Pursuits relating to natural history became so many sources of pleasant and intellectual occupation. Ornithology was especially interesting, combining as it did observation of birds in their natural haunts and conditions. A large number of specimens were shot, one portion being subsequently given to the Natural History Museum of Edinburgh, another to Sir William Jardine, by whom notes taken at the time were published.[82] A song bird (_Drymoica mentalis_) that fell to my gun was for the first time, I believe, given as an illustration in that brochure; another illustration being that of a large and handsome swallow named after me, _Hirundo Gordoni_.
On one occasion, while combining ornithological study and “sport,” I had an unpleasant experience with one of several kinds of poisonous snakes that here abound, frequenting chiefly prickly herbage in immediate proximity to such roads and pathways as then existed, as also the sedgy tract of open ground near the Salt Pond, a little way westward of the settlement. While traversing that tract I came suddenly face to face with a large black cobra. One barrel of my fowling-piece had been already discharged. The remaining shot--a mixture of Nos. 6 and 9--was fired, more as a result of instinctive action than steady aim, by me, but with good effect. The charge traversed the body of the reptile as if it were a bullet, so close was it to me; then its writhings were such that I came within them, not a little to my own horror. In the emergency my Fantee “boy” speedily dispatched it by means of the heavy stick he carried for the purpose of beating the bush. The skin--considerably over six feet long--ornamented the wall of my barrack-room while I remained on the coast. Puff-adders are numerous, and from their sluggish movements are easily killed. On one occasion I killed six partially-grown individuals during a morning’s walk on the Salt Pond road.
When, as already stated, administration of British settlements on the Gold Coast was taken over by the Colonial Office, it was made immediately subordinate to that of Sierra Leone. The inconvenience of that arrangement was soon made manifest. The force with which the oceanic current runs southward along the coast is sufficient during some months of the year to prevent sailing brigs from beating up against it; and as at the time alluded to a regular line of steamers had not been introduced, the outcome of that state of things was the inconvenient necessity of letters and dispatches for the headquarters of the Government and Command being sent _viâ_ England, several months becoming thus necessary before answers could be received. Cape Coast Castle and its dependencies had a Governor and Colonial Secretary, both of whom were resident. Justice was administered by a court presided over by a British official designated Judicial Assessor, assisted by selected native chiefs. Of them, “King Aggary,” then upwards of eighty years of age, was the most prominent and distinguished. As a young man he had served on board a British man-of-war, in accordance with the custom of the time, and so, according to his own manner of expression, he “had learned sense.”