3-065-594 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches from the Gold Coast by our special artist: summoning bearers to Cape Coast Castle, 1874. 'The women have necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and anklets of metal, and their hair is drawn up to a stiff ridge, with a pad or a high comb to support it; behind them is worn a "cankey," or cushion, upon which the baby is sometimes carried. These women do all the hard work, and the gangs of female baggage-porters hired to carry provisions to the front for the use of our troops are shown in the present Illustration...When more bearers are wanted, a few of the head women are sent round the town to summon them to the castle, by ringing a bell and making proclamation in a loud voice. In our Artist's sketch, the reader sees how the Cape Coast Castle women do their laundry-work, washing and hanging up things to dry, in the most public manner; and how their children, all but naked, roll about or gambol in the street, with sheep and goats, dogs and fowls, straying freely over the ground. The squalid lanes and alleys inhabited by these people were explored by our Artist; but he was obliged to hold a scented handkerchief to his nose, and could not make a sketch'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.