Grand Bassam, Assini, and Half Jack are the most important places on the Ivory Coast. The main portion of the first-named town is out of sight from seaboard, being some five miles up the Costa River, and all you can see on the beach are two large but lonesome-looking factories. Half Jack, Jack a Jack, or Anamaquoa—there is nothing like having plenty of names for one place in West Africa, because it leads people at home who don't know the joke to think there is more of you than there naturally is—gives its name to the bit of coast from Cape Palmas to Grand Bassam, this coast being called the Half Jack, or quite as often the Bristol Coast, and for many years it was the main point of call for the Guineamen, old-fashioned sailing vessels which worked the Bristol trade in the Bights.
This trade was established during the last century by Mr. Henry King, of Bristol, for supplying labour to the West Indies, and was further developed by his two sons, Richard, who hated men-o'-war like a quaker, and William who loved science, both very worthy gentlemen. After their time up till when I was first on the Coast, this firm carried on trade both on the Bristol Coast and down in Cameroon, which in old days bore the name of Little Bristol-in-Hell, but now the trade is in other hands.
According to Captain Binger, there are now about 30 sailing ships still working the Ivory Coast trade, two of them the property of an energetic American captain, but the greater part belonging to Bristol. Their voyage out from Bristol varies from 60 to 90 days, according as you get through the Horse latitudes—so-called from the number of horses that used to die in this region of calms when the sailing vessels bringing them across from South America
