On the Ethnography of Akkrah and Adampe. 333 



These mechanical causes, we may be certain, are acting, and must 

 have the chief share in the effects which we observe, and should 

 therefore be followed out in all their consequences, before we attempt 

 to introduce any problematical forces which cannot possibly have 

 much, if they have indeed any effect.* 1 ^ h ™ <mnote\o um>5 orlj 

 Gglorao'ic icfuq edi \d k^utei ^LtoniJ 



; A) g , c biQ , ff loaohO nT — _ 



Offa ni nnivfiif i :.hiad Qiti 



On the Ethnography of Akkrah and Adampe, Gold Coast, 

 Western Africa. By William F. Daniell, M.D., 

 F.R.G.S., Assistant Surgeon to the Forces, &c. Com- 



• J. 1 1 ,1 T?ll 1 ■ 1 CI ' L ] J S ni ^ nG 



municated by the Jithnological Society. 



to ni oy!oy9i oi bauol eus aansomnrl off* as ^mUyt&ftro ymtf 



3 fiW ii ffS^fBf^ fr ° m P - 13(K) dii0 E 



Architecture, fyc. — The towns and villages that lie scattered along 

 the margin of the coast from Cape St Paul's to the Rio Sakkoom 

 westward, exceed, both in size and population, those located in the 

 inland districts. Rocky plateaux or projecting headlands, or emi- 

 nences situated in the vicinity of the larger salt water ponds or lagoons, 

 were the favourite sites of selection, evidently on account of the two- 

 fold objects which their position commanded, viz., a ready access to 

 the ocean, and a continuous supply of those marine products that would 

 answer either as articles of food or of traffic. From a rude assemblage 

 of fishermen's huts, they, in the course of time, became transformed 

 into places of constant resort, by the progressive development of their 

 commercial resources, and the gradual addition of new habitations, 

 rendered obligatory by the influx of enterprising traders and other 

 people belonging to the circumjacent countries. From the absence 

 of any definite plan or system of arrangement, the erection of the 

 towns was confined within very circumscribed limits ; the buildings 

 being so compactly grouped, and in such dense masses as to occupy 

 apparently but a small extent of ground. With the exception of 

 the main thoroughfare and a few open clearances at irregular inter- 

 vals, the streets were necessarily narrow, tortuous, and intricate ; 

 the close proximity of the various domiciles producing a perplexing 



— — 



of a circular storm experienced by the American exploring expedition under 

 Captain Wilkes in the neighbourhood of the Cape De Verd Islands, a similar 

 latitude to the West Indies, but on the " wrong" side of the Atlantic, and 

 moreover revolving with the hands of a watch, " wrong" also. But the parent 

 wind in this case is described to have been SK, which explains everything ; 

 and shews that the whole phenomenon is an affair of mechanical conditions in the 

 currents of air at the place ; that these being reversed, the hurricane phenomena 

 are reversed also, and that there is no magnetic or other virtue residing in either 

 hemisphere, and compelling air to circulate in any particular direction by reason 

 of its place. 



* Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Session 1851-2. 



VOL. LIII. NO. CVI. — OCTOBER 1852. Z 



