73 



AuTk Vi. On the Origin of tlie Ashantees, and Inhabitants 

 of the Gold Coast of Africa, By J. F. Bowdich, Esq. 

 Communicated by the Author. 



The advance towards civilization and the arts, and the nu- 

 merous exceptions to the negro physiognomy, which astonished 

 me on penetrating to Ashantee, when associated with the 

 striking similitude of most of their superstitions, laws, and 

 manners, to those of the Egyptians, naturally excited inte- 

 resting speculations, and induced me to use my earliest leisure 

 in consulting those classical authors upon such subjects, whose 

 descriptions my memory could but imperfectly recall. 



The traditions of emigration, not of the whole population, 

 but of particular families, so current in Ashantee, and the neigh- 

 bouring nations, persuade me that they are native Ethiopians, 

 mixed with settlers from ancient Egypt, as the Abyssinians 

 have been recently shewn to be, with the strongest probability, 

 in opposition to a former opinion, of their Arabian descent. 



I will not dwell on the subjugation of Ethiopia by Sesostris, 

 but rest principally on the fact mentioned by Herodotus, that 

 130 years before his time, 240,000 Egyptians emigrated, or 

 rather fled from Psammiticus, and went as far beyond Meroe, 

 as Meroe is beyond Elephantine, or a journey of four months 

 from the latter country. That they presented themselves to the 

 king of that part of Ethiopia, who gave them the lands of some 

 of his enemies, whom they ejected, and that the Ethiopians 

 civilized themselves in adopting the manners of these Egyptians. 



The Ethiopians, thus dispossessed by the Egyptians, were 

 doubtless only pressed or removed into the nearest convenient 

 country, and still preserving an intercourse, participated in 

 some degree in the civilization introduced by the emigrants 

 from Egypt. The sweeping expedition of Ptolemy Evergetes, 

 who, by the record of his triumphal monument at Adulis, is 

 known to have subdued nations southward of the sources of 

 the Nile, and others as far eastward, as we presume the present 

 kingdom of KuUa to be, no doubt compelled many Ethiopian 

 tribes or families, inheriting the opinions and customs their 



