324 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
generally sent to be supported by these slaves in the bush. Per- 
haps the average resident population of Coomassie is not more 
than from 12 to 15,000. 
The markets were held daily from about eight o'clock in the 
morning until sun set. The larger contains about sixty stalls or 
sheds, (a small square frame covered with cotton cloth with a pole 
from the centre, stuck into the ground, see drawing, No. 9 ) besides 
throngs of inferior venders, seated in all directions. Amongst the 
articles for sale, were beef, (to us about Sd. per lb.) and mutton, 
cut in small pieces for soup, wild hog, deer, and monkey's flesh, 
fowls, pelts of skins ; yiims, plantains, corn, sugar-cane, rice, 
encruma, (a mucilaginous vegetable, richer than asparagus, which 
it resembles,) peppers, vegetable butter; oranges, papaws, pine 
apples, (not equal to those on the coast,) bananas ; salt and dried 
fish from the coast; large snails smoke dried, and stuck in rows on 
small sticks in the form of herring bone ; eggs for fetish ; pitto, 
palm wine, rum ; pipes, beads, looking-glasses, sandals, silk, cotton 
cloth, powder, small pillows, white and blue cotton thread, cala- 
bashes, &c. &c. See Chapter on Trade. 
The following are the comparative prices of the markets of 
Coomassie and Yahndi, the capital of Dagwumba : 
Coomassie, Yahndi. 
A fat bullock - - £.6 0 0 - - £.1 0 0 
A sheep - - - 0 15 0 - - 0 4 0 
A fowl - - 0 18 - - 0 0 5 
A horse - - - 24 0 0 - - 8 0 0 
Yams - - - 0 0 8 fortwo - 0 0 Sforten. 
The surprising exorbitance of the former is to be accounted for by 
the abundance of gold, yet labour and manufacture was mode- 
rately purchased. In Mallowa, provision is dearer than in Dag- 
wumba, but the articles of trade much cheaper; they manufacture 
