52 REMARKS ON 



people, it may be mentioned that Mr. M'Lean 

 has a capital band formed by native musicians, 

 who play all the old Jacobite airs of my native 

 land with good taste and precision. The leader 

 is the only one among them who can read a 

 note of music ; and all the rest, amounting to 

 some fifteen or twenty, have learned and re- 

 tained them by ear. To belong to the go- 

 vernor's band is the height of Fantee ambition. 



The unhealthiness of Cape Coast has been 

 attributed to the effects of a large morass si- 

 tuated to windward of it ; but it appears to be 

 much more sickly in some years than in others. 

 On our arrival we found the hospital closed, 

 and there had not been a patient in it for nine 

 months. All the gentlemen resident were, and 

 had been for some time, in good health ; in fact, 

 the place appeared to be getting a good cha- 

 racter : but it must be borne in mind that there 

 are not twenty white men in the colony, and 

 none of the lower class, excepting now and then 

 a drunken or mutinous sailor who may happen 

 to be taken out of a merchant-vessel and kept 

 for the first man-of-war. 



In the year 1824, when the fort was garrisoned 



