LANGUAGE. 
359 
repeated, for force, and distinction, as one one, for, one hy one, 
or, each ; one tokoo one tokoo, for, one tokoo a-piece. They 
frequently are obliged to vary the tone, in pronouncing a word 
which has more than one meaning, as the Chinese do. They 
have no expression short of you are a liar, and the king was sur- 
prised, when I told him we made a great difference between a 
mistake and a lie ; he said the truth was not spoken in either case, 
and, therefore, it was the same thing; they did not consider the 
motive but only the fact. 
Like the American languages, those of this part of Africa, are 
full of figures, hyperbolical and picturesque.* One of the kings 
of the interior, whose territories the Ashantees had long talked of 
invading, sent forty pots of palm oil to Coomassie, with the mes- 
sage, that, he feared they could not find their way, so he sent 
the oil to light them." The Accras instead of good night, say 
" woo'du d'tchcrrimong," sleep till the lighting of the world : one of 
their imprecations against their enemies, is, " may their hiding place 
be our flute," that is, " our plaything:" when they speak of a man 
imposing on them, they say, " he turned the backs of our heads 
into our mouths." Having occasion, whilst at Coomassie, to pro- 
test against the conduct of an individual, the king replied, through 
Adoosee, " The horse comes from the bush, and is a fool, but 
the man who rides him knows sense, and by and by makes him 
do what he wishes; you, by yourself, made the horse, who was a 
form a remarkable feature in the Greek tongue. This ju-aw, I desire desire, blended 
into one word, become jxjjxaw, and mean, I greatly desire. /Saw (3ucu, I walk walk, /3<- 
jSaco, I stride, &c. &c. &c. See Jones. 
* " The messenger concluded this insulting notification by presenting the king with a 
pair of iron sandals, at the same time adding, that until such time as Daisy had worn 
out these sandals in his flight, he should never be secure from the arrows of Bambarra." 
Park's 1st Mission. 
