6 



AFRICA. 



Ashantees has greatly strengthened the au- 

 thority of the English on the west coast. In 

 February, the Wassau chiefs met the English 

 Governor at Elmina. They had been sent for 

 to answer to a charge of seizing persons and 

 property not their own. The Governor in- 

 structed them to make restitution, and to be 

 careful not again to infringe the law. In the 

 same month King Coffee Calcalli, of Ashantee, 

 was deposed. Contrary to the former custom 

 prevailing on the Gold Coast, and in many 

 other African kingdoms, which obliged de- 

 posed kings to blow themselves up in the ruins 

 of their palaces, the King of Ashantee was 

 allowed to retire to a village in the interior, 

 and to take with him a certain quantity of gold- 

 dust and slaves, and about fifty wives. The 

 others (some hundreds) went to the new King, 

 who was the crown-prince. The new King 

 invoked the assistance of the English Govern- 

 ment against Asafa Agai, chief of Djuabin, who 

 soon after the end of the war had achieved his 

 independence of Ashantee, and manifested an 

 intention to subdue the entire kingdom. In 

 October, messengers from both tribes were at 

 Cape Coast Castle, awaiting the return of the 

 Governor. 



The outrages committed by the piratical and 

 thieving tribes living on the Lower Congo led 

 to a new English expedition. In January these 

 tribes plundered an English schooner, the Ger- 

 aldine, and murdered four of her crew. The 



commodore of the naval station, Sir William 

 Hewett, and Captain Hopkins, the English con- 

 sul at St. Paul de Loando, tried to make the 

 local chiefs themselves surrender the culprits, 

 by going, in March, to Ponta de Linha, a place 

 nearly twenty-five miles up the river, and there 

 holding a "palaver" with the princes of the 

 district. But, so far from giving the names of 

 the criminals, those native dignitaries insulted 

 the commodore and laughed in the consul's 

 face; hence it was determined that the work 

 of punishment should be undertaken by the 

 English squadron. On the morning of the 30th 

 of August the following ships proceeded up 

 the Congo : the Active, the Encounter, the 

 Spiteful, the Merlin, the Foam, the Ariel, and 

 the Supply. Several towns and villages of the 

 natives were destroyed, and the remains of 

 the murdered merchantmen were found by the 

 landing party. Four kings of natives came 

 on board the English vessels and expressed 

 themselves highly pleased with the design of 

 the English to secure the safety of the trading- 

 vessels. The expedition returned on Septem- 

 ber 15th, after having sailed up the river about 

 eighty miles. It was regarded as a complete 

 success. 



According to the latest accounts, the area 

 and population of the geographical and politi- 

 cal divisions of Africa (see Behm and Wagner, 

 "Bevdlkerung der Erde^ vol. iii., Gotha, 1875) 

 were as follows : 



* The area, according to Engelhardt, is 11,557,000 square miles. 



