Author: Alfred Burdon Ellis

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 9781230390246

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... outrage, which convulsed the whole civilised world in one vast comprehensive throb of horror, was perpetrated upon the Government of the Gold Coast Colony. Need it be said that I refer to the Gun Outrage? I do not know if it is necessary to say anything further, all the particulars being of course known to the intelligent reader; but in case there should be anyone, who, from having been in China, Siberia, Dublin, or some other out-of-the-way locality at the time, failed to hear them, I will, at the risk of being wearisome, repeat them. Know then, 0 traveller, who hast been wandering in the uttermost parts of the earth, that the Government of the Gold Coast Colony were the happy possessors of some unique specimens of ancient ordnance. These guns were indeed of such venerable antiquity that they were popularly believed to have formed part of the armament of that primitive vessel the Ark, and to have been used by that stout old sea-dog, Captain Noah, for the shooting of whales and other game. Will it be believed that that Government was so utterly unworthy of the possession of these inestimable treasures, and so indifferent to their preservation, as to leave them out in the open air, where anyone might easily have stolen them, and where, besides, they were exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons? Yes, these priceless relics of the antediluvian period, which should have graced our national museum, there to be a source of envy to all foreign states, were actually by a callous Government left to be destroyed by the corroding hand of time, out on a roadside in the town of Accra, under the ludicrous idea that they there formed an imposing military display. My heart used to bleed whenever I passed these poor neglected veterans, to see them...