406 MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
There was something solemn and affecting in it, contrasted with 
the heavy discharges of musketry and shouts of the populace in 
the distance, which proclaimed the bloody sacrifice was begun, 
while the vultures and crows wheeled in mazy circles expecting 
their usual share of the banquet, and the sun shot his last gleams 
through the heavy fogs that encircled the town. 
As I went home I passed the headless trunks of two female 
slaves, laying neglected and exposed in the market place, that had 
been sacrificed, one by the King and one by the deceased's family. 
The vultures were revelling undisturbed amidst the blood. 
I happened to-day to throw down a tumbler of wine and water 
with my foot, having placed it on the ground, while the Moorish 
Shereef was with me ; he bent his head to Mecca, pronouncing 
" God is great and told me it was my good angel who had done 
so, for who might tell but there was poison in the cup to destroy 
me? he said man had always two angels attending him, one on his 
right hand as his good angel, and one on his left as his evil one ; 
whatever good he did was prompted by the former, and whatever 
ill by the latter one. I have never found them v/ithout a reason 
for every thing, or a name, except to ethe mother of Moses, whom 
they say nobody knows on earth ; the Shereef gravely enquired if 
I knew the name of Aboobaker's father, I assured him I did not; 
he told me many of the Moors could not tell, but as he was of 
Mahomefs family he knew more things, and told me it was 
Kahdbata. 
I heard from the Sarem Moors that they fight with bows and 
arrows steeped in deadly poison, the least scratch of which is 
instant death. They gather scorpions tails, snakes heads, and the 
poisonous parts of any reptile that affects man ; this, with several 
vegetable substances which they would not name, are put in a pot, 
and set over the fire at sun rise ; they boil it all day and must not eat , 
s 
