290 William F. Daniell, Esq., on the Ethnography of 



possibly originated from tlie many termite hills that abound through- 

 out the adjacent districts, and which in their language signifies an 

 ant, although it might equally have been applied either in a just 

 appreciation of its industrial resources and numerical inferiority, or 

 as a derisive expression, to ridicule the moderate pretensions of its 

 inhabitants. It may be satisfactory to remark that the name it 

 now boars, and by which it has hitherto been known to Europeans 

 from the earliest periods, has been derived from this source. The 

 chief towns are three in number, viz., N'glish, Kinka, and Ossu ; 

 but the nomenclature under which they are more readily recognised, 

 is that bestowed by the various European powers to whose authority 

 they were amenable, and hence the distinctive appellations of English, 

 Dutch, and Danish Akkrah. The largest in size, and the most 

 ancient in date, is Kinka, or Dutch Akkrah, which, according to 

 general tradition, was built long prior to the others, and on this 

 account, therefore, not only assumes the precedency over the whole 

 as the metropolis, but formerly exerted a certain amount of supre- 

 macy over those political or other native disputes which, from this 

 exalted position, were exclusively referred to their arbitration and 

 decision. The British fort situated in the first of these towns, lies 

 seven miles to the eastward of the Rio Sakkoom, and has been 

 placed by nautical writers in lat. 5° 31' 53" N., and long. 0° 11' 

 30" W. 



The country in the immediate neighbourhood of these towns pre- 

 sents a pleasing and diversified aspect. Stretching far and wide a 

 succession of long and verdant uplands gradually emerge from the 

 coast, which, as they ascend inland, become broken into a variety of 

 gentle undulations and continuous slopes, adorned by a woodland 

 scenery extremely beautiful and picturesque. Advancing still deeper 

 into the interior, these in turn partake of a more mingled character, 

 and are ultimately blended with the elevated mounts and prominent 

 highlands visible in the distance. In these localities the soil is ex- 

 ceedingly rich and fertile, the native plantations or farms producing, 

 almost without the aid of human labour, that abundance of food 

 which so bountifully supplies the necessities of all ranks of life. 



In the lowland regions adjoining the ocean, the land is partially 

 divested of those primeval forests and luxuriant underwood observed 

 in other parts of the coast, and somewhat resembles one of those ir- 

 regular prairies of Southern Africa, which, clothed with lank grass 

 and a few flowers, are dotted at intervals by isolated thickets and 

 occasional clump of trees. 



Any dispassionate observer who has acquired but a superficial 

 stock of information connected with the various inland kingdoms 

 of this vast continent, cannot fail of discerning the abnormal 

 changes and varying mutations which the moral and physical charac- 

 teristics of their populations constantly undergo. Many which, 

 from some peculiar combination of causes, have been more exposed 



