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MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
CHAPTER IL 
History. 
To speak of the death of a former king, the Ashantees imagine to 
affect the Hfe of the present equally with enquiring who would be 
his successor ; and superstition and policy strengthening this im- 
pression, it is made capital by the law, to converse either of the 
one or the other. The inability of the natives to compute time, 
and the comparatively recent establishment of the Moors, may 
be pleaded as additional apologies for the imperfect history I have 
collected. 
According to a common tradition, which I never heard contra- 
dicted but once, the Ashantees emigrated from a country nearer 
the water side, and subjecting the western Intas, and two lesser 
powers, founded the present kingdom. These people being com- 
paratively advanced in several arts, the Ashantees necessarily 
adopted a portion of their language with the various novelties ; 
which probably created the limited radical difference between their 
language and that of the Fantees ; for I could not find, after taking 
the greatest pains, more than 200 words unknown to the latter. 
The weights, of the Inta country, in particular, were adopted with 
their names, by the conquerors, without the least alteration. 
The tradition, scanty in itself, is very cautiously adverted to, the 
government politically undermining every monument which per- 
petuates their intrusion, or records the distinct origins of their 
