32 Account of the Climate, Natural Products, Arts and 



and a red dve wood. The patterns are various and not inele- 

 gant, and painted with so much regularity wit!i a fowl's feather 

 that they have all the appearance of a coarse print at a distance. 

 I have seen a man paint as fast as I could write. There is a very 

 fair specimen in the British Museum, the price of painting which 

 was one ackie. 



They have two dye woods, a red and a yellow, specimens of 

 which I brought down. They make a green by mixing the latter 

 with their blue dye, in which they excel ; it is made from a plant 

 called acassie, certainly not the indigo which grows plentifully 

 on the coast. The acassie rises to the height of about two feet, 

 and, according to the natives, bears a red flower ; but the leaf is 

 not small, fleshv or soft, nor is it pale or silvery coloured under- 

 neath ; it is a thin acuminate leaf about five inches long and 

 three broad, of a dark green. The shrub has opposite leaves, no 

 stipules, and has a certain degree of resemblance to Marsdenla 

 suaveolens (the indigo of Sumatra); but as the leaves are toothed 

 in the acassie, it probably does not belong even to the same na- 

 tural order. I regret to add, that our best specimens of tliis plant 

 perished in the disasters of our march, and no drawing was made 

 of it, as it bore no flower in that season ; it grows abundantly in 

 the woods, and produces a fast and beautiful colour without re- 

 quiring a mordant. Thev gather a quantity of the leaves, bruise 

 them in a wooden mortar, and spread them out on a mat to dry: 

 this mass is kept for use ; a proportion of it is put into a pot of 

 water, and remains six days previous to immersing the thread, 

 which is left in six days, drying it once every day in the sun ; it is 

 then a deep lasting blue colour. When a liglit blue is wished for, 

 the thread is only allowed to remain in the pot three days. 



They excel in pottery, as the pipes in the Museum will show; 

 they are rested on the ground when smoked ; the clay is very fine, 

 polished (after baking) by friction, and the grooves of the pat- 

 terns filled up with chalk. They have also a black pottery which 

 admits of a high polish. 



Tlie people of Dagwumba surpass theAshantees in goldsmiths' 

 work, though the latter may be esteemed proficients in the art. 

 The small articles for the Museum — a gold stool, sanko bell, jaw- 

 bone and drum — are not such neat specimens as I could wish ; the 

 man who made them having too much costly work on hand for 

 the king, to pay our trifles his wonted attention ; unfortunately 

 too he was committed to prison before they were quite finished ; 

 however, they will give an idea. I weighed out nineteen ackies 

 and a half of gold-dust for making these articles ; one- third of 

 an ackic was lost in melting, and five was the charge of the 

 goldsmith. Bees'-wax for making the model of the article wanted 

 is spread out on a smooth block of wood by the side of a fire, on 



which 



