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



Western Africa. For the convenience of transmission or payment, 

 they were formerly perforated and strung together in definite num- 

 bers, hence the source of their designations into strings and heads. By 

 a simple arrangement their fractional division was reduced to a stand- 

 ard, and found most beneficially adapted to the wants of the popula- 

 tion. The annexed table will prove duly explanatory of their system. 







Number of 



English value. 



Heads. 



Strings. 



Cowries. 



£ s. d. 





i 



20 



0* 





1 



40 



o o r 



. . . 



12 



480 



1 



1 



48 



1,920 



4 



1 ounce of gold dust, or 20 



960 



38,400 



4 



The rate of exchange, when dollars require to be converted into 

 cowries, and vice versa, will depend upon their current value at the 

 different outports where the requisition is made. Thus, at Cape 

 Coast, the dollar is estimated at 4s. 6d., in Akkrah at 5s. currency, 

 and in other places along the coast, at its sterling price, 4s. 2d. The 

 equivalents therefore to be given in cowries for each, should amount 

 to the following. 





f 5s. 



= 



60 strings 



= 



2400 cowries. 



Dollar at 



{ 4s. 6d. 



= 



54 do. 



3= 



2160 do. 





4s. 2d. 



= 



50 do. 



= 



2000 do. 



Gold dust, one of the staple articles of commerce exported from 

 this tract of African coast, is more plentiful at the Fante towns of 

 Annamabo and Cape Coast, than in those of Akkrah. It is brought 

 to the former places by the Akim and Ashante traders from their 

 own and the circumjacent countries, and has been considered by 

 Adams and other European authorities to be much inferior in quality 

 to that obtained from Apollonia and Dixcove. A great quantity was 

 annually poured into Akkrah for a series of years previous to the 

 present date ; but this, from a multiplicity of causes, became gradually 

 diminished, and was ultimately diverted into other channels. This 

 diminution is to be ascribed to the Ashantes manifesting a preference 

 for those markets in which were exhibited for choice a richer assort- 

 ment of merchandise, better suited to their demands, and from the 

 fact that to the eastward of Christiansburg little or no gold could 

 be purchased, owing to the soil being less fertile in those auriferous 

 depositions than the surface of various localities in the inland and 

 maritime provinces of the west. The gold offered for sale or barter, 

 is ordinarily adulterated according to the ingenuity of the vendor or 

 inexperience of the buyer. These adulterations comprise copper or 

 brass filings, pieces of impure ore, micaceous earths, and granular 

 alloys of silver, and other analogous substances calculated to deceive 



