22 
INHABITANTS OF K AMTSCH ATK A. 
pick up any thing in the street, they are punished with death, as 
guilty of lese majesty. These wise laws, however, they find means 
to evade by not' turning informers, and dispersing their gold among 
their relations before their decease, and not leaving it for his majesty 
to inherit. 
The monarch has no less than 3333 wives ; a mystic number, on 
which the salvation of the state is supposed to depend ; but he is 
not bound to indulge them all with his company, and six only enjoyed 
that privilege when the British mission was at his capital. The rest 
were well secured and guarded ; a precaution by no means super- 
fluous in Ashantee, where the manners of the women are highly 
licentious. Owing to this cause, probably, the throne passes to the 
sister’s son, as property does among the Nayrs on the coast of 
Malabar; and those fortunate dames, the king’s sisters, are allowed 
to make choice of their spouses, — never failing, as Mr. Bowdich was 
told, to shew their taste by the personal charms of the hero they prefer 
The wantonness with which the blood of the multitude is shed by 
their despotic master, is almost incredible ; but it is at his funeral 
that the horrors of the merciless system are fully developed. All 
the members of the royal family burst forth, as if they were mad, 
and fire promiscuously amongst the crowd of unhappy slaves, who 
are driven forth by the chiefs to furnish marks for their superiors to 
aim at. The king’s household slaves, to the number of a hundred 
or more, and women in abundance, are sacrificed upon his tomb. 
Besides this, all the funeral sacrifices made during his reign are 
repeated, “ to amplify that for the death of the monarch,” as Mr. 
Bowdich expresses it ; and what such an “ amplification” must 
amount to, we may judge, when he tells us that 3000 victims were 
devoted to “ water the grave” of the present king’s mother. Some- 
thing like this, on a smaller scale, is practised, several times in the 
year, at their public festivals, called ‘‘Customs,” in the barbarous 
dialect of the English traders on the coast of Africa ; and Mr. Bow- 
dich witnessed the terror and consternation which the return of these 
fatal seasons occasioned. 
The king has no power over the lives of the chiefs, (Cabeceiras,) 
but he can strip them of their property at his pleasure. The people 
appear to be in a state of wretched vassallage, exposed to all sorts of 
oppression and extortion from the great ; and it is surprising to find 
them, under such disadvantages, so alert and industrious as they are. 
Inhabitants of Kamtschatka. 
The natives of Kamschatka are as wild as the country. Some have no 
fixed habitation, but wander from place to place with their reindeer; 
others have settled habitations, and reside upon the banks of rivers 
and the shore of the Parschinska sea, living upon fish and sea animals, 
and such herds as grow upon the shore ; the former dwell in huts 
covered with deer-skins, the latter in places dug out af the earth, 
though both in a very barbarous manner. Their disposition and tem- 
pers are rough ; and they are entirely ignorant of letters. The natives 
are divided into three different people, viz. the Kamtschatkans, Koi- 
