainfall in 24 hours on July 25, 3 30.
Highest variation in 24 hours on April 14, 96?-74? = 22?.
Lowest variation in 24 hours on June 24, 75?-71? = 4?.]
CHAPTER XXIV.
TO THE MINES OF ABOSU, OF THE 'GOLD COAST,' AND OF THE TAKWA
('AFRICAN GOLD COAST') COMPANIES.
On April 6 I reached the Mine d'Or d'Aboassu, this being my second visit.
The first, on the previous Sunday, had been more interesting in the point
of anthropological than of geological study. The day of rest had been
devoted to a general jollification by most of the whites, and the blacks
had ably followed suit. The best example was set by the doctor attached:
he was said to have emptied sixty-two bottles of cognac during his
twenty-three days of steamer-passage. But, brandy proving insufficient, he
had recourse to opium, chloral, and bromide of potassium, a pint and a
half of laudanum barely sufficing for the week. I need hardly say where
the abuse of stimulants and opiates lands a man, either in Western Africa
or in England.
From the Abosu village and its abominations I turned sharp to the
north-west, and ascended the steep western flank of Abo Yao, whose highest
point is 312 feet above sea-level.
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