174 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
panied by a Danish officer and flag, and met with no impediment 
so far, but turned back rehictantlv in three or four fatlioms of 
water, observed to me, that he thought the channel between the 
breakers about a mile wide. Dalzel mentions an American brig 
making good her passage over the bar, on which there is about 
two fathoms water; and a Danish schooner has done so since. 
" An arm goes from the mouth to Quitta/' This must be the rivejr 
running froni Lagos into the Yolta, near the mouth, as will be 
shewn in considering the errors in the maritime geography. " Six 
English miles from the mouth, it forms a lake 60 miles long and 
48 broad, whence an arm extends to Pottriba, 3 miles eastward of 
Quitta : in this lake are more than a hundred islands/' Colonel 
Starrenberg thought the river widened about 9 British miles from 
the mouth, but the number of small islands prevented even ocular 
demonstration. So large a lake would certainly have been spoken 
of bj the natives to Europeans ere this ; those whom I have ques- 
tioned, have gone up the river to the extreme navigable point, and 
crossed it in many parts ; and they all declare that at Ascharee, 2 
days from Adda, it is not two miles wide. I never could find 
either an Ashantee, or a waterside native, who knew of the arm 
running to Pottriba, a name they had not heard of ; neither could 
Col. Starrenberg learn any thing of it ; no branch appeared as far 
as he went. Isert probably alluded, from report, to the river 
Assuafroo, which runs from eastward into the Volta, 7 journies from 
Adda, as will appear in the natives account. " From May to 
December the water is good to drink, being then higher than the 
sea ; in the other months it is not so, but produces more fish. The 
river overflows in July, and August, and the neighbourhood of its 
banks is excellent for the cultivation of rice.'" Rice is abundantly 
cultivated in the Inta kingdom. " Three miles from the sea is an 
island, called Bird Island, full of pelicans of peculiar kinds. There 
