272 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
are pretty sure to escape, a circumstance much in favour of the 
Moors. The drawing of Adoo Quamina will convey the best idea 
of this dress, which has been described before, in our entree ; it is 
so weighty that old Odumata could scarcely move in his. Janne- 
quin, who visited Mandingo in 1637, describes exactly the same 
sort of dress as worn by the chiefs of that country, and adds, 
" their bodies are so encumbered with these defences, that they 
are often unable to mount on horseback without assistance.'' For 
a small fetish of about six lines, sewn in a case of red cloth, which 
the King presented to our Accra linguist, Baba charged and re- 
ceived six ackies. The man valued the gift highly ; he had ex- 
pended two pieces of cloth and a quantity of rum in fetish, at 
Accra, before he joined the Mission ; but for which, he told me, 
he w^as convinced the Ashantees would have managed to poison 
him : yet, he was one of the most sensible natives I ever conversed 
with. A sheet of paper would support an inferior Moor in Coo- 
massie for a month. Several of the Ashantee captains offered 
seriously to let us fire at them ; in short, their confidence in these 
fetishes is almost as incredible, as the despondency and panic 
imposed on their southern and western enemies by the recollection 
of them : they impel the Ashantees, fearless and headlong, to the 
most daring enterprises, they dispirit their adversaries, ahiiost to 
the neglect of an interposition of fortune in their favour. The 
Ashantees believe that the constant prayers of the Moors, who 
have persuaded them that they converse with the Deity, invigorate 
themselves, and gradually waste the spirit and strength of their 
enemies. This faith is not less impulsive than that which achieved 
the Arabian conquests. 
Neither the Ashantees or their neighbours have any tradition of 
a deluge, nor does Catcott, the only writer I recollect to have read 
on its universality, report any Negro tradition, though he submits 
