humanity; and has incurred unpopularity on some occasions, by limiting the number of human sacrifices more than was compatible with strict orthodoxy. His general subjects of discourse with the Mission were war, legisla tion, and mechanics. He seemed very desirous of standing well in the estimation of his European friends; and put off a conversation, once, because he was a little tipsy, and at another time because he felt himself cross and out of temper

The king, four aristocratical assessors, and the assembly of captains, are the three estates of the Ashantee government. The noble quartumvirate, in all matters of foreign policy, have a veto on the king's decisions. They watch, rather than share, the domestic administration; generally influencing it by their opinion, rather than controlling it by their authority. In exercising his judicial function, the king always retires in private with the aristocracy to hear their opinions. The course of succession in Ashantee is the brother, the sister's son, the son and the chief slave.

The king's sisters may marry, or intrigue with any person they please, provided he is very strong and handsome; and these elevated and excellent women are always ready to set an example of submission to the laws of their country. The interest of money is about 300 per cent. A man may kill his own slave; or an inferior, for the price of seven slaves. Trifling thefts are punished by exposure. The property of the wife is distinct from that of the husband-though the king is heir to it. Those accused of witchcraft are tortured to death. Slaves, if ill-treated, are allowed the liberty of transferring themselves to other masters.

The Ashantees believe that a higher sort of god takes care of the whites, and that they are left to the care of an inferior species of deities. Still the black kings and black nobility are to go to the upper gods after death, where they are to enjoy eternally the state and luxury which was their portion on earth. For this reason a certain number of cooks, butlers, and domestics of every description, are sacrificed on their tombs. They have two sets of priests the one dwell in the temples, and communicate with the idols; the other species do business as conjurors and cunning men, tell fortunes, and detect small thefts. Half the offerings to the idols are (as the priests say) thrown into the river, the other half they claim as their own. The doors of the temples are, from motives of the highest humanity, open to runaway slaves; but shut, upon a fee paid by the master to the priest. Every person has a small set of household gods, bought of the Fetishmen. They please their gods by avoiding particular sorts of meat; but the prohibited viand is not always the same. Some curry favour by eating no veal; some seek protection by avoiding pork; others say, that the real monopoly which the celestials wish to establish is that of beef-and so they piously and prudently rush into a course of mutton. They have the customary nonsense of lucky days, trial by ordeal, and libations and relics. The most horrid and detestable of their customs is their sacrifice of human victims, and the tortures preparatory to it. This takes place at all their great festivals, or Customs, as they are called. Some of these occur every twenty-one days; and there are not fewer than a hundred victims immolated at each. Besides these, there are sacrifices at the death of every person of rank, more or less bloody according to their dignity. On the death of his mother, the king butchered no less than three thousand victims; and on his own death this number would probably be doubled. The funeral rights of a great captain were repeated weekly for three months; and 200 persons, it is said, were slaughtered each time, 2,400 in all. The author gives an account of the manner of these abominations, in one instance of which he was an unwilling spectator.

On the funeral of the mother of Quatchie Quofie, which was by no means a great one,

"A dash of sheep and rum was exchanged between the king and Quatchie Quofie, and the drums announced the sacrifice of the victims. All the chiefs first visited them in turn; I was not near enough to distinguish wherefore. The executioners wrangled and struggled for the office and the indifference with which the first poor creature looked on, in the torture he was from the knife passed through his cheeks, was remarkable. The nearest executioner snatched the sword from the others, the right hand of the victim was then lopped off, he was thrown down, and his head was sawed rather than cut off; it was cruelly prolonged, I will not say wilfully. Twelve more were dragged forward, but we forced our way through the crowd, and retired to our quarters. Other sacrifices, principally female, were made in the bush where the body was buried. It is usual to 'wet the grave' with the blood of a freeman of respectability. All the retainers of the family being present, and the heads of all the victims deposited in the bottom of the grave, several are unsuspectingly called on in a hurry to assist in placing the coffin or basket; and just as it rests on the heads or skulls, a slave from behind stuns one of these freemen by a violent blow, followed by a deep gash in the back part of the neck, and he is rolled in on the top of the body, and the grave instantly filled up."-(Pp. 287-288.)

"About a hundred persons, mostly culprits reserved, are generally sacrificed, in different quarters of the town, at this custom (that is, at the feast for the new year). Several slaves were also sacrificed at Bantama, over the large brass pan, their blood mingling with the various vegetable and animal matter within (fresh and putrefied), to complete the charm, and produce invincible fetish. All the chiefs kill several slaves, that their blood may flow into the hole from whence the new yam is taken. Those who cannot afford to kill slaves, take the head of one already sacrificed and place it on the hole."-(P. 279.)

The Ashantees are very superior in discipline and courage to the water-side Africans: they never pursue when it is near sunset: the general is always in the rear, and the fugitives are instantly put to death. The army is prohibited, during the active part of the campaign, from all food but meal, which each man carries in a small bag by his side, and mixes in his hands with the first water he comes to; no fires are allowed, lest their position should be betrayed; they eat little select bits of the first enemy's heart whom they kill; and all wear ornaments of his teeth and bones.

In their buildings, a mould is made for receiving the clay, by two rows of stakes placed at a distance equal to the intended thickness of the wall: the interval is then filled with gravelly clay mixed with water, which, with the outward surface of the framework, is plastered so as to exhibit the appearance of a thick mud wall. The captains have pillars, which assist to support the roof, and form a proscenium, or open front. The steps and raised floors of the rooms are clay and stone, with a thick layer of red earth, washed and painted daily.

"While the walls are still soft, they formed moulds or frameworks of the patterns in delicate slips of cane, connected by grass. The two first slips (one end of each being inserted in the soft wall) projected the relief, commonly mezzo: the interstices were then filled up with the plaster, and assumed the appearance depicted. The poles or pillars were sometimes encircled by twists of cane, intersecting each other, which, being filled up with thin plaster, resembled the lozenge and cable ornaments of the Anglo-Norman order; the quatre-foil was very common, and by no means rude, from the symmetrical bend of the cane which formed it. I saw a few pillars (after they had been squared with the plaster) with numerous slips of cane pressed perpendicularly on to the wet surface, which being covered again with a very thin coat of plaster, closely resembled fluting. When they formed a large arch, they inserted one end of a thick piece of cane in the wet clay of the floor or base, and, bending the other over, inserted it in the same manner; the entablature was filled up with wattle-work plastered over. Arcades and piazzas were common. A whitewash, very frequently renewed, was made from a clay in the neighbourhood. Of course, the plastering is very frail, and in the relief frequently discloses the edges of the cane, giving, however, a piquant effect, auxiliary to the ornament. The doors were an entire piece of cotton wood, cut with great labour out of the stems or buttresses of that tree; battens variously cut and painted were afterwards nailed across. So disproportionate was the price of labour to that of provision that I gave but two tokoos for a slab of cotton wood, five feet by three. The locks they use are from Houssa, and quite original: one will be sent to the British Museum. Where they raised a first floor, the under room was divided into two by an intersecting wall, to support the rafters

for the upper room, which were generally covered with a framework thickly plastered over with red ochre. I saw but one attempt at flooring with plank; it was cotton wood shaped entirely with an adze, and looked like a ship's deck. The windows were open wood-work, carved in fanciful figures and intricate patterns, and painted red; the frames were frequently cased in gold, about as thick as cartridge paper. What surprised me most, and is not the least of the many circumstances deciding their great superiority over the generality of negroes, was the discovery that every house had its cloaca, besides the common ones for the lower orders without the town.”—(Pp. 305-306.)

The

The rubbish and offal of each house are burnt every morning at the back of the street; and they are as nice in their dwellings as in their persons. Ashantee loom is precisely on the same principles as the English: the fineness, variety, brilliancy, and size of their cloths is astonishing. They paint white cloths not inelegantly, as fast as an European can write. They excel in pottery, and are good goldsmiths. Their weights are very neat brass casts of almost every animal, fruit, and vegetable, known in the country. The king's scales, blow-pan, boxes, weights and pipe-tongs were neatly made of the purest gold. They work finely in iron, tan leather, and are excellent carpenters.

Mr. Bowdich computes the number of men capable of bearing arms to be 204,000. The disposable force is 150,000; the population a million; the number of square miles 14,000. Polygamy is tolerated to the greatest extent; the king's allowance is 3,333 wives; and the full complement is always kept up. Four of the principal streets in Coomassie are half a mile long, and from 50 to 100 yards wide. The streets were all named, and a superior captain in charge of each. The street where the Mission was lodged was called Apperemsoo, or Cannon Street; and another street was called Daebrim, or Great Market Street; another Prison Street, and so on. A plan of the town is given. The Ashantees persisted in saying that the population of Coomassie was above 100,000; but this is thought, by the gentlemen of the Mission, to allude rather to the population collected on great occasions than the permanent residents, not computed by them at more than 15,000. The markets were daily; and the articles for sale beef, mutton, wild hog, deer, monkeys' flesh, fowls, yams, plaintains, corn, sugar-cane, rice, peppers, vegetable butter, oranges, papans, pine-apples, bananas, salt and dried fish, large snails smoke-dried; palm wine, rum, pipes, beads, looking-glasses; sandals, silk, cotton cloth, powder, small pillars, white and blue thread, and calabashes. The cattle in Ashantee are as large as English cattle; their sheep are hairy. They have no implement but the hoe; have two crops of corn in the year; plant their yams at Christmas, and dig them up in September. Their plantations, extensive and orderly, have the appearance of hop-gardens well fenced in and regularly planted in lines, with a broad walk around, and a hut at each wicker-gate, where a slave and his family reside to protect the plantation. All the fruits mentioned as sold in the market grew in spontaneous abundance, as did the sugar-cane. The oranges were of a large size and exquisite flavour. There were no cocoa-trees. The berry which gives to acids the flavour of sweets, making limes taste like honey, is common here. The castor-oil plant rises to a large tree. The cotton tree sometimes rises to the height of 150 feet.

The great obstacle to the improvement of commerce with the Ashantee people (besides the jealousy natural to barbarians) is our rejection of the slave trade, and the continuance of that detestable traffic by the Spaniards. While the Mission was in that country, one thousand slaves left Ashantee for two Spanish schooners on the coast. How is an African monarch to be taught that he has not a right to turn human creatures into rum and tobacco? or that the nation which prohibits such an intercourse, are not his enemies? To have free access to Ashantee would command Dagwumba. The people of Inta and Dagwumba being commercial, rather than warlike, an intercourse

with them would be an intercourse with the interior, as far as Timbuctoo and Houssa northwards, and Cassina, if not Boornoo, eastwards.

After the observation of Mr. Bowdich, senior officer of the Mission, follows the narrative of Mr. Hutchinson, left as chargé d'affaires, upon the departure of the other gentlemen. Mr. Hutchinson mentions some white men residing at Yenné, whom he supposes to have been companions of Park; and Ali Baba, a man of good character and consideration, upon the eve of departure from these regions, assured him that there were two Europeans then resident at Timbuctoo. -In his observations on the river Gaboon, Mr. Bowdich has the following information on the present state of the slave trade :—

"Three Portuguese, one French, and two large Spanish ships, visited the river for slaves during our stay; and the master of a Liverpool vessel assured me that he had fallen in with twenty-two between Gaboon and the Congo. Their grand rendezvous is Mayumba. The Portuguese of St. Thomas's and Prince's Islands send small schooner boats to Gaboon for slaves, which are kept after they are transported this short distance until the coast is clear for shipping them to America. A third large Spanish ship, well armed, entered the river the night before we quitted it, and hurried our exit, for one of that character was committing piracy in the neighbouring rivers. Having suffered from falling into their hands before,! felicitated myself on the escape. We were afterwards chased and boarded by a Spanish armed schooner, with three hundred slaves on board; they only desired provisions."

These are the most important extracts from this publication, which is certainly of considerable importance, from the account it gives us of a people hitherto almost entirely unknown; and from the light which the very diligent and laborious inquiries of Mr. Bowdich have thrown upon the geography of Africa, and the probability held out to us of approaching the great kingdoms on the Niger, by means of an intercourse, by no means difficult to be established, with the kingdoms of Inta and Dagwumba. The river Volta flows into the Gulf of Guinea, in latitude 7° north. It is navigable, and by the natives navigated for ten days, to Odentee. Now, from Odentee to Sallagha, the capital of the kingdom of Inta, is but four days' journey; and seven days' journey from Sallagha, through the Inta Jam of Zengoo, is Yahndi, the capital of Dagwumba. Yahndi is described to be beyond comparison larger than Coomassie, the houses much better built and ornamented. The Ashantees who had visited it told Mr. Bowdich they had frequently lost themselves in the streets. The king has been converted by the Moors, who have settled themselves there in great numbers. Mr. Lucas calls it the Mohammedan kingdom of Degomba; and it was represented to him as peculiarly wealthy and civilised. The markets of Yahndi are described as animated scenes of commerce, constantly crowded with merchants from almost all the countries of the interior. It seems to us that the best way of becoming acquainted with Africa is not to plan such sweeping expeditions as have been lately sent out by Government, but to submit to become acquainted with it by degrees, and to acquire by little and little a knowledge of the best methods of arranging expeditions. The kingdom of Dagwumba, for instance, is not 200 miles from a well-known and regular water carriage on the Volta. Perhaps it is nearer, but the distance is not greater than this. It is one of the most commercial nations in Africa, and one of the most civilised; and yet it is utterly unknown, except by report, to Europeans.-Then why not plan an expedition to Dagwumba? The expense of which would be very trifling, and the issue known in three or four months. The information procured from such a wise and moderate undertaking would enable any future mission to proceed with much greater ease and safety into the interior; or prevent them from proceeding, as they hitherto have done, to their own destruction. We strongly believe, with Mr. Bowdich, that this is the right road to the Niger.

Nothing in this world is created in vain : lions, tigers, conquerors, have

their use. Ambitious monarchs, who are the curse of civilised nations, are the civilisers of savage people. With a number of little independent hordes, civilisation is impossible. They must have a common interest before there can be peace; and be directed by one will before there can be order. When mankind are prevented from daily quarrelling and fighting, they first begin to improve; and all this, we are afraid, is only to be accomplished, in the first instance, by some great conqueror. We sympathise, therefore, with the victories of the King of Ashantee-and feel ourselves, for the first time, in love with military glory. The ex-Emperor of the French would, at Coomassie, Dagwumba, or Inta, be an eminent benefactor to the human race.

AMERICA. (E. REVIEW, January, 1820.)

Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By ADAM Seybert.
4to. Philadelphia. 1821.

THIS is a book of character and authority; but it is a very large book; and, therefore, we think we shall do an acceptable service to our readers, by presenting them with a short epitome of its contents, observing the same order which has been chosen by the author. The whole, we conceive, will form a pretty complete picture of America, and teach us how to appreciate that country, either as a powerful enemy or a profitable friend. The first subject with which Mr. Seybert begins is the population of the United States.

Population. As representatives and direct taxes are apportioned among the different States in proportion to their numbers, it is provided for in the American Constitution that there shall be an actual enumeration of the people every ten years. It is the duty of the marshals in each State to number the inhabitants of their respective districts: and a correct copy of the lists containing the names of the persons returned, must be set up in a public place within each district, before they are transmitted to the Secretary of State :-they are then laid before Congress by the President. Under this Act, three census, or enumerations of the people, have been already laid before Congress-for the years 1790, 1800, and 1810. In the year 1790, the population of America was 3,921,326 persons, of whom 697,697 were slaves. In 1800, the numbers were 5,319,762, of whom 896,849 were slaves. In 1810, the numbers were 7,239,903, of whom 1,191,364 were slaves; so that at the rate at which free population has proceeded between 1790 and 1810, it doubles itself, in the United States, in a very little more than twenty-two years. The slave population, according to its rate of proceeding in the same time, would be doubled in about twenty-six years. The increase of the slave population in this statement is owing to the importation of negroes between 1800 and 1808, especially in 1806 and 1807, from the expected prohibition against importation. The number of slaves was also increased by the acquisitions of territory in Louisiana, where they constituted nearly half the population. From 1801 to 1811, the inhabitants of Great Britain acquired an augmentation of 14 per cent.; the Americans, within the same period, were augmented 36 per cent.

Emigration seems to be of very little importance to the United States. In the year 1817, by far the most considerable year of emigration, there arrived in ten of the principal ports of America, from the Old World, 22,000 persons as passengers. The number of emigrants, from 1790 to 1810, is not supposed to have exceeded 6000 per annum. None of the separate States have been retrograde during these three enumerations, though some have been nearly