ETHNOLOGY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 239 



The latter are well proportioned, with handsome oval faces, sparkling eyes, 

 small ears, and high, thick eyebrows ; well proportioned mouths ; good- 

 looking, clean, white teeth ; fresh red lips, neither very thick nor pendent ; 

 and not very broad noses. Their hair is long, curly, and tolerably soft. 

 Their complexion is deep black. The religion of the Ashantees is a rude, 

 bloody idolatry, or fetish worship, their form of government a tyrannical 

 despotism, and their captives are tortured to death. Round about the 

 Intas, of whom, properly speaking, the Ashantees are only the principal 

 nation, are the Akraes, formerly powerful, but at present greatly thinned 

 by the Ashantees. They likewise are rude heathens. The Foys, or Daho- 

 mies, are the inhabitants of the kingdom of Dahomey, or Dahomet. They 

 are called Foys after the country Foy or Fouin, in which they formerly 

 resided, and which lies to the north-east of their present territory. They 

 have their own language, of which the Widah, Ardrah, Papaa, and Atshe, 

 or Watshe, are dialects. The Foys are industrious, and in spite of their 

 despotic government, have made the furthest advances in civilization of all 

 the heathen negro nations ; for which they are indebted to their long inter- 

 course with Europeans, who for centuries have resided near them, in order 

 to carry on the slave trade. The Foys are well formed and large of 

 stature, but have not the soft features of the Akraes. The women are 

 very ugly. The Foys display a remarkable mixture of savageness and 

 civilization, of barbarity and lofty sentiments. 



In the interior of the delta overspread by the great Niger with a 

 network of river-channels, the most numerous nation is constituted by the 

 Ibues (Iboes, Ehoes), on both sides of the Quorra, eastwardly, as far as the 

 River Calabar ; other tribes residing there are the Igan, Evo, Bibi, Mukos 

 (Mokko), Benines, Calbra, Camacons, Omuns, Acanucunus, and Inniong. 



The inhabitants of the interior of Africa are divided, according to their 

 languages, into six principal nations : Kissures of Timbuctoo (West Pa- 

 rian) ; Haussans, or Gouberies (East Soudan) ; Bornouese ; Eyeos ; Mob- 

 bans ; and Bergharmese. 



The Kissures are a civilized negro nation, very little impressed with the 

 negro type. Mohammedanism has spread over the whole of Soudan, but 

 its inhabitants are not such strict professors as the Foulahs. They are 

 tolerant, and polite and friendly to every one. Towards females also they 

 are not so harsh as the Senegambian and Guinea negro nations. Women 

 are permitted to go unveiled, but not to eat with their husbands, nor even 

 w^ith their own sons. Besides the language of the country, the Arabic is 

 in general use, and they have also Arabic letters. The inhabitants of 

 West Soudan are very intelligent. Their principal employment is hus- 

 bandry (the cultivation of maize, millet, tobacco, &c.) ; but less attention 

 is paid to rearing cattle. The labor of farming, however, is mostly con- 

 signed to slaves, the free rich devoting themselves to traffic, the poor of the 

 cities to handicrafts. The Kissures live very well ; their principal food is 

 rice ; fresh meat, however, forms a part of the meals almost daily. They 

 sit around a large platter, out of which the food is taken with the fingers, 

 as is customary amongst all the nations of the interior. The cities, Jinnee 



411 



