sand victims; and on his own death this number | The doors were an entire piece of cotton wood, cut with great would probably be doubled. The funeral rites of a labour out of the stems or buttresses of that tree; battens great captain were repeated weekly for three months; and 200 persons, it is said, were slaughtered each time, or 2400 hundred 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,

variously cut and painted were afterwards nailed across. So that I gave but two tokoos for a slab of cotton wood, five feet disproportionate was the price of labour to that of provision, by three. The locks they use are from Houssa, and are 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 frame-work thickly plastered over with red ochre. I saw but one attempt at flooring A dash of sheep and rum was exchanged between the king with plank; it was cotton wood shaped entirely with an adze, and Quatchie Quofie, and the drums announced the sacrifice and looked like a ship's deck. The windows were open woodof the victims. All the chiefs first visited them in turn; I was work, carved in fanciful figures and intricate patterns, and not near enough to distinguish wherefore. The executioners painted red; the frames were frequently cased in gold, about wrangled and struggled for the office; and the indifference as thick as cartridge paper. What surprised me most, and is with which the first poor creature looked on, in the torture he not the least of the many circumstances deciding their great was from the knife passed through his cheeks, was remarka-superiority over the generality of negroes, was the discovery ble. The nearest executioner snatched the sword from the that every house had its cloaca, besides the common ones for others, the right hand of the victim was then lopped off, he the lower orders without the town.'-(pp. 305, 306.) was thrown down, and his head was sawed rather than cut off: it was cruelly prolonged, I will not say wilfully. Twelve The rubbish and offal of each house are burnt every more were dragged forward, but we forced our way through morning at the back of the street; and they are as the crowd, and retired to our quarters. Other sacrifices, prin- nice in their dwellings as in their persons. The Ashcipally female, were made in the bush where the body was bu-antee loom is precisely on the same principles as the ried. It is usual to "wet the grave" with the blood of a free- English; the fineness, variety, brilliancy, and size of man of respectability. All the retainers of the family being their cloths are astonishing. 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 head 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.)

cloths, not inelegantly, as fast as an European can They paint white 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 3333 wives; and the full compliment 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; another street was called Daebrim, or Great Market Street; another, Prison

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 cam-Street, and so on. A plan of the town is given. The paign, 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.

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 In their buildings, a mould is made for receiving sale, beef, mutton, wild-hog, deer, monkeys' flesh, the clay, by two rows of stakes placed at a distance fowls, yams, plaintains, corn, sugar-cane, rice, pep. equal to the intended thickness of the wall: the inter-pers, vegetable butter, oranges, papans, pine-apples, val is then filled with gravelly clay mixed with water, which, with the outward surface of the frame work, is plastered so as to exhibit the appearance of a thick nud 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.

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 appearWhile the walls are still soft, they formed moulds or frame-ance of hop gardens well fenced in, and regularly works of the patterns in delicate slips of cane, connected by planted in lines, with a broad walk around, and a hut grass. The two first slips (one end of each being inserted in at each wicker-gate, where a slave and his family rethe soft wall) projected the relief, commonly mezzo: the interstices were then filled up with the plaster, and assumed the side to protect the plantation. All the fruits mentionappearance depicted. The poles or pillars were sometimes ed as sold in the market grow in spontaneous abundencircled by twists of cane, intersecting each other, which, ance, as did the sugar-cane. The oranges were of a being filled up with thin plaster, resembled the lozenge and large size and exquisite flavour. There were no cocoa cable ornaments of the Anglo-Norman order; the quatre-foil trees. The berry which gives to acids the flavour of was very common, and by no means rude, from the symme-sweets, making limes taste like honey, is common trical bend of the cane which formed it. I saw a few pillars here. The castor-oil plant rises to a large tree. slips of cane pressed perpendicularly on to the wet surface, The cotton tree sometimes rises to the height of 150 which, being covered again with a very thin coat of plaster, feet. closely resembled fluting. When they formed a large arch,

after they had been squared with the plaster), with numerous

The great obstacle to the improvement of commerce

they inserted one end of a thick piece of cane in the wet clay with the Ashantec people (besides the jealousy natu of the floor or base, and, bending the other over, inserted it in ral to barbarians) is our rejection of the slave trade, the same manner; the entablature was filled up with wattle- and the continuance of that detestable traffic by the work plastered over. Arcades and piazzas were common. A white wash, very frequently renewed, was made from a clay Spaniards. While the mission was in that country, in the neighbourhood. Of course the plastering is very frail, one thousand slaves left Ashantee for two Spanish and in the relief frequently discloses the edges of the cane, schooners on the coast.-How is an African monarch giving, however, a piquant effect, auxiliary to the ornament. to be taught that he has not a right to turn human

creatures into rum and tobacco? or that the nation | We strongly believe, with Mr. Bowdich, that this is which prohibits such an intercourse are not his ene- the right road to the Niger.

mies? To have free access to Ashantee would com- Nothing in this world is created in vain: lions, mand Dagwumba. The people of Inta and Dagwum- tigers, conquerors, have their use. Ambitious monba being commercial, rather than warlike, an inter-archs, who are the curse of civilized nations, are the course with them would be an intercourse with the civilizers of savage people. With a number of little interior, as far as Timbuctoo and Houssa northwards, independent hordes, civilization is impossible. They and Cassina, if not Boornoo, eastwards. must have a common interest before there can be

After the observations of Mr. Bowdich, senior offi- peace; and be directed by one will before there can cer of the mission, follows the narrative of Mr. Hutch-be order. When mankind are prevented from daily inson, left as chargé-d'affaires, upon the departure of quarrelling and fighting, they first begin to improve the other gentlemen. Mr. Hutchinson mentions some and all this, we are afraid, is only to be accomplished, white men residing at Yenne, whom he supposes to in the first instance, by some great conqueror. We have been companions of Park; and Ali Baba, a man sympathise, therefore, with the victories of the King of good character and consideration, upon the eve of of Ashantee-and feel ourselves in love, for the first departure from these regions, assured him, that there time, with military glory. The ex-emperor of the were two Europeans then resident at Timbuctoo.-In French would, at Coomassie, Dagwumba, or Inta, be his observations on the river Gaboon, Mr. Bowdich has an eminent benefactor to the human race. the following information on the present state of the slave trade :

thing else.

We suppose the booksellers have authors at two different prices :-those who write grammatically, and those who do not; and that they have not thought fit to put any of their best hands upon this work. Whether or not there may be any improvement on this point in the next volume, we request the biographer will at least give us some means of ascertaining when he is comical, and when serious. In the life of Dr. Rennell we find this passage:

Three Portuguese, one French, and two large Spanish PUBLIC CHARACTERS OF 1801, 1802. (EDINships, visited the river for slaves during our stay; and the BURGH REVIEW, 1802.) master of Liverpool vessel assured me that he had fallen in with twenty-two between Gaboon and the Congo. Their Public Characters of 1801-1802. Richard Phillips, St. Paul's grand rendezvous is Mayumba. The Portuguese of St. 1 vol. 8vo. Thomas's and Prince's Islands, send small schooner boats to Gaboon for slaves, which are kept, after they are trans- THE design of this book appeared to us so extremely ported this short distance, until the coast is clear for ship-reprehensible, and so capable, even in the hands of a ping them to America. A third large Spanish ship, well blockhead, of giving pain to families and individuals, armed, entered the river the night before we quitted it, and that we considered it as a fair object of literary police, hurried our exit, for one of that character was committing and had prepared for it a very severe chastisement. piracy in the neighbouring river. Having suffered from falling into their hands before, I felicitated myself on the Upon the perusal of the book, however, we were enescape. We were afterwards chased and boarded by a tirely disarmed. It appears to be written by some Spanish armed schooner, with three hundred slaves on very innocent scribbler, who feels himself under the board; they only desired provisions.' necessity of dining, and who preserves, throughout the whole of the work, that degree of good humour which These are the most important extracts from this the terror of indictment by our lord the king is so well publication, which is certainly of considerable impor- calculated to inspire. It is of some importance, too, tance, from the account it gives us of a people hitherto that the grown-up country gentlemen should be habialmost entirely unknown; and from the light which tuated to read printed books; and such may read a the very diligent and laborious inquiries of Mr. Bow-story about their living triends, who would read nodich has 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 Mahometan kingdom of Degomba; and it was represented to him as peculiarly weal. thy and civilized. The markets of Yahndi are described as animated scenes of commerce, constantly ACCOUNT OF NEW SOUTH WALES. (EDINcrowded 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 expcditions. The kingdom of Dagwumba, for instance, is not 200 miles from a well-known and regular watercarriage, 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 civilized; and yet it is utterly unknown, except by report, to Europeans. Then why not plan an expedítion 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.

'Dr. Rennell might well look forward to the highest dignities in the establishment; but, if our information be right, and we either expects or courts. There is a primitive simplicity in have no reason to question it, this is what he by no means this excellent man, which much resembles that of the first prelates of the Christian church, who were with great difficulty prevailed upon to undertake the episcopal office.'

BURGH REVIEW, 1803.)

Account of the English Colony of New South Wales. By
Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, of the Royal Marines. Vol.
II. 4to. Cadell and Davies, London.

To introduce an European population, and, consequently, the arts and civilization of Europe, into such an untrodden country as New Holland, is to confer a lasting and important benefit upon the world. If man be destined for perpetual activity, and if the proper objects of that activity be the subjugation of physical difficulties, and of his own dangerous passions, how absurd are those systems which proscribe the acquisi tions of science and the restraints of law, and would arrest the progress of man in the rudest and earliest stages of his existence! Indeed, opinions so very extravagant in their nature, must be attributed rather to the wantonness of paradox, than to sober reflection and extended inquiry.

To suppose the savage state permanent, we must suppose the numbers of those who compose it to be

245

stationary, and the various passions by which men | benevolent Howard attacked our prisons, incarcerahave actually emerged from it to be extinct; and this tion has become not only healthy but elegant; and a is to suppose man a very different being from what he county jail is precisely the place to which any pauper really is. To prove it were possible), we must have recourse to matter of cence, as well as for comfort. Upon the same princisuch a permanence beneficial (if | might wish to retire to gratify his taste for magnifi fact, and judge of the rude state of society, not from ple, there is some risk that transportation will be the praises of tranquil literati, but from the narratives considered as one of the surest roads to honour and to of those who have seen it, through a nearer and better wealth; and that no felon will hear a verdict of 'not medium than that of imagination. There is an argu- guilty,' without considering himself as cut off in the ment, however, for the continuation of evil, drawn fairest career of prosperity. It is foolishly believed, from the ignorance of good; by which it is contended, that the colony of Botany Bay unites our moral and that to teach men their situation can be better, is to commercial interests, and that we shall receive hereteach them that it is bad, and to destroy that happi- after an ample equivalent, in bales of goods, for all the ness which always results from an ignorance that any vices we export. Unfortunately, the expense we have greater happiness is within our reach. pleasures are clearly by comparison; but the most de- ural progress of its emancipation, or prevent the atAll pains and incurred in founding the colony will not retard the natplorable savage enjoys a sufficient contrast of good, to tacks of other nations, who will be as desirous of know that the grosser evils from which civilization reaping the fruit, as if they had sown the seed. rescues him are evils. A New Hollander seldom pass- a colony, besides, begun under every possible disad es a year without suffering from famine; the small-pox vantage it is too distant to be long governed, or well It is falls upon him like a plague; he dreads those calami- defended: it is undertaken, not by the voluntary assoties, though he does not know how to avert them; but ciation of individuals, but by government, and by doubtless would find his happiness increased, if they means of compulsory labour. are reconciled to evils, because they are inevitable; hopes of a just return as so very small. To deny this, is to suppose that men be redundant in capital, that will expend it where the A nation must, indeed, and yet hurricanes, earthquakes, bodily decay, and death, stand highest in the catalogue of human calamities.

were averted.

Where civilization gives birth to new comparisons unfavourable to savage life, with the information that a greater good is possible, it generally connects the means of attaining it. The savage no sooner becomes ashamed of his nakedness, than the loom is ready to clothe him; the forge prepares for him more perfect tools, when he is disgusted with the awkwardness of his own his weakness is strengthened, and his wants supplied, as soon as they are discovered; and the use of the discovery is, that it enables him to derive from comparison the best reasons for present happiness. A man born blind is ignorant of the pleasures of which he is deprived. After the restoration of his sight, his happiness will be increased from two causes-from the delight he experiences at the novel accession of power, and from the contrast he will always be enabled to make between his two situations, long after the pleasure of novelty has ceased. For these reasons it is humane to restore him to sight.

are to do with this colony when it comes to years of It may be a curious consideration, to reflect what we of money in discovering its strength, and to humble discretion. Are we to spend another hundred millions ourselves again before a fresh set of Washingtons and Franklins? The moment after we have suffered such serious mischief from the escape of the old tiger, we are breeding up a young cub, whom we cannot render less ferocious, or more secure. manumit the colony, as it is more and more capable of protecting itself, the degrees of emancipation, and the If we are gradually to periods at which they are to take place, will be judged of very differently by the two nations. But we confess ourselves not to be so sanguine as to suppose, spirited commercial people would, in spite of the example of America, ever consent to abandon their sov. that a reignty over an important colony, without a struggle. Endless blood and treasure will be exhausted to sup port a tax on kangaroos' skins: faithful Commons will go on voting fresh supplies to support a just and necessa ry war; and Newgate, then become a quarter of the great characters by whom she was originally peopled. world, will evince a heroism, not unworthy of the a moral, because it is objectionable in a commercial point of view. It is an object of the highest curiosity, The experiment, however, is not less interesting in thus to have the growth of a nation subjected to our examination; to trace it by such faithful records, from the first day of its existence; and to gather that know. ledge of the progress of human affairs, from actual experience, which is considered to be only accessible to the conjectural reflections of enlightened minds.

But, however beneficial to the general interests of mankind the civilization of barbarous countries may be considered to be, in this particular instance of it, the interest of Great Britain would seem to have been very little consulted. With fanciful schemes of universal good we have no business to meddle. Why we are to erect penitentiary houses and prisons at the distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous expense of feeding and transporting their inhabitants to, and at such a distance, it is extremely difficult to discover. It certainly is not from any deficiency of barren islands near our own coast, nor of trimmed, and pruned, and ornamented, and led into Human nature, under very old governments, is so uncultivated wastes in the interior; and if we were such a variety of factitious shapes, that we are almost sufficiently fortunate to be wanting in such species of ignorant of the appearance it would assume, if it were accommodation, we might discover in Canada, or the left more to itself. West Indies, or on the coast of Africa, a climate malignant enough, or a soil sufficiently sterile, to revenge what circumstances of our situation are owing to those From such an experiment as that now before us, we shall be better able to appreciate all the injuries which have been inflicted on society by permanent laws by which all men are influenced, and pickpockets, larcenists, and petty felons. Upon the what to the accidental positions in which we have been foundation of a new colony, and especially one peopled placed. New circumstances will throw new light upon by criminals, there is a disposition in government the effects of our religious, political, and economical (where any circumstance in the commission of the institutions, if we cause them to be adopted as models crime affords the least pretence for the commutation) in our rising empire; and if we do not, we shall esti to convert capital punishments into transportation;-mate the effects of their presence, by observing those and by these means to hold forth a very dangerous, which are produced by their non-existence. though certainly a very unintentional, encouragement to offences. And when the history of the colony has been attentively perused in the parish of St. Giles, the ancient avocation of picking pockets will certainly not become more discreditable from the knowledge, that it may eventually lead to the possession of a farm of a thousand acres on the river Hawkesbury. Since the

⚫ The transportation committee of last year in their report arrive at the same conclusion, but not till after 7,000,000%. had been spent in the experiment.

its least interesting state, on account of the great pre.
The history of the colony is at present, however, in
ponderance of depraved inhabitants, whose crimes and
irregularities give a monotony to the narrative, which
it cannot lose, till the respectable part of the commu-
nity come to bear a greater proportion to the criminal.

These Memoirs of Colonel Collins resume the history
of the colony from the period at which he concluded
it down to August, 1801. They are written in the
it in his former volume, September, 1796, and continue
style of a journal, which, though not the most agreea-