MISSION TO ASHANTEE. - 25 
manners were brutal and sullen.* We could purchase nothing for 
our subsistence. 
The scene brightened from our crossing the Boosempra ; the 
path improved, and Prasoo, the first town, only three quarters of a 
mile from the river, presented a wide and clean street of tolerably 
regular houses ; the inhabitants clean and cheerful, left their 
various occupations to gratify their curiosity, and saluted us in a 
friendly and respectful manner: indeed the Assins may be con- 
sidered, collectively, a more mannerly and orderly people than the 
Ashantees. Kickiwherree, one mile and a half distant, was a 
larger town, not so regular, but presenting the same neat appear- 
ance, improved by the white-washing of man}^ of the houses. We 
halted here under the ganianf tree, used, generally speaking, for 
recreation only, palavers being talked in the open fronts of the 
houses. We were conducted to a comfortable dwelling, affording 
us four very clean rooms, about 12 feet by 7> in which there were 
shelves containing many articles of superior domestic comfort ; a 
curtain or skreen of bamboo let down in the open front, and the 
floors raised about a foot and half from the ground, were washed 
daily with an earth of the neighbourhood, which coloured them 
Etruscan red. The iron stone abounded. Kickiwherree was 7 
miles from the previous resting place, and the prevailing courses 
N.|: N.b.W.f. The latitude by observation was 5° 56' 40" N ; the 
longitude by account 1° 57' W. Thermometer 8 a. m. 77 ; 
1 p. m. 91- 
My observations had not been so frequent as I wished ; the 
nature of the country, and the season of the year were both very 
* 
* Every account I received afterwards, confirmed the boundary of the Fan tee and 
Assin territories to be between Mansue and Fousou ; also that Ancomassa, Accorafbdey, 
Dansamsou, Meakirring, &c. &c. had all been large Assin crooms, destroyed with many 
pthers in their neighbourhood, in the Ashantee invasion of I8O7. 
f This is the same tree as the banian or India fig. 
E 
