/ 
CITY, &c. 328 
seven streets in all, ^vliicli I have laid down in a ground plan of the 
town. The small grove at the back of the large market place was 
called Sammonpome or the spirit-house, because the trunks of all 
the human victims were thrown into it. The bloody tracks, daily 
renewed, shewed the various directions they had been dragged 
from, and the number of vultures on the trees indicated the extent 
of the recent sacrifice ; the stench was insupportable, and the visits 
of panthers nightly. Several trees were individually scattered about 
the town for the recreation of the inhabitants of those quarters, and 
small circular elevations of two steps, the lower about 20 feet in 
circumference, like the bases of the old market crosses in England, 
were raised in the middle of several streets, on which the King's 
chair was placed when he went to drink palm wine there, his 
attendants encircling him. 
The Ashantees persisted that the population of Coomassie, when 
collected, was upwards of 100,000. I think it likely to be much 
greater than that of Sego, (which Mr. Park reported as 30,000,) 
from the extended masses of crowd I observed on festivals, when 
the plantations of the environs are almost wholly deserted. I 
compared them in my recollection with the crowds I have seen 
collected in the secondary cities of England, on similar occasions 
of public curiosity ; the only criterion, as I had not time to finish 
reckoning the number of houses. I say when collected, because 
the higher class could not support their numerous followers, or the 
lower their large families, in the city, and therefore employed them 
in plantations, (in which small crooms were situated,) generally 
within two or three miles of the capital, where their labours not 
only feed themselves, but supply the wants of the chief, his family, 
and more immediate suite. The middhng orders station their 
slaves for the same purpose, and also to collect fruits and vegetables 
for sale, and when their children become numerous, a part are 
I 
