256 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
this law, 110 penguins." The form of making this law, was, th© 
linguists with their insignia advanced and announced it to each of 
the four members of the Aristocracy, then to the whole assembly ; 
afterwards Cudjo Appani, the chief crier, proclaimed it to the 
people, who shouted their thanks ; his fee from the King was ten 
ackies, from the people twenty. This attachment of the penalty to 
the law (the chief merit of Zaleucus) manifests some advancement 
in polity, in securing the accused against arbitary judgment.* 
The caboceers of Soota, Marmpon, Becqua, and Kokofoo, the 
four large towns built by the Ashantees at the same time with 
Coomassie, have several palatine privileges ; they have an inde- 
pendent treasury, though subject to the demands of the government 
and a judicial power, with the reserve of an appeal to the King. 
They celebrate their own yam custom after they have attended 
that at Coomassie, at which all dependents and tributaries must be 
present, and which seems to have been instituted like the Pana- 
thensea of Theseus, to unite such various nations by a common 
festival. These four caboceers, only, are allowed, with the King, 
to stud their sandals with gold. 
The blood of the son of a King, or of any of the royal family 
cannot be shed ; but when guilty of a crime of magnitude, they are 
drowned in the river Dah, by a particular captain, named Cudjo 
Samfani. 
If a man swears on the King's head, that another must kill him, 
which is understood to be invoking the King's death if he does 
not, the other man must do so, or forfeit the whole of his property, 
and generally his life. This very frequently occurs, for the blacks 
* By the laws of Ahanta, which are peculiar, if any subject or sojourner is in urgent 
want of provisions, he may seize the first he meets with, paying the owner the prices 
which have been fixed by the caboceers : this is similar to the law of Lycurgus. At the 
Contoom or annual Harvest Custom, the Ahantas revise their laws, as Solon enjoined the 
Athenians to do, annulling some and adding others. 
