Ul 



ASHAXTEK. 



ASHANTKK. 



I 



the side of a large rooky hill of iron-atone, and U completely surrounded 

 by halftagnant stream, or rather marsh, varying from 60 to 100 

 yard* in breadth. The town U an oblong, nearly four mile* in circuit, 

 not including a suburb or back town, half a mile distant Of the 

 principal street* four an each half a mile long, and from 50 to 1 00 yards 

 wide. But the streeU are merely ranges of fields, bordered with 

 rows of bouses. The houses are .said to be built in straight lines, 

 and the open paces between the two rows have each a name. The 

 palace stands in a long and wide street which runs through the 

 centre of the town, and is inclosed by a high wall. The number of 

 streets in all, as reckoned by Mr. Bowdich, was 27. The population 

 of the town was estimated by the Ashantee* themselves at upwards 

 of 100,000 ; but this, is no doubt an exaggeration. Mr. Bowdich 

 guessed it si 15,000 permanently resident, though at some of the 

 great festivals the larger number may possibly be reached. 



Besides the eight great roads, which according to Dupuis lead 

 from Coomassie, there are numerous minor roads, although most of 

 them are merely narrow foot-paths, and are often quite impassable. 

 Most of the towns and villages are on the line of some of the 

 great roads. The inland tracts are greatly superior to those that 

 lead down to the coast, an advantage which they owe both to the 

 longer time they have been in use, and to the nature of the country 

 through which they are cut. From beyond Coomaaaie down to the 

 coast the soil U thickly covered either with lofty trees, or with 

 brushwood and trees intermixed ; but many of the parts traversed 

 by the great roads in the upper country are open plains. 



The other principal towns are />ica6in, the capital of a petty 

 kingdom, in which reigns a tributary king, the descendant of one 

 of the founders of the empire ; Montana, the capital of the Fantees ; 

 Boottooa, the capital of Ahanta ; Dinkira, the capital of the province 

 of that name ; Kitkiichtri, in the kingdom of Again ; Koransa, the 

 capital of the kingdom of the same name, and whose inhabitants are 

 said to be the most civilised of the Ashantees ; Buntakoo, the capital 

 of Gaman ; Malaga, the capital of Inta, which lies on the eastern or 

 left bank of the Volta which here flows through Inta : the town is 

 one of the principal seaU of the commerce of the kingdom with 

 Soodan, the inhabitant* are chiefly Mohammedans, and are diirtuiguiahed 

 fr tlivir industry and civilisation; and Yakndi, the capital of the 

 kingdom of Dagomba, which extends to the north of the Kong 

 Mountains, and U only tributary to Ashantee : the town, said to be 

 larger than Coomassie, in a mountainous district, is the seat of a 

 considerable trade, and the residence of an oracle much celebrated 

 m<m the negroes, though the inhabitants are chiefly Mohammedans, 

 as is their king also. There are several considerable villages or towns 

 as they are called on the coast, but as none of them have harbours 

 they do not require enumerating. 



No correct estimate can be formed of the numbers of the Ashantee 

 population. The inhabitant* are chiefly negroes, but of several tribes. 

 The men of Ashantee, according to Mr. Bowdich, though very well 

 made are not so muscular as the Fantees. The women he thought in 

 general handsomer than those of Fantee. Among the higher rTxmnii 

 both sexes are remarkable for the cleanliness of their persons ; but the 

 lower orders are for the most part very dirty. 



The most remarkable among the moral characteristics of the 

 Ashantees are their warlike ferocity and their love of blood. These 

 passions have a* usual deeply coloured their religious belief and 

 observance*. The most horrid of the practices by which they express 

 their devotional feelings are those in which they indulge at what are 

 Called the Yam and the Adai customs, the former commencing in the 

 early part of September, when the consumption of the yam crop 

 begins, the latter taking place, alternately on a greater and less scale, 

 tmrj three weeks. On all these occasions human blood flows in 

 torrents. " And yet," observes Mr. M'Queen (' Geographical Survey 

 at Africa'), " the people of Ashantee are not savages, nor the sovereign 

 thereof a perfect barbarian ; on the contrary, they are considerably 

 advanced in civilisation ; but such have been for ages the customs of 

 their country, and these they continue to follow a* religious duties 

 and meritorious acts." 



The government of Aahantoe appears to be a despotism, partially 

 controlled by an aristocracy, and to a greater extent by the ancient 

 customs of the country. But hi whatever degree the royal power may 

 be restrained by ths*s opposing forces, it appears to be unlimited in 

 regard to the right to dispose at pleasure of the property, the liberty, 

 and the lives of all classes of the population. The king however is 

 said always to consult his great council before entering upon a war or 

 u|m any other business of public importance. The dimim 

 the numbers of the nobility has been for some reigns a policy steadily 

 panned by the crown ; and Mr. Bowdich says that the order had been 

 at last reduced to only four individuals. There is however betides the 

 hereditary nubility a council of captains, whose advice at least is 

 usually asked by the king on important occasion*. The law of 

 accession to the throne (and the same rule holds as to the estates of 

 private individuals) is in some respect* very singular, the nearest heir 

 befog the brother, the next the sister's son, the next the son, and the 

 next the chief vaasal or slave. In the Fantee country it is asserted 

 that the slave comas in before the son, who only inherit* such property 

 a* Us mother bad possessed independently of her husband. 



Bolides the negro** there is a large number of Moon professing the 



Mohammedan faith, who have penetrated thither from the north of 

 Africa. These people, possessed as they are of the art of writing and 

 other acquirement* not shared by the negroes, form a very influential 

 body wherever they are established. In former times they appear to 

 have been left by the government in the enjoyment of almost complete 

 independence. In different part* of the empire they still, according 

 to Mr. Dupuis, " live in political societies, governed by their respective 

 princes, who are vassals to the king, but who enjoy prerogatives 

 exceeding those of any other class of subjects." From what in said 

 elsewhere it appears that these princes, or caboceers, ore appointed by 

 the king. The provinces in which they are chiefly found are to the 

 north of Coomassie ; and it is stated that wherever they exist in 

 considerable numbers the negro population is much lens ferocious, and 

 in general further advanced in civilisation. 



In Ashantee there are at least six different languages spoken or 

 rather different dialect* of one language. The Ashantee tongue is 

 described as more cultivated and refined than the Fantee, Wassail, 

 kc., and as possessing superior euphony, from its abundance of vowel- 

 sounds and it* rejection of aspirates. Among their musical instru- 

 ments are a flute made of a long hollow reed, with three holes ; a box 

 called a sanko, the top of which is covered with an alligator's or 

 antelope's skin, having a bridge raised over it, across which are 

 extended eight strings ; immense horns, made of elephant*' tusks; 

 and an instrument somewhat like a bagpipe. They have also drums 

 made of the trunks of trees hollowed out ; and in their martial 

 concerts the noise U increased by the aid of castanet*, gong-gongs, flat 

 sticks, and old brass pans. 



The walls of the houses are usually formed of stakes and wattle- 

 work, filled up with clay. All have gable ends and ridged roofs, con- 

 sisting of a frame-work of bamboo, over which U laid a thatch of 

 palm leaves, tied with the runners of trees. Many of them have 

 arcades, and many also are highly ornamented with plaster, paint, 

 carving, and other decorations. The doors are formed of entire 

 pieces of cotton wood ; and deals of the same wood cut out with an 

 adze are also sometimes, though rarely, used for flooring. There is 

 frequently an upper story supported on rafters. The windows of t li.- 

 king's palace at Coomassie are described by Mr. Bowdich as being of 

 " open wood-work, carved in fanciful figures and intricatepatterns, and 

 painted red ;" and the frames as " frequently cased in gold, about as 

 thick as cartridge paper." While Mr. Dupuu was at Coomasaif tin- 

 king commenced the erection of a fort, which although built only of 

 wood was to be of great height and strength. It was intended as an 

 imitation of Cape Coast Castle. 



The principal manufacture of the Ashantees is that of cotton cloth, 

 which they weave on a loom worked by strings held between the toes, 

 in webs of never more than 4 inches broad. Silk is sometimes inter- 

 woven with cotton. The cloths which they produce are often of great 

 fineness of texture, and their colouring of the highest brilliancy. 

 They paint their patterns with a fowl's feather ; and Mr. BuWdich says 

 that he has seen a man produce these figures in this manner with 

 great regularity as nut as he himself could write. Another of it,,- 

 art* in which they have attained considerable excellence is the 

 manufacture of earthenware. They also tan leather, and work in 

 iron. Mr. Bowdich says that the sword-blades which they make often 

 evince very fine workmanship ; but that they have no idea of making 

 iron from the ore as some of their neighbours farther in the interior 

 do. When lead is scarce, some of their ornament* are described as 

 being made of brass ; but we do not find it stated that copper is found 

 in the country. But the art for which they are most famous is that 

 of the fabrication of figures in gold. Article* formed of gold abound 

 in the houses of all the wealthier inh.iliitants ; and in the king's 

 palace those of most common use are described as being made of this 

 precious material. 



Oold is found in this country both in mines and in particles wished 

 down by the rains. The richest gold mines known to exist in any 

 part of Africa are those in Qaman and its provinces of Baman, Safoy, 

 and Showy. U is found not only as gold dust in the sand of the 

 rivers, but in lumps in the earth, and is called rock -gold. In Dinkira 

 and Wassau it is found in a similar state, but at greater depths. The 

 wealthier inhabitants load their persons with lumps of native gold ; 

 some which Dupuis saw, he thinks, must have weighed fully four 

 pounds. There are many rich mines in the small district of Adjoin, 

 westward from Cape Coast and about three days' journey from the 

 sea ; and during the rainy season, it is said that not fewer than 8000 

 or 10,000 slaves are employed in washing for gold dust on the banks 

 of the Barra, in daman. The greater part of the gold is sent into 

 the interior by the Mohammedan traders by way of Salaga and 

 Yahndi, and to Jinne and Timbuctoo. 



The rainy season in Ashantee may be said to commence with the 

 month of May ; but the heaviest rains are from about the middle of 

 September to the end of the following month. In some years however 

 there is little or no rain at all during the usual season. Mr. Bowdich 

 has given the variations of the thermometer for nearly a whole year, 

 over which his own observations and those of his associates extended. 

 In June it appears to have ranged at Coomassie from 73 to 84 ; in 

 July, from 71* to 81' ; in August, from 68 to 804 i in September, 

 from 70 to 824 ! >n October, from 70 to 83 ; in November, from 

 99' to 834 ; in December, from 83 to 85 ; and in January, from 58 



