'
[Footnote: This form of the word, a masculine article with a feminine
noun, cannot exist in any of the neo-Latin languages. In Italian and
Spanish it would be La Mina, in Portuguese A Mina. The native name is Dina
or Edina.] During the same year Fernan' Gomez, a worthy of Lisbon, bought
a five years' monopoly of the gold-trade from the King, paying 44_l._ 9_s._
par annum, and binding himself to explore, every year, 300 miles down
coast from Sierra Leone. One of these expeditions landed at 'Elmina' and
discovered Cape Catherine in south latitude 1? 50' and west longitude
(Gr.) 9? 2'. The rich mines opened at Little Kommenda, or Aprobi, led to
the building of the Fort Sao Jorje da Mina, by Diego d'Azembuja, sent out
(A.D. 1481) to superintend the construction. But about 1622 the falling in
of some unbraced and untimbered shafts and the deaths of many miners
induced Gweffa, the King, to 'put gold in Fetish,' making it an accursed
thing; and it has not been worked since that time.
Thus Portugal secured to herself the treasures which made her the
wealthiest of European kingdoms. But when she became a province of Spain,
under D. Philip II., her Eastern conquests were systematically neglected
in favour of the Castilian colonies that studded the New World.
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