The Golden Pool

In the course of a long journey on foot through an uncultivated country one acquires the faculty of unconsciously observing and generalising from certain geographical facts. By noticing the vegetation one can detect at a distance an invisible river or a change in the soil; in dense forest, the proximity of an unseen range of hills is inferred from rapidly-flowing streams with beds of shingle, and the general slope of the country can be judged, apart from particular inclines, from the average direction of the rivers.

Now, very shortly after leaving Juábin, it became evident that we had entered a new watershed, for, whereas the streams had previously flowed mostly in a southerly direction, they now took a course for the most part towards the north-west, and were, moreover, increasing in size, the little rivulets giving place, as we travelled northward, to more considerable streams. It did not, therefore, cause me any surprise when, on the fifth day after leaving Juábin, we came to the brink of a large, slowly-flowing river.

A river of any size is, however, always an object of interest to the traveller, and as we came out into the open space on the bank, we halted and looked about us curiously. The black, sluggish waters were spanned by a rude bridge formed of a single gigantic odúm tree, and on either bank, at each end of the bridge, was a high pile of sticks, while on the farther side of the river an opening in the trees showed that the road led into a village.

As we approached the bridge, a man who had been sitting by the pile of staves rose and held up one hand, while with the other he pointed to the heap; and although he spoke not a word, our people clearly understood his meaning, for each of them who carried a stick cast it on to the pile. Then the man walked on to the bridge and, when he had passed three-quarters of the way across, halted, and tinkled a kind of primitive bell. Our men followed him, and each of them, as he reached the middle of the bridge, drew from his pocket one of the little cloth packets of gold dust that form the ordinary currency in Ashanti and, opening it, shook the gold out into the river. I was greatly surprised at this behaviour on the part of my orthodox friends, but I thought it wise to do as they did, so, laying my stick upon the wooden cairn, I took out the smallest of the packets of gold dust with which Pereira had furnished me, and very reluctantly shook out the contents into the water.

As I landed on the northern bank, I passed close to the fetish priest or wizard—for such he evidently was—and examined him with no little curiosity. He was an emaciated, shrivelled-looking rascal with a sly, sinister face, and grey hair, and was loaded with necklaces and other ornaments of cowrie shells. He appeared to resent my earnest inspection, and Musa, observing this, plucked me by the sleeve and hurried me away, whispering, “Stare not so, my son; remember that he dieth early that gazeth into the eye of a wizard.”

Although it was little past noon, Musa decided to camp outside the village (which I did not require to be told was Tánosu), for we were now beyond the seat of war and could not only rest in peace, but might expect to obtain some better food than plantains, of which we were all heartily sick. We did, in fact, obtain a fine short-haired ram which I gladly paid for out of my sack of cowries, silencing the protests of my comrades by stipulating that if I bought the animal, they should prepare it for eating; and having thus set them a task, I strolled away to enjoy the unwonted luxury of solitude.

And, indeed, it was necessary that I should be alone for a time, for my mind was in a veritable ferment. Here was the place just as the old journal had described it; there were the piles of staves, the wizard, the bridge, and the toll for the river god. What if this dream should turn out to be true after all?

Ah! what?

Should I be so very much forward? I had looked upon the river; I might look upon the wonderful pool; I might even trace the whereabouts of the cave itself. But what then?

I walked down to the bridge and looked at the pile of staves, which I now perceived rested on a great mound of black earth—the accumulation of centuries of decay. I turned away along by the river, and, sitting down on the bank, rested my elbows on my knees and fell into a reverie, gazing dreamily at the dark, turbid water as it crept slowly by.

What if I found the cavern? Should I, even then, be any nearer to its secret? And then, after all, what concern of mine could that secret possibly be? Was not my quest a mere wildgoose chase induced by credulity, mingled with idle curiosity?

I was still turning over these questions, with my eyes fixed on the water, when I started with a pang of disappointment. There had come into view a shoal of fishes swimming leisurely up stream and snapping at an occasional insect on the surface; not such fishes as had been mentioned in the journal, huge, hideous, and ferocious, but just ordinary river fish, much like grayling in appearance, and not more than a foot in length.

Here, then, the narrative had been embroidered by the fancy of the man Almeida, or of his informants, and if one part of the story was fabulous, how much more might turn out to be mythical?

In these reflections I was interrupted by the tinkling of a bell, and looking up, saw the fetish priest approaching with a basket on his head from which steam was rising. He seated himself close to the water’s edge, not far from me, and as I was on a higher level I could watch his proceedings. He laid his basket on the ground beside him, and I could now see that it was filled with eggs, which he took out one by one, and squeezing them in his hand began to peel off the shells, which he threw into the river. The bright-scaled fish gathered round, snapping at the egg-shells as they sank, and crowding nearer and nearer to the bank. Suddenly the entire shoal darted off, and then there loomed through the turbid water a great dark shape, and then another, and another, until a troop of seven had come into view; and as they slowly sailed into the clear water under the bank, I could see them distinctly—huge, smooth-skinned, slate-coloured fish, fully four feet long, with great blunt heads, and grinning mouths fringed with rows of worm-like barbules.

When the priest had finished his preparations, he took the peeled hard-boiled eggs one at a time and cast them out into the stream; and as each one fell, the hideous brutes rushed at it, lashing the water into foam and snapping their jaws in a most horrible manner.

As the last of the eggs vanished the fetish man rose, shook out his basket and departed, and the fish soon disappeared into the dark depths of the river. The truth of Almeida’s story was again vindicated and, in spite of my doubts, I was conscious of a feeling of elation and satisfaction.

I now retraced my steps towards the village, but, being still absorbed in thought, I missed my way and presently entered it at the farther end, where I saw a group of children gathered round a blacksmith’s shop; and, being in an idle frame of mind, I halted to look on. It was a primitive affair—just a thatched roof on four posts—but the work was proceeding briskly enough. A sturdy boy sat on the ground between a pair of goat skins that served as bellows, and, though the forge was but a wide-mouthed jar sunk in the ground, with a hole in the bottom for the blast-pipe, the charcoal fire in it glowed brightly. The smith was at the moment fashioning a spear head on a flat slab of iron-stone that served as an anvil, holding it with queer little tongs and tapping it with an absurd little hammer, but shaping it quickly and skilfully nevertheless.

I was about to move on, when my eye fell on the heap of crude iron—fresh from some native bloomery or furnace—and I observed an object that I decided to acquire if possible. This was a rough iron bar about ten inches long by an inch and a half thick—probably a half-wrought “pig.” It tapered somewhat to one end, and at the other it had an irregular cup-like hollow. The general shape—doubtless accidental—was that of a sounding lead, and for that purpose I proposed to use it, as will be seen hereafter; but it would be necessary to have a hole made in it to reeve the line through.