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Since sending home the preface to this work, I have seen a leading article in the ' Times ' of 24th October, which, speaking of my papers, says : " Sir Garnet Wolse- ley appears to have undertaken, among his other tasks, the preparation of a paper on the causes which have led to the present war with the Ashantees." Sir Garnet Wolseley did not even offer a suggestion as to the con- tents of these papers, and is not in the remotest degree answerable for one word contained in them. H. B. PKEFACE. CAPE COAST CASTLE, 31** October 1873. THE following papers have no pretension to literary merit. They were written under the following circumstances : Major -General Sir Garnet Wolseley, with thirty-six officers, volunteers for service in the Ashanti expedition, was on board the S.S. Ambriz, bound for Cape Coast Castle. An order had been issued requesting officers to make themselves acquainted as far as possible with everything relating to the country and the war. The will to obey the order was there ; the means were wanting. The Head- quarter Staff so monopolised the books of 1694828 VI PREFACE. reference that the rest of the party could sel- dom get a chance of reading them. Then Sir Garnet Wolseley asked us to put into shape and read to our comrades the results of our long daily studies. The time given us was less than a week, and we had to work under the most unfavourable conditions of tropical heat, a rolling ship, and the sickening smell of bilge-water. "We had hoped to find time, on arrival at Cape Coast, to improve our rough notes, and make them more worthy of general perusal. But the time has not been found. Here, and in the bush, the work of the day has been as much as could be done in the day. The papers must go to the public as they were originally written, or not go at all; and we think it better to send them as they are, because the English newspapers profess ignorance of the causes of the war and of our relations with the native tribes ; and it is evident that the topo- graphical features of the country and the char- PREFACE. Vll acter of its inhabitants are but little known at home. We have done our best to be accurate. We have weighed evidence, and stated no fact without authority; for our opinions we are individually and separately responsible, and we are bound distinctly to disclaim for these papers any " inspired " or official character. H. B. G. L. H. C ONTENTS. PAGE I. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN, THE PROTECTED TRIBES, AND ASHANT1, WITH THE CAUSES OP THE ASHANTI WAR, . . 1 II. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN, ETC. continued, . . . . . .34 III. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI AND THE PRO- TECTORATE OP THE GOLD COAST, . . 91 AUTHOEITIES CONSULTED. Blue-Books from 1841 to 1873. BOWDICH : Mission to Ashantee. HUTTON : Voyage to Africa. DUPUIS : Journal of a Residence in Ashantee. BICKETTS : Narrative of the Ashantee War. BEECHAM : Account of Ashantee and the Gold Coast. F.B.G.S. : Wanderings in West Africa. WINWOOD READE : Savage Africa. Notes by the Topographical Department of the War Office. FANTI AND ASHANTI. I. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN, THE PROTECTED TRIBES, AND ASHANTI, WITH THE CAUSES OF THE ASHANTI WAR. IT is not necessary, for our present purpose, to enter into the early history of the Gold Coast. It is sufficient to say that in the years imme- diately preceding 1821 the several British forts on the Gold Coast were vested in the " African Company," which was established under Royal Charter for purposes of trade. The territories extending inland from the coast were divided into several independent A 2 FANTI AND ASHANTI. States. Chief among these were the Fantis, who had gradually brought into subjection a number of smaller tribes ; and further inland, the Ashantis, whose warlike prowess had en- abled them to subdue and force into the posi- tion of tributaries several of the tribes near the coast, as Denkara, Assim, Akim, Aqua- pirn. The irruption of the Ashantis into the Fanti territory in 1807 first brought them into colli- sion with the British. The Fantis had given assistance to the Assims against the Ashantis, who pressed on to the walls of the British fort of Annamaboe, and attacked the fort itself. It was held only by a few men, but the strength of the fort prevented its being taken ; and a truce was concluded, which was broken again in 1811, in consequence of the Fantis having attempted to take revenge on Elmina and Accra for refusing aid in the previous invasion. On this occasion Akim and Aqua- pirn rebelled unsuccessfully against Ashanti. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 3 Again, in 1817, the Ashantis invaded Fanti, and carried misery, famine, and death into the land. They advanced to Cape Coast Castle, and blockaded it ; but withdrew on payment by the Fantis of a sum of money advanced for the purpose by the British. It was after this invasion that the mission of which Mr Bowdich was first a member and afterwards chief, was sent to Coomassie to endeavour to negotiate for a lasting peace and an extension of com- merce. Trade had become impossible under the perpetual dread of Ashanti invasion. It appears that all the European companies on the coast, Dutch and Danish as well as English, had paid ground -rent to the coast tribes for the land on which their forts were built. The king of Ashanti now claimed these rents, by reason of his having conquered these tribes. Dupuis tells us that, after the" treaty made in 1807, rent of this nature was paid to the king for Cape Coast Castle and Anna- maboe. Mr Bowdich recognised the claim, 4 FANTI AND ASHANTI. and affairs having been placed on a friendly footing, a treaty was concluded in September 1817, and a British resident left at Coomassie. It is not necessary to discuss the details of this treaty, for it was soon abrogated by the king of Ashanti again making war. One of his tributary chiefs, the king of Denkara, had thrown off his allegiance, and the British re- sident returned to Cape Coast Castle on the Ashantis crossing the frontier to make war. The people of Commendah offering some in- dignities at this time to the king of Ashanti's messengers, he appealed to the British autho- rities to interfere and punish them, and to prevent the people of Cape Coast from show- ing unfriendly dispositions to the people of Ashanti. He claimed, at the same time, 1600 ounces of gold from the people of Cape Coast, and a like sum from the British Governor of the fort. The Governor refused to accede to any such demand, saying that his paying any tribute was out of the question ; but a Mr FANTI AND ASHANTI. 5 Dupuis, who had arrived from England as an envoy from the British Government, announced his mission to the Ashanti messengers, and proceeded to Coomassie under the friendly auspices of the king. He started early in 1819, and was favourably received by the king, who at length gave up his claim to a fine, and concluded a treaty with Mr Dupuis. In this treaty he promised fidelity to the British Crown, acknowledged all his differences adjusted, and bound himself to support com- merce with the coast. On the other hand, Mr Dupuis acknowledged the king's sovereignty over the Fanti territory, reserving to the Fantis, however, the right to enjoy the benefit of British laws. It will be observed that the Fantis them- selves are not parties to this treaty, but are, so to speak, disposed of by Mr Dupuis as he pleases. The local authorities refused to ratify this treaty, on the plea that they could not acknow- 6 FANTI AND ASHANTI. ledge the transfer of the Fanti territory to the king of Ashanti ; and they decided to discon- tinue paying the rent to that king. Here we have the decision not to recognise the Ashanti rule over the Fantis plainly enough declared. In 1821, at which date we have now arrived, Parliament passed a Bill to abolish the African Company, and transfer its forts and possessions to the Crown. At the same time Sir Charles Macarthy was made Governor of the Gold Coast. Sir Charles at once adopted the policy of protecting the coast tribes against the Ashantis. The king of Ashanti soon again proceeded to hostilities. A sergeant of the British service was carried off from Annam- aboe, and executed, on the ground that he had spoken disrespectfully of the king of Ashanti. The king wrote to the Governor that he would convert his head into an ornament of the royal death-drum; negotiations through the Dutch Governor of Elmina failed ; and the Ashantis FANTI AND ASHANTI. 7 in 1823 invaded the territory of Wassaw, on the right bank of the Prah, driving before them the allied native forces. Sir Charles at once decided on crossing the Prah, and meeting the enemy ; and resolved to push forward a small force from a camp which he had formed at Jooquah. The troops which he had under his own command were only 80 natives, recently enlisted for the Royal African Corps, together with the band of that corps ; 170 native militia; and about 240 unorganised native levies. With these he crossed the Prah, on the 13th January 1824, and advanced to As- samacow, without waiting for a force of nearly 2000 men, under command of Major Chisholm, which he had sent to call in from its original destination on the left bank of the Prah. On the 19th he advanced to the banks of the small river Adoomansoo, where with great difficulty he had induced the retreating Wassaws and Denkaras to halt. About 2 P.M. on the 21st, the Ashantis, to 8 FANTI AND ASHANTI. the reported number of 10,000, advanced and attacked. An action ensued, and lasted till dark. Early in the action the Wassaws re- treated. By 4 P.M. the twenty rounds of ammunition all the troops were supplied with were expended. No more was at hand. Mr Brandon, the ordnance storekeeper, had only one barrel of powder and some ball with him, though ordered to have forty rounds per man, in kegs ready for issue. Eicketts says the carriers refused to advance with the ammuni- tion, and most of them ran away. A rumour says that the kegs were opened, and found to contain vermicelli; but there is no authentic evidence to that effect. At all events, ammu- nition failed. Then the Ashantis crossed the river, and sent large parties round the flanks, through the bush. The king of Denkara remained with his followers, bravely fighting; and Sir Charles joined him, vainly trying to summon the men of the African Corps to retreat. The bush was too dense for orders to FANTI AND ASHANTI. 9 be given in any way except by sound ; and no bugles were at hand. A round of loose mus- ket-balls was fired from a small brass gun, but had no effect in checking the enemy, who sur- rounded the small force. Sir Charles Mac- arthy, trying to escape with Mr Buckle, Ensign Wetherell, and Mr Williams, was shot down. Wetherell, himself badly wounded, tried to defend his chief ; but all, except Mr Williams, were beheaded ; and Sir Charles Macarthy's head is said now to adorn the royal palace at Coomassie. Mr Williams was carried off as a prisoner, and cruelly treated for two months. Of twelve officers, nine were killed, and three badly wounded none escaped unhurt. Major Kicketts, one of the survivors, has written a narrative of the expedition ; and his book, from which these details are taken, bears unmistak- able traces of the terror and alarm he under- went, and the effect on his mind of his personal sufferings. After this victory, the Ashantis remained 10 FANTI AND ASHANTI. for some time inactive. Major Chisholm re- tired with his troops to Cape Coast. The Fantis, however, running short of supplies, crossed the Prah to attack the Ashantis, but their courage failed ; they fell back, and a party of Koyal African troops, sent to make a simultaneous flank attack, fell back on Cape Coast. On this the Ashantis advanced, and again, on 25th April, attacked the allies. On this occasion they employed the following tactics : their centre fell back before the enemy, who was thus induced to press forward between their wings, when these fell on his flanks, and the Fantis were demoralised and de- feated. On the 21st May, Major Chisholm, with some 6000 men, attacked an Ashanti force said to be 10,000 strong near Cape Coast. They had cleared a space in front of the wooded heights which they held. Again flanking tactics were tried; but this time they failed. Again the FANTI AND ASHANTI. II Fantis ran away, and the earners also, leav- ing the troops without water, and making it impossible for them to take advantage of their victory, if so it could be called. On 23d June the Ashantis had advanced so near to Cape Coast that the seamen and marines were landed for its defence from the ships in the roads. But no attack took place. On llth July, a native force from Accra and other auxiliaries having arrived, a general engagement took place, but without decisive results. The forces lay opposite each other till the night of the 13th, when the Ashantis retired, remaining, however, in the Fanti terri- tory, and living upon it for many months un- molested, till smallpox committed such ravages in their camp that in the following year (1824) they retired into the interior. Nothing worthy of relation took place now till the second half of 1826, when the Ashantis again advanced coastwards, in number, it is said, about 10,000. On the 19th September 12 FANTI AND ASHANTI. they were signally defeated at Dodowah, about 24 miles N.E. of Accra, by a force composed of native allies led by English officers and others, and the Koyal African Corps, in all about 11,000. The allies took the offensive, and their form of attack seems to have been an advance from the centre. But the Dutch and Danish native contingent on the left fall- ing back, the flank of the centre became exposed, and the centre had to retreat. A strong reserve fortunately came up, and turned the tide of action, while some rockets exercised a powerful demoralising effect on the enemy. On the left, where the enemy was advanc- ing, and forcing back the Winnebahs, a few rounds of grape drove him back in flight ; while on our right the king of Akim scattered all before him, and penetrated to the very heart of the enemy's camp. The Ashanti army was routed ; their whole camp, baggage, and gold taken ; yet the num- ber of men on our side armed with muskets FANTI AND ASHANTI. 13 was only 380, and most of the fighting was with the knife. Then the country was, by this victory, freed for many a long year from further in- vasion. Fighting power, the one argument that a savage understands, had been displayed. The lesson was a signal one. It remained long engrafted on the memory of the Ashantis. A few disciplined troops with modern appliances of war, and a few Englishmen leading the native levies, had told with stunning effect. On 1st September 1827, messengers arrived from Coomassie, saying that "the king of Ashanti found it was no use fighting against white men, and wished to make peace, and be in future subservient to them." Envoys were sent to Coomassie, and nego- tiations entered into ; a draft treaty was agreed upon, and drawn up in December 1827, but was not finally adopted ; and it was not till 1831 that a final peace was declared. , Meanwhile, in 1828, the disasters attending 14 FANTI AND ASHANTI. the proceedings of Sir Charles Macarthy, and the decline of commerce on the coast, induced the Government to withdraw all the public establishments from the coast, and to transfer the government of them to a company of African merchants. Captain Maclean, so well known as the husband of L. E. L., went out as Governor. The treaty of 1831 was concluded by him. The king of Ashanti sent his son and his nephew as hostages to Cape Coast Castle, and lodged 600 ounces of gold as security for his future good conduct. Here is an extract from that treaty, signed by the kings of Ashanti, Cape Coast, Fanti, Annamaboe, Denkara, Tufel, Wassaw, Assim, and all other chiefs in alliance with the king of Great Britain, on the one hand ; and on the other hand, by Governor Maclean on behalf of the king of England : " The king of Ashanti having deposited in Cape Coast Castle, in the presence of the above- FANTI AND ASHANTI. 15 mentioned parties, the sum of 600 ounces of gold, and having delivered into the hands of the Governor two young men of the royal family of Ashanti, named ' Ossor Ansah ' and ' Ossoo In Quantamissah,' as security that he will keep peace with the said parties in all time coming, peace is hereby declared betwixt the said king of Ashanti and all and each of the parties aforesaid, to continue in all time coming. " As the king of Ashanti has renounced all right or title to any tribute or homage from the kings of Denkara, Assim, and others for- merly his subjects, so, on the other hand, these parties are strictly prohibited from in- sulting, by improper speaking or in any other way, their former master, such conduct being calculated to produce quarrels and wars." The points to which I would direct your attention here are : (1.) The renunciation by the king of Ashanti of all right or title to 16 FANTI AND ASHANTI. any tribute or homage from the kings formerly his subjects. (2.) The obligation on the Fantis not to molest the people of Ashanti, or in any way insult the king. There is a mutual obligation, one which, it seems to me, should be en- forced on both sides. (3.) The manner in which palavers are to be decided. They were to be settled in the manner agreed upon in the draft treaty of 1827, thus : any dispute between the kings was to be referred to the British Governor for arbitration ; and on no account were the kings to make war upon each other. From the date of this treaty of 1831 there was a long interval of peace. Nothing farther of interest occurred till 1840, when Dr Madden was sent out by Lord John Russell as Commissioner of Inquiry, to report on questions connected with the slave- trade, and how far the existing system of gov- ernment in Western Africa favoured conniv- ance with that trade. He reported in July FANTI AND ASHANTI. 17 1841, and advised that the colonies of the Gold Coast should be retained, but that they should be governed very differently, as their existing government favoured the slave-trade ; and, in consequence of this report, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was ap- pointed to consider the state of the British possessions on the West Coast of Africa. It reported in 1842, and recommended the re- sumption of the government by the Crown, the occupation of all abandoned forts, and the construction of some new ones. It recom- mended that all jurisdiction over the native tribes beyond the immediate radius of the forts should be the subject of distinct agreement with them, " not the allegiance of subjects, but the deference of weaker powers to a stronger and more enlightened neighbour." Accordingly, in the year 1843, the Crown reassumed the government of the forts on the Gold Coast, and appointed a governor, taking the forts into its maintenance. B 1 8 FANTI AND ASHANTI. And in 1844, a treaty was signed between Governor Hill and the Fanti kings and chiefs of Denkara, Abrah, Assim, Donadie, Donomassie, Annamaboe, and Cape Coast, by which they acknowledged the power and jurisdiction of her Majesty, and consented to the customs of the country being moulded according to the principles of British law. Thus our right to govern and legislate for them was established, and a judicial as- sessor appointed to administer justice. Still we find no definite promise on our part to give protection in exchange for our rights over them though it can scarcely be doubted that some such obligation was morally in- curred. The next event of interest is the mission in 1848 of Governor Winniett to Coomassie, to negotiate for the abolition of human sacri- fices. Starting on 28th September from Cape Coast, he reached Coomassie on the 9th October, and had a most friendly interview with the king, who assured him he was reducing FANTI AND ASHANTI. 19 the number of these sacrifices. Governor Winniett's report of his journey is very meagre, and the topographical information contained in it of but little value. One gathers that the heavy rains produced some sickness in the party, though nothing of serious moment. The treaty of 1831, construed together with the unsigned treaty of 1827 and the bond of 1844, formed up to 1852 the only documents which defined the position of the British Government, Ashanti, and the Fanti tribes. In the year 1852 a fresh engage- ment was entered into by the Governor of the Gold Coast at a general meeting of the Chiefs of the Protectorate ; and it was re- solved " that this meeting constitute itself a Legislative Assembly, with power to enact laws." Also, the Assembly, " having taken into consideration the advantage of British protection, consider it reasonable that the natives should contribute to the support of the Government," and a poll-tax was agreed 20 FANTI AND ASHANTI. to. This ordinance received the sanction of the Home Government. From this date, then, 1852, the claim of the native tribes to our protection ceases to be a matter of doubt ; a distinct moral obli- gation is incurred by the British Government to protect the tribes who pay a tax " in consideration of the advantage of British pro- tection." The unwritten obligation has be- come a written one. In this same year, 1852, commenced a new difficulty. Cudjoe Chibbo, a chief of Assim, having received bribes from the king of Ashanti to bring his people under the au- thority of that monarch, and having com- mitted other offences, defying the authority of Governor Hill, was apprehended and tried before a Court of Chiefs presided over by the Governor. Being convicted, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, and confined in Cape Coast Castle. We gain here from the Governor's despatch FANTI AND ASHANTI. 21 an insight into the springs moving the Ashantis at this time towards war. There was, he says , " a strong war party in Ashanti ; " and there was a general belief at Cape Coast that " could the Ashantis induce the Assims, Akims, Aquapims, and other nations who formerly acknowledged their authority, but are now under our flag, to return to them, it would be impossible to preserve peace, as the Ashantis like war, as leading to the capture of slaves for sacrifice, with plunder, and cannot forget their former sway over the whole of these set- tlements, and the large revenue extorted, from these unfortunate Fantis." The Governor be- lieved it was only the peaceable disposition of the reigning king that prevented a collision between Ashanti and the Fanti states. A few days after the trial Governor Hill restored Cudjoe Chibbo, on the full admission by himself and the other chiefs of his guilt, and of the justice of the punishment ; and on their urgent request that he should be restored. 22 FANTI AND ASHANTI. But the Governor exacted hostages from all the chiefs of Assim, and required that all the Assims still remaining on the Ashanti bank of the river Prah should cross to the other bank, and live under English * rule, and that the Assims and Fantis should make a military road from Cape Coast to the river Prah, a distance of some ninety miles. Unfortunately this last stipulation was never carried into effect. On 22d March 1853, Governor Hill learned that the Ashantis had crossed the frontier in force to take away Cudjoe Chibbo and another chief, who had, by accepting bribes, brought themselves, by native custom, under Ashanti rule. At the same time the king of Ashanti sent a letter alleging a most palp- able excuse of an entirely different character namely, that he wanted to make a " custom " for another king, who had been dead for many years, and had always fought against Ashanti. But the Ashanti chief captain acknowledged FANTI AND ASHANTI. 23 that the king's real design was to seize these chiefs, who had accepted bribes. Cudjoe Chibbo had been brought into Cape Coast for safety, and a large Ashanti force was crossing the Prah. But the very judicious conduct of Ensign Brownell, who was sent with a very small force, and orders not to fire a shot except in self-defence, and to do all in his power to induce the Ashantis to retire amica- bly, were successful. They had brought 7000 men into Assim territory; yet, while the Gover- nor was anticipating war, and applying for re- inforcements, the king sent to Mr Brownell to express his anxiety for peace with the English Government, and desired his troops torecross the Prah. This they did, and Mr Brownell and his forces accompanied them across and returned. Governor Hill at first feared the return of the Ashantis, for he could place no reliance on the king's promises. The following are extracts from his de- spatches : 24 FANTI AND ASHANTI. " Your Grace will perceive, on perusing Mr Laing's communications, that although the king of Ashanti denied any intentions of making war, yet he positively sent his army direct from his capital for that purpose, and I firmly be- lieve, had we been unprepared, hostilities were intended ; but as the Ashanti commanders found so strong a force in their front and on their flanks, with a rapid river in their rear, and our allies, supported by Regular soldiers and British officers, having with them rockets and field-guns, and, as very fortunately hap- pened, also a good military road up to their camp, which I had been making some months, foreseeing what has occurred, they no doubt considered the result of a battle under such circumstances might bring destruction on their forces, and therefore they most reluctantly re- tired. . . . " I need not say that if it were not for the expense and exposure of the few white officers in this deadly climate, a contest with Ashanti FANTI AND ASHANTI. 25 and the destruction of that power would not only be a war of humanity and civilisation, but it would open the interior of this country to mercantile enterprise, and enable those now shut out, and under the yoke of those bloodthirsty people, to enjoy the blessings of a mild govern- ment, and hear the Gospel truth preached to them ; as when we look into the history of the Ashantis, it is revolting to humanity to know that, as a common average, at least 3000 per- sons are sacrificed annually to their supersti- tious rites, and on some occasions 3000 have been slaughtered on one royal grave. I regret to state that such are, and have ever been, the customs of those people." This proves once more the value of showing a strong front to Ashanti aggression, the value of the British assistance to the allies, and the nature of the enemy with whom we have to deal. From 1853 to 1863 there was peace. But in December 1862 the king of Ashanti de- 26 FANTI AND ASHANTI. manded from Governor Pine the restoration of a runaway boy-slave, and the delivery of an old chief accused of appropriating gold belonging to the king. Governor Pine refused to deliver up these persons ; the slave boy would have been killed immediately; there was no evi- dence offered against the chief. The Governor told the king that if he would send evidence of the old man's guilt, he would give him up, but not otherwise. This was, I need scarcely remind you, as regards the old man, in accordance with the usage of all civilised nations ; and as regards the slave, the British policy is well known to you all. The British flag can never float o'er a slave, once under that flag, the slave be- comes a free man. What the Government of the day thought of Governor Pine's conduct is shown by the following extract from a despatch sent to him by the Duke of Newcastle : " I entirely approve of your having refused FANTI AND ASHANTI. 2/ to surrender to the king of Ashanti the old man and boy who had been brought into British territory. No person once brought within the limits of a British possession can be then seized and handed over to a foreign power, except under sanction of the law of the colony. And no law should authorise such delivery to the authorities of a country in which justice is not fairly administered, except in the case of heinous crimes." I am reminded also of the famous dictum I cannot give you its exact words how, when applied to for the reddition of a slave, the judge ruled, "I know no law for such an end ; and if there were such a law, there ought not to be." But the king of Ashanti, whose emissaries at Cape Coast had shown a diplomatic power worthy of Machiavelli, had been entering into negotiations with the king of Elmina ; had pur- chased large quantities of arms and ammuni- tion ; and replied to Governor Pine, complain- 28 FANTI AND ASHANTI. ing of his " guiltiness " in this matter, and in others purely fictitious. Parties of Ashantis commenced to overrun the Protectorate, and their commander sent a messenger, making a new demand. He now claimed the delivery up of a certain king, Adjiman, " who had previously insulted and wronged his father." If, he said, his request were complied with, then the war would be short. If not, he, the prince, would remain in the territory for years. Already, when this message was sent, the Ashantis had pillaged and burnt thirty villages, and slain several hundreds of Fantis. On 22d August 1863, Governor Pine refused to hold any further communication with the king till he should withdraw and make redress for these wrongs. Foreseeing the probability of a serious and lingering war, he made this proposal to the Home Government : " It is with the deepest regret that I find myself involved, in spite of all my precautions, FANTI AND ASHANTI. 29 in a serious, and, I fear, lingering war ; but such being the case, I will not conceal from your Grace the earnest desire that I entertain that a final blow shall be struck at Ashanti power, and the question set at rest for ever, as to whether an arbitrary, cruel, and sanguinary monarch shall be for ever permitted to insult the British flag, and outrage the laws of civi- lisation. " This desirable object can be attained only by the possession of such a force as I fear the Governor of these settlements can never hope to command, unless your Grace should be pleased to urge upon her Majesty's Govern- ment the policy, the economy, and even the mercy of transporting to the shores an army of such strength as would, combined with the allied native forces, enable us to march to Coomassie, and there plant the British flag. " To a stranger, the course I point out may appear a visionary one, but I am convinced that, even with all the disadvantages of climate, 30 FANTI AND ASHANTI. the expedition would not be so dangerous, so fatal, or accompanied with such loss of life as have attended expeditions in other and ap- parently more genial climes; and with 2000 disciplined soldiers, followed by upwards of 50,000 native forces, who require only to be led and inspired with confidence by the pre- sence of organised troops, I would undertake (driving the hordes of Ashanti before me) to march to Coomassie. "As the case now stands, the most I can hope is, to drive the Ashantis from the Protector- ate, without the chance of administering that chastisement, or demanding that retribution, which is so justly due to its inhabitants and remain in constant dread of subsequent incur- sions of a powerful enemy." For such an expedition permission from home was necessary ; and it was, to the Gov- ernor's disappointment, withheld. He then found it necessary to take some other steps, as the protected tribes " had wellriigh lost their FANTI AND ASHANTI. 31 confidence in British protection." He there- fore, in December 1863, having previously formed a camp at Mansue, decided that a military party should advance towards the Prah, there encamp, and form a depot, which would, he hoped, induce the king of Ashanti to make peace. Accordingly, on the 29th December, he marched some companies of West India troops to Prahsue. The marches averaged fourteen miles a-day, the roads having been previously cleared and widened ; ten miles from the coast the bush was entered, and the streams were generally dried up, or else very small. On the banks of the Prah they encamped, under shelter- tents, on bad and wet ground. .At first the novelty and interest kept the men up under constant fatigue. They were reported in good spirits and fair health, busily employ- ed in erecting stockades, completing huts, and constructing a bridge. This was even so late as the beginning of March 1864. But the 32 FANTI AND ASHANTI. rains set in early ; work was impossible ; and inaction, that deadly foe of man in hot cli- mates, did its work. Depression set in, and the men became ill. By 31st March there were from 80 to 90 men in hospital out of a force of 360. The hospital accommodation was very bad, the men lying on the ground with pools of water round them. Under these circumstances three companies Avere withdrawn to Cape Coast, taking six days to get back. Two companies still remained at Prahsue, and one at Swadroo. Early in June, half of the entire detachment of 100 left at Prahsue were sick, the camp flooded by rains. Not till 13th June were they withdrawn to Cape Coast. For five months these men had been en- camped on this river, three months during the rainy season. The troops employed, say the medical re- ports, were bad subjects. These natives suffer more from the effects of climate than white FANTI AND ASHANTI. 33 men do. They had been attacked by fever and dysentery immediately on their arrival at Cape Coast in 1863, and were not wholly re- covered when marched up country. They had everything against them, heavy duties no excitement of the presence of an enemy food worse than they were usually accustomed to excessively wet weather, which no troops can bear to be encamped under in the middle of an African forest. These also were black troops, who have none of the hardihood and spirited endurance of the white man. Is it not wonderful that one man of them all returned ? Surely it would have been far less risk to have carried out that active aggressive oo movement which the Duke of Newcastle had conditionally sanctioned, but which his suc- cessor in office refused to approve. 34 II. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN, THE PROTECTED TRIBES, AND ASHANTI, WITH THE CAUSES OF THE ASHANTI WAR COH- tinued. THE last paper closed with a sketch of the abortive effort of 1864. Every failure, or, in other words, every appearance of weakness and inability to oppose or punish the king of Ashanti, seems to have been followed by insubordinate conduct on the part of one or other of the tribes in the Protectorate. Thus, in 1865, Aggery, the king of Cape Coast, claimed jurisdiction upon ground actu- ally within a few yards of our forts ; and upon FANTI AND ASHANTI. 35 Governor Pine's resisting the claim, the king became " insolent and offensive," and the Gov- ernor refused to recognise him any longer as king. Some months afterwards, Colonel Con- ran, administering the Government in place of Governor Pine, made a prisoner of King Ortabil of Goomoah, who had made war on another king in the Protectorate; and a few weeks later arrested Aggery, and sent him off at the end of 1866 to Sierra Leone. Colonel Conran reported that Aggery evidently desired " not only to make himself independent of the administrator of the Gold Coast, but chief of the whole Protectorate; in short, paramount to the Queen's representative." The Home Government approved of Agge- ry 's deposition, and allowed him a pension of 100 for life. In this, as in the later affairs of which I shall presently have to speak, we find the native lawyers exercising an evil influence over the kings and chiefs. Colonel Conran 36 FANTI AND ASHANTI. writes in February 1866 of " the so-called scholars " (those natives who can read and write) and petty native lawyers, who cling like leeches to the skirts of their more ignor- ant kings and chiefs for the sake of gain, for the mere writing of the commonest of letters to the Government, and especially the Chief Justice's Department, giving the greatest trouble, and causing, what is much worse, the greatest discontent. We must now speak of another question, on which grave subsequent events will be found to hinge. You are aware that the British were not the only possessors of forts on the Gold Coast, and that the Danes and the Dutch had seve- ral forts dotted in between ours on the coast. The Danish forts had been purchased by us in 1850. But the Dutch forts still remained interspersed with ours. Some of the tribes round these Dutch forts were under our pro- tection, some under the Dutch ; and different FANTI AND ASHANTI. 37 customs duties were levied by the Dutch and ourselves. Broils constantly arose between the Dutch and English protected tribes ; and in March 1866 our Lieutenant - Governor wrote : " I often heard that it was the inten- tion of her Majesty's Government to come to an understanding with the Dutch as regards a fair division of this coast, allowing them to take the control and protection of all lying westward from the Sweet River, situated between Cape Coast and Elmina, our Gov- ernment taking the coast from the Sweet River eastward to the Volta, with all territory in the rear, from the sea as far as the Ashanti and other foreign boundaries would admit of. I see no other means but this of enabling us to steer clear of trouble and broils constantly arising amongst all parties. The Apollonia and Wassaw districts are rich in gold, on the west ; whilst Accra and the eastern districts are also rich in trade in other respects." On the 5th of March 1867, a convention 38 FANTI AND ASHANTI. was concluded between her Majesty the Queen of England and the King of the Netherlands, by which the Dutch ceded to us all their possessions east of the Sweet Eiver, and we to them all our possessions west of it. The boundary was thus defined : " The boundary between the possessions of her Britannic Majesty and those of his Ma- jesty the King of the Netherlands will be a line drawn true north from the centre of the mouth of the Sweet River, as far as the boundary of the present Ashanti kingdom, but with such deviations within three English miles of the coast as shall be necessary to retain within British territory any villages which have been in habitual dependence on the Netherland Government at St George d'Elmina." This definition is remarkable, because we here actually assume as " possessions " the whole territory east of the Sweet Eiver, up to the boundary of the Ashanti kingdom. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 39 By this treaty, which came into effect on 1st January 1868, the British handed over Apollonia, Dixcove, Secondee, and Com- mendah ; and received Moree, Cormantyne, Apam, and Dutch Accra. Her Majesty's Government also relinquished to the Dutch the Protectorate over Eastern and Western Wassaw, Apollonia, and Denkara. We have not on board our ship any books relating to the correspondence preceding this exchange of territory ; but many circumstances lead me to believe that it was effected without any consultation with the tribes affected by the treaty. Commendah refused to accept the Dutch Protectorate, and attacked a boat's crew of the Dutch navy sent to reconnoitre, killing seve- ral of them, and capturing others, who were subsequently, through British intervention, released on payment of ransom. The Dutch avenged this insult to their flag by destroying Commendah. At Dixcove also there was a 40 FANTI AND ASHANTI. disturbance, the people objecting to their transfer to the Dutch. These difficulties, serious in their nature adding to, as they did, rather than diminish- ing the previous complications induced the Dutch to enter willingly into negotiations with the British Government for the transfer to her Majesty of all the Dutch forts and settle- ments on the Gold Coast, which they had used chiefly as a recruiting-ground for sailors and labourers for Java. From this measure our Government anticipated great advantages : One uniform system of customs duties could be established along the whole coast. All the tribes would be under the same protection, and the same system could be applied to them all. The influence exerted by the British in the direction of civilisation, and the abolition of horrible customs, such as human sacrifice and the worst forms of slavery, could be brought to bear on those tribes among whom the Dutch FANTI AND ASHANTI. 41 had hitherto tacitly sanctioned these barbar- ous customs, by abstaining from even moral interference. But grave difficulties arose at the outset of negotiations; and as these have much to do with the expedition on which we are engaged, we must endeavour to analyse them somewhat carefully. There has been for long two hundred years or so a mutual hatred between the Fantis and the Elminas. The Fantis also, as we have seen, have re- peatedly been at war with the Ashantis. The Elminas, on the other hand, have maintained most friendly relations with the Ashantis. Now, the Commendahs are Fantis, and the Fantis, " regarding the Elminas as the insti- gators and abettors of the destroyers of their houses and homes," regarding, in fact, "the Dutch and Elminas as one power " (I am quot- ing Sir A. Kennedy), retaliated on Elmina. 42 FANTI AND ASHANTI. They had another cause of quarrel with Elmina. Atjempon or Akempon, an Ashanti chief, had marched with some hundreds of followers from Ashanti through Fanti, committing great atrocities on the road, devastating the country, killing some, and sending others off into slavery; and he was now, at the end of 1869 and beginning of 1870, living quietly at Elmina with his people, aiding the Elminas against the Fantis, and drawing subsistence from the Dutch Governor. These causes led the Fantis to invade the Elmina territory. Aided by the Denkaras, they destroyed some sixty villages west of the Sweet River, took the whole of the crops, and blockaded the Dutch in their forts. At this point you must distinctly understand that there had never been any complete peace or permanent cessation of hostilities between the Ashantis and the British protected tribes since the affair of 1863-64. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 43 You must also notice these two important points : First, The king of Ashanti was holding captive at Coomassie some missionaries whom his general, Adoo Boffoo, had, in 1869, in- veigled into his power from their settlements on the Volta, and carried off as prisoners. There were two Germans, Messrs Kuehne and Ramsey er, the latter having his wife and child with him ; a Frenchman, M. Bonnat ; and a native of Accra, Mr Palmer. These persons had not been fighting ; they had committed no act of hostility. The Ashantis found them in their peaceable home at Anam, which is about five miles distant from the Volta, on the other side, and enticed them away, under the pre- tence that Adoo Boffoo wished to see them, and speak with them. As soon as they were on the way, they were shamefully and cruelly treated as enemies, and afterwards dragged to Coo- massie. Secondly, The British Government having 44 FANTI AND ASHANTI. endeavoured to put an end to the Fanti invasion of Elmina, by stopping supplies of arms and ammunition to the Fantis, a party of small speculators and traders formed a so-called " Fanti Confederation " of the various Fanti tribes, and drew up a constitution known as " the Mankessim constitution." A small native trader proposed himself as President of the Confederacy, and ordered a gold-laced suit of uniform from England, in anticipation of his election. But the acting administrator of the Government, Mr Salmon, viewed the matter in a very different light ; and when copies of the " constitution " were brought down to Cape Coast, he refused to receive them, and con- signed to prison the three officials of the Con- federation who brought them, on a charge of conspiracy to subvert the rule of her Majesty on the Gold Coast. These speculations had a great share in the continuance of the invasion of Elmina by the Fantis. Their object in the so-called Confede- FANTI AND ASHANTI. 45 ration seems to have been to get into Fanti hands the moneys collected by way of customs duties ; and one may fairly assume that the motive was to make the money change hands again as soon as possible. Let me remined you, then, of the condition of affairs at this time, the beginning of the year 1870. No peace with Ashanti since 1863. Ashanti allied with and aiding Elmina, while Atjempon is at work attaching the Elminas more firmly to Ashanti. Elmina invaded by Fantis, who are bitterly hostile to Ashanti. The Assims (a Fanti tribe) closing the coast road against Ashanti. The Fantis shaken in their loyal allegiance to the British by the evil influence of a num- ber of agitators working for their own pur- poses. While matters were thus seething, negotia- tions were going on, as we have seen, for the 46 FANTI AND ASHANTI. transfer of all the Dutch possessions to the English. At this time Sir Arthur Kennedy was Governor-in-Chief ; and his correspondence with the Dutch Governor, and the orders he received from home, show the most careful determina- tion on the part of the Government of Great Britain not to effect the transfer, if it was likely to cause any trouble with the native tribes. Sir Arthur Kennedy was led to be- lieve that the Elminas would offer no opposi- tion to the transfer, if they were subsidised ; that they had no treaties with Ashanti ; and that the king of Ashanti had no recognised claim on the territory or people of Elmina. The proofs of this exist under the hand of the Dutch Governor, Colonel Nagtglas. Towards the end of 1870 it was distinctly notified to Colonel Nagtglas that this country could not complete the transfer while an Ashanti force remained in the territory to be ceded ; and Mr Ussher, administrator, wrote FANTI AND ASHANTI. 47 to the king of Ashanti, saying that he ought to give up the missionaries, and remove At- jempon from Elmina, and Adoo Boffoo from the Volta, before any amicable solution of our difficulties could be attained. At the same time, Mr Ussher issued a pro- clamation to the Elminas, promising, in the event of the transfer taking place, to respect their feelings as much as possible, to protect them against their enemies, and to give even justice to them. He offered them the protec- tion of the British flag, and showed how help- less they would be alone, should they refuse to accept that protection. Later he made a distinct statement to Col- onel Nagtglas that the British Government " could not and would not purchase forts from the Netherland Government, which lay under the suspicion of being feudatory to a powerful native prince, the traditional enemy of its protected tribes." This despatch was written because the king of Ashanti had written on the 48 FANTI AND ASHANTI. 24th November 1870 that Elmina had from time immemorial paid annual tribute to his ancestors. " I beg to bring before your Excellency's kind consideration regarding the Elmina, if it is included in the change. The fort of that place have from time immemorial paid annual tribute to my ancestors to the present time by right of arms, when we conquered Tutim Gackidi, king of Denkara. Tutim Gackidi having purchased goods to the amount of nine thousand pounds (9000) from the Dutch, and not paying for them before we conquered Tutim Gackidi, the Dutch demanded of my father, Osai Tutu I., for the payment, who (Osai Tutu) paid it full the nine thousand pounds (9000), and the Dutch delivered the Elmina to him as his own, and from that time tribute has been paid to us to this present time. I hope, therefore, your Excellency will not include Elmina in the change, for it is mine by right." FANT1 AND ASHANTI. 49 To this claim the Dutch Governor gave a distinct denial. He said, and apparently proved his case, that the 80 yearly was paid not as a tribute, but more as a present, to keep on friendly relations of trade. He said he had taken much trouble to search records, and never found the slightest proof that the king of Ashanti has a claim of sovereignty on the Dutch ports ; but the money had always been paid under the name of subsistence. Still the British would not treat till the Dutch placed their title " beyond a doubt," a first step to be Atjempon's expulsion from Elmina. No treaty would be made while such a claim was in force, backed apparently by the presence of Atjempon and Ashanti troops. So the Dutch arrested Atjempon, and re- fused to pay further stipend to the king of Ashanti till he withdrew his claim to Elmina. But again, on the 20th May 1871, the king of Ashanti writes : D 50 FANTI AND ASHANTI. " From the ancient up to this time Elmina Castle is mine, and living with them as friends, and they also paid yearly tribute to me ; but as having understood that it is going in ex- change to be under your Excellency's protec- tion, I do not understand." The Dutch Government now sent a Mr Flange to Coomassie to bring round the king of Ashanti, and the result was the transmission of the following document to Mr Ussher :- " 1. These are to certify that the letter addressed to his Excellency H. T. Ussher, the Administrator of her Britannic Majesty's Settlements on the Gold Coast, dated Coo- massie, 24th November 1870, by me, Coffie Calcalli, King of Ashanti, residing at Coo- massie kingdom, was totally misrepresented on the part of the parties intrusted with the writing and dictating. " 2. I therefore do solemnly declare, in the presence of your Excellency's ambassador, Mr FANTI AND ASHANTI. 51 H. Flange, profession writer of the Govern- ment Office at St George d'Elmina, and my chiefs, that I only meant board wages or salary, and not tribute by right of arms from the Dutch Government. " 3. On account of circumstances relative to my ancestor, Osai Tutu the First, having conquered Tutim Gackidi the then king of Denakra, a friend or kind of commission agent of some transactions for his Netherland Majesty's Government on the Gold Coast, to the amount of 9000, my said ancestor was caused to make it good by the said Dutch Government; and in virtue of which the custom pay-note of the said Tutim Gackidi was transferred to my said ancestor, who enjoyed it in times immemorial, and became heritable to his heirs the kings of Ashanti, who now hold the said custom pay-note in possession to this present moment. " 4. The said 9000 was paid to insure friend- ship and good will or feeling towards the 52 FANTI AND ASHANTI. Dutch Government on the Gold Coast Settle- ment in Elmina Fort, castle or fort. " 5. Tradition tells us that Ashanti and Elmina are relatives ; offspring of one mother ; they are brethren ; also they are not to have hostilities against each other by oath of alle- giance. " 6. In conclusion, I must acknowledge that the aforementioned letter, dated Coo- massie, 24th November 1870, about my com- munication to his Excellency H. T. Ussher, concerning Elmina Fort, is a vague, formal, or nominal expression, the sentiments of which I therefore must now write that the whole is a mistake. " Signed in the presence of the ambassadors and the chiefs." This letter was openly and solemnly affirmed by the king's two ambassadors before the Dutch Governor, they renouncing all rights to the Dutch forts on the coast ; and the Dutch Governor now released Atjempon. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 53 On the strength of this document the transfer was effected. Lord Kimberley wrote that the Elminas were to be informed that after the departure of the Dutch, British protection would be extended to them, and the Fantis would be required to desist from making any attacks upon them. Time quite forbids my entering into further details of these negotiations. The English were quite willing to pay even a higher sum to the king of Ashanti than had been paid by the Dutch, but not as tribute. Lord Kimberley writes that "it is to be paid as an inducement to him to maintain peace, and to encourage trade, under such conditions as might be required for the security of the inhabitants of the coast." It was to be con- tinued as " an annual gift which would be kept up so long as his conduct is peaceful and other- wise satisfactory to her Majesty's Govern- ment." On the 12th January 1872, the king of 54 FANTI AND ASHANTI. Elmina protested to the Netherlands Govern- ment against the transfer, professing his desire to remain faithful to the Dutch flag. But the Dutch had decided to withdraw. The con- vention for the transfer had been signed at the Hague on the 25th February 1871, and rati- fications were exchanged on the 1 7th February 1872. The Dutch ceded their whole forts, &c., their stores being purchased for a sum which was afterwards fixed at 3790, Is. 9^d. There was, however, no desire on the part of our Government to force the king of Elmina under our protection ; only his position, should he not come into it, had been pointed out to him. " It is true," Mr Ussher had said, " that we do not wish to force our protection upon you, and therefore you can remain, doubtless, under no protection. But assuming that you refuse our protection, and that the Netherlands Gov- ernment, in pursuance of its own rights, shall have abandoned its possessions, and ceded these FANTI AND ASHANTI. 55 forts to us, have you considered your position ? Are you in a position to protect yourselves against the numerous tribes around you, with whom you are already at war, supposing that, by refusing the protection of her Majesty's Government, you force that Government to remain neutral after the departure of your hitherto protecting power? "These are grave questions for your con- sideration, and I trust you will weigh them well." " In conclusion, I again desire to assure you of a just and moderate rule from her Ma- jesty's Government, and of impartial protec- tion in every way, consistently with sense and reason, should the proposed transfer be concluded." Mr Pope Hennessy was now sent out (in February 1872) by the Home Govern- ment, to effect the transfer of the Dutch forts. He was instructed that the transfer was agreed to "in reliance on the Dutch power 56 FANTI AND ASHANTI. to transfer them peaceably, and without giving rise to any acts such as had taken place in 1868." Her Majesty's Government had no inten- tion of assuming a British protectorate over those native tribes without their consent, and the case of the Elminas was specially brought to his notice; they were to be dis- tinctly told that they would not be required to place themselves under British protection against their will. " The objects," say his instructions, " which her Majesty's Government have throughout had in view in negotiating this treaty, are not the acquisition of territory, or the exten- sion of British power, but the maintenance of tranquillity, and the promotion of peaceful commerce on the coast ; and nothing could be farther from their wish than that a treaty made with these objects should be carried into effect by violent measures. At the same time, they trust that by judicious and FANTI AND ASHANTI. 57 cautious management, the excitement which may possibly arise upon an event of so much importance as the retirement of the Dutch from the coast, may not lead to any serious difficulties ; and I need not say that they would greatly regret that arrangements which they believe are calculated to be of much benefit to the whole population, by putting an end to old feuds and difficulties, insepar- able from the division of authority which has hitherto prevailed on the coast, should be frustrated by the jealousies of the native tribes. " But you will on no account employ force to compel the natives to acquiesce in the transfer of the forts; and if you find that the attempt to assume possession of the forts on the part of the British authorities would probably be followed by resistance on the part of the surrounding native tribes, you will not accept the transfer of the forts, but will report the circumstances to her Majesty's Government, and await further instructions." 58 FANTI AND ASHANTI. Mr Pope Hennessy arrived at the Gold Coast on 2d April 1872 ; and on the 4th held a conference at Elmina with the native chiefs, intimated to them that he would extend her Majesty's protection to the Elminas as fully as to the Fantis, and assured them he "would make no change in the Dutch system " as re- garded the municipal and sanitary regulations. On the 6th April the transfer took place with- out disturbance. The king of Elmina was present, and the other chiefs who had opposed the transfer in January. Each tribe, separate- ly, was called upon to state if there was any objection to the transfer ; and each chief arose and publicly announced the agreement of his people to the transfer. A detachment of the West India Regiment was then landed, and relieved the Dutch troops. Axim, Dixcove, and Secondee were all garrisoned by the 10th April. Let us now turn to our relations with the Ashantis. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 59 On the 1st September 1871, only a few days after his positive renunciation of the claim to rights over Elmina, as already stated, the king of Ashanti had written making several complaints to Mr Salmon, who was now administering the Gold Coast Govern- ment, and urged certain claims of the Elminas on the Fantis. A reply was sent in December, that the king must not meddle with the chiefs of the Protectorate, and that the affair as regards the Elminas is a Dutch affair; and further, that till peace is made, the king cannot be allowed access to Elmina through the Protectorate. Mr Salmon proposes peace an arbitration. But the German and French captives must, as a preliminary, be sent back. The king had promised to liberate them on the return of Adoo Boffoo, but had not done so, and this breach of his word inspired general distrust. And now the king writes that he wishes for peace ; he has heard the passage of munitions 60 FANTI AND ASHANTI. of war to his kingdom has been stopped ; and he desires to give explanation upon sundry minor points, &c. &c. Mr Salmon replies that the only obstacle to peace is the king's detention of the captives. Mr Salmon will prevent the Akims annoying the king ; but till there is a lasting peace he must stop the transport of munitions of war. "As soon as peace is concluded, then unfettered trade may commence." Before receiving any reply to this letter, Mr Salmon took the somewhat strong step of clos- ing the road to traders from Ashanti. His fear was, as shown in a despatch to the Gover- nor-in-Chief, that the Fantis would, " out of their covert hostility to the efforts to effect peace with the Ashanti s, and their jealousy at seeing Ashanti traders pass to Cape Coast, cause Ashanti traders to be molested." He adds that the Cape Coast chiefs advised him to take this step. Let me read you part of Mr Salmon's letter to the king : FANTI AND ASHANTI. 6l " I have had no opportunity before this of sending your majesty word that, for the pre- sent, until your majesty had finally decided upon making a lasting peace with us, it was necessary for me to close the frontier to your majesty's traders. " The reasons for my doing this will be obvious to your majesty, and will at the same time give your majesty another proof of my friendship, and my confidence in your ma- jesty's good and peaceful intentions to this Government and the people under it. " When the trade was at first opened, it was the general belief of the people that peace would speedily be made. Nine months have elapsed since that time, and we are not much farther advanced. Under these circumstances, doubts have arisen in many people's minds. " Your majesty will be assured that, from the commencement, the Government here have believed that your majesty intends peace. We have also often heard that your majesty wishes, above all, the good of your people, and 62 FANTI AND ASHANTI. we know that peace is the best way to obtain that good. " The Government have had some little troubles here, now happily settled. On account of these troubles, I could not be quite assured of the safety of your people travelling. They might have been annoyed on the road, and I should have been responsible for the wrong done them. " Under these circumstances, I decided to stop the traders coming until peace was de- clared by your majesty, and the white captives sent to me, as I have already asked your ma- jesty. This being done, I shall be justified in opening the road to all ; and if any harm be then done to any of your people, I shall be able to punish the guilty according to our laws." I fear it cannot be doubted that this step, however righteous the motive which prompted it, would scarcely be viewed by the king of Ashanti as another proof of friendship. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 63 The king at first simply acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and said he would de- liberate with the chiefs on the answer; but three weeks later (20th February 1872), he says that he has requested his general Adoo BofFoo to hand over the prisoners for transfer to the Governor, his friend. " Respecting the release of the Europeans, I requested Adoo BofFoo (through my linguists) to hand them over to me to send them to the Governor, my friend. Adoo BofFoo refused to give them to me, and said he has fought with his powder and guns, and has made great war expense and caught them : therefore I (Adoo BofFoo) will not give them to you without selling or asking a ransom for them. The prince (your messenger) asked what will be the ransom, that he may have something to inform your Excellency; Adoo BofFo said, he will take 800 peregens (1800 oz.) for the ransom of the Europeans. " Your Excellency's messenger asked to know 64 FANTI AND ASHANTI. from me concerning other matters of the peace, and when peace shall be finally settled ; my answer to him is, ' Tell the Governor that I and my great chiefs have decided this : after the ransom is paid to Adoo Boifoo, then peace between us shall be finally settled, and not before/" No further correspondence passed till after the transfer of Elmina and the other Dutch forts to the English. So you know the ultimatums of Mr Salmon and the king of Ashanti respectively at that date, 6th April 1872. On the 20th April, the Dutch Commodore sent some presents and a letter to the king, asking him to give up the prisoners. At the same time Mr Hennessy wrote send- ing a present of gold-embroidered silks, an- nouncing the transfer, and telling the king that, " to show his friendship for his majesty and the Ashanti nation, he had ordered all the trading communications along the British FANTI AND ASHANTI. 65 frontier with Ashanti to be reopened, offering to pay the king double the sum paid yearly by the Dutch." In this letter he did not touch on any of the causes of dispute. The presents, &c., were sent by the same Mr Flange who had previously been the Dutch envoy. But, on the 22d, he wrote saying, " It would be a good omen of their future friendship if the king would send the captive missionaries safely to Elmina." The king does not answer this letter directly; and immediately after writing it Mr Hennessy sailed for Lagos. In his absence there was a riot at Elmina, and a Dutch lieutenant (Joost) was murdered. The cause of the murder proved on investiga- tion to be purely personal to the lieutenant, and the murderers were convicted and ex- ecuted. But at the time, owing chiefly, it seems, to the exaggerated fears for his personal safety of the civil commandant of Elmina, there was E 66 FANTI AND ASHANTI. immense excitement, and the riot was supposed to be connected with the transfer. Mr Hennessy having returned from Lagos, received a letter from Prince Ansah, an Ashanti chief, nephew of the king, to the effect that the only question now to be settled for a complete peace is the ransom of the captive Europeans. He says former British envoys had promised a ransom, and the king expects the promise to be fulfilled. Mr Hennessy replies to the king on the 4th June. He cannot even speak of exchang- ing Europeans or men for money. He wants the king to send the prisoners, and will con- sider if the German Missionary Society, to which Eamseyer and Kuehne belong, might properly send to Coomassie the actual expen- ses incurred by Adoo Boffoo. At the same time he actually releases Opoku, Adoo Bof- foo's son, who had been taken prisoner, and brought in to Cape Coast, and pays all his ex- penses back to Coomassie. FANTI AND ASHANTI. 67 I must draw your attention to this, and ask whether you think that such conduct was not over generous towards the Ashantis, and whether the superintendent of the Basle Mis- sion was not right when he complained that it was unjust for our Government to call on him to pay ransom for the captive missionaries, while releasing Ashanti prisoners free. Mr Hennessy now writes that the Mission would pay any sum not exceeding 1000 to cover Adoo Boffoo's expenses, and that it shall be paid if his majesty will send the cap- tives down to the Prah. Now, if these Ashantis are to be viewed as a savage race, and if they understand as their sole idea of strength fighting power, and see in all concessions to them only signs of weakness, can any course be imagined more likely to give them an idea of our weakness than this which was now taken ? But look at it in another light : treat them, as Mr Hennessy would, as civilised people ; 68 FANTI AND ASHANTI. can any course have been more conciliating, and can any course less justify their subsequent conduct ? Mr Hennessy was sanguine as to the result of his diplomacy, and, on the 8th of June 1872, wrote : " The anticipation of hostilities with Ashantis no longer exists." The king does not reply till the 24th Sep- tember. He then says : " His chiefs, in con- sultation with him, had decided that the 1000 should be accepted, and asks for it to be sent to Coomassie, when he will send the men down." This letter is sent through Mr Flange, and cancels one previously written standing out for 2000. On the 29th October, Mr Salmon, who, on the 4th September, had expressed similar confidence to Mr Hennessy, tells the king the money has been lodged in the hands of Mr Grant, a coloured merchant of Cape Coast, as agent for the king, to be paid over to his FANTI AND ASHANTI. 69 envoys on the prisoners arriving at Cape Coast. All this time the king is detaining Mr Flange, as well as the previous captives. A remarkable letter accompanied the king's acceptance of the money offered. It was written by the missionaries, and shows the king to be in the hands of his chiefs. It shows also a remarkable distinction in the king's mind as to the various causes of dispute. " The king has so often declared again and again that he is the friend of your Excellency, that he truly wants peace, and as for his part he would send the white prisoners; but he seems to be, in this nasty money matter, entirely in the hands of his avaricious chiefs ; he says they want the money, and it is to be seen clearly that he has not power enough to resist them. We believe surely that ^they, on the pitch of their excitement, and in their blindness, would force the king, by his great 70 FANTI AND ASHANTI. oath, to begin a new war, so doubtful their last Kreepee expedition may have been about their success and strength, and so doubtful the next may turn out for them. The king is a young monarch in years and reign, and has not power enough. " The shutting of the roads they consider, as we yesterday could understand, as a decla- ration of war ; whilst the ransom matter they consider as a sort of business, so as they bar- gain about a slave. In this view they de- tained Mr Flange here." It ought not to be forgot, in weighing this latter statement of the missionaries, that these roads had been reopened in April ; and the king had since written to the Governor as his friend. On the 9th November the king acknowledges this letter, and sends down the prisoners to the Prah, whence they will be sent on, if the money has been paid to his envoys at Cape Coast. Colonel Harley has now arrived and re- FANTI AND ASHANTI. 71 licved Mr Salmon ; a legislative council was held on the 28th November, and it was agreed not to pay the money till the captives arrived at Cape Coast, and the king, is informed of this decision. But at the same it was decided to send back Atjempon to Coomassie, paying his expenses, and giving him safe conduct. These peaceful negotiations were in pro- gress. Atjempon was brought to Cape Coast Castle, and thence, with all his fol- lowers, now numbering some 700, sent by land to Coomassie in a manner becoming his rank, and Colonel Harley was awaiting the reply of the king of Ashanti. There had been a riot at Cape Coast in connection with some trade disputes between the natives and the traders, and another riot at Secondee between English and Dutch parties ; the kings were made prisoners, and were sent to Elmina. A grave misunderstanding had arisen with the king of Elmina, on grounds which seem very slight when suddenly, without warning 72 FANTI AND ASHANTI. given, or cause alleged, the Ashanti army crossed the Prah, in numbers reported to be some 1200, occupying five days in the boat passage, and attacked and invaded the Assim territory, burning and destroying nine vil- lages. The crossing commenced on the 22d January of this present year, 1873. The kings of Assim, Abrah, Annamaboe, and Mankessim, now apply to Colonel Harley for aid. He estimates that from 60,000 to 70,000 men can be raised, and sends Dr Rowe, the colonial surgeon, as a commissioner to raise the tribes. Fifty Houssas are sent to Dunquah, as a de- monstration only, under Lieutenant Hopkins. Mr Hennessy does not believe this is really an Ashanti invasion ; he is too confident of the success of his diplomacy. Commodore Commerell was of the same opinion. And now, early in February, Mr Keate arrives, and relieves Mr Hennessy ; he reports FANTI AND ASHANTI. 73 his opinion that the British can only hold their forts on the defensive, and that the na- tives must defend themselves in the field ; and draws attention to a letter from the Govern- ment in 1 869, saying, " the wars are their wars." The Assims retreat to Accrofal before the Ashantis. The sale of arms is prohibited by proclamation. The king of Abrah (Anfor Otoo) reports on the causes of the invasion as follows : " I respectfully beg leave to bring to your notice that the causes and purposes of these inroads of the Ashantis are the cession of the Elmina fort, and the Elminas having become the British subjects; because (from what we have repeatedly heard) the king of Ashanti says, that from the time immemorial his ancestors ate and drank at Elmina i. e., he gets all his wants from there and that the fort is theirs ; therefore he will come and take it by force of arms. The chiefs of Annamaboe also agreed with me in this statement." 74 FANTI AND ASHANTI. The Ashantis apparently advanced in three divisions, one on Akim, one on Denkara, and the main division, through Assim and Abrah, to Cape Coast. About this time one Mr Bentill offers to raise 20,000 men from various eastern small tribes, and to camp at Essiccomah, the fork of the two main roads to Assim and Akim. Colonel Harley offers arms and ammunition. Lieutenant Hopkins arrives at Dunquah on the 20th March, arranges to protect the roads to Annamaboe and Cape Coast, to make a direct road along his camp, and clear the bush away in front. He reports about 30,000 to 40,000 Ashantis in front, and 15,000 Fantis with him. On the 1st March the Ashantis were reported at Yancoomassie, also in Western Wassaw. Ammunition was sent to the kings of Tufel and Amantine. Mr Thompson, the Government interpreter, was sent to rouse the Fantis to action ; he FANTI AND ASHANTI. 75 found them hopelessly dilatory and inert ; and on the 6th March the Ashantis are at Mansue. A deserter reported that the Ashantis were coming to Cape Coast and elsewhere to get money, cotton goods, rum, powder, guns, and cutlery, and they were to carry on war for three years. At this date there were only 167 West India troops on the Gold Coast, divided between five forts. Lieutenant Hopkins had about 200 Houssa police with him, and about the same number of Cape Coast Volunteers. On the 15th March, Colonel Harley reports that, on the 10th, part of the Fanti army had advanced to attack the Ashantis before Yan- coomassie ; had failed to find them ; had re- turned, and begun to eat, when they were attacked in force from various directions. The Mankessim detachment fell back at once. This king of Mankessim was the head of the so-called Fanti Confederation, the only chief 76 FANTI AND ASHANTI. in the Protectorate who had not asked for arms for his defence. The Cape Coast people were thus taken flank and rear, and only escaped with heavy loss. Lieutenant Hopkins retired to Cape Coast Castle with his Houssas, his main duty being to protect that place. At this date the king of Elmina had shown such signs of insubordination and intention to join the Ashantis to invade Cape Coast Castle, that the oath of allegiance was tendered to him, and on his refusing to take it he was arrested. He is now a prisoner at Sierra Leone. In a statement made by him, he said he and others had taken a fetish oath to oppose the English Government coming to Elmina. On the 16th March, five Ashantis residing in the house of Prince Ansah, an Ashanti prince at Cape Coast, were murdered by the Fantis. Prince Ansah's house was wrecked, and he had to be sent to Sierra Leone to pro- tect him from the fury of the people, who FANTI AND ASHANTI. 77 believed him guilty of giving information to the Ashantis. The various kings were at this time making false statements in order to get more arms and ammunition. The king of Assim falsely re- ported that he had made an attack on the Ashantis, and had captured 2000 prisoners. In spite of all Colonel Harley's urgent de- mands on the Fantis to form up and attack at once, and the supply of ammunition to them, they said, " It was not wise to do so till the gaps on the right were properly filled up." Mr Bentill appears to have been as dilatory as any of the other chiefs. Lieutenant Hop- kins speaks of " shaming him and them into co-operation." On the 8th April, Colonel Harley reports the same wretched delay. He says all may be summed up in the Spanish word " manana " "to-morrow." Lieutenant Hopkins had been meanwhile at 78 FANTI AND ASHANTI. Dunquah, the bush in front was being cleared, war-paths cut, and scouts sent out. But on the very day Colonel Harley wrote, the Ashantis attacked the Fanti camp along six miles of front. The fight began at 7 A.M., and lasted till 4 P.M. The Ashantis were re- pulsed. The Houssas lost 2 killed, and 15 wounded : the Volunteers 1 killed, and 2 wounded. Though supplied with sixty rounds of ammunition per man, and a reserve, it was all expended. On the 14th the Fantis were induced to attack the Ashantis. Again all the am- munition was soon expended. Dr Eowe writes : "This statement of theirs permits me to draw your Excellency's attention specially to the requests made by all the chiefs for further supplies of ammunition to continue the fight. " Notwithstanding that your Excellency has already issued large supplies to the native forces, from the peculiar character of their war- FANTI AND ASHANTI. 79 fare, I believe it to be a perfectly true state- ment that their supplies are expended. " I believe also that it is quite impossible to change their mode of warfare ; and that if it be your Excellency's desire to profit by the hard fighting of to-day, in the sense of wishing the Fantis to take up an advanced position, they can only be induced to do so by giving them very large supplies of powder and lead. " It is not, perhaps, that they are unwilling to fight in their own fashion, but that their fashion expends ammunition to an extent un- known in civilised warfare. " Had I not been personally an eyewitness of the scene, I could not have believed that the expenditure was possible." Lieutenant Hopkins says the ammunition of his Houssas ran short in half an hour. Mr Loggie (formerly an artillery sergeant) did excellent work with his rockets in the bush, but writes thus of them : " I am afraid the moral effect of our rockets 80 FANTI AND ASHANTI. will be to make thousands of these people de- pend too much on the rockets, and expect too much from their use in the forest of bush and high trees, in which the fighting here has to be done." The Cape Coast Fantis appear to have be- haved wretchedly. " I cannot," says Mr Loggie, " pass over without bringing to notice that I was asked to send police to urge up some of the Cape Coast Fantis to their work. Dr M'Kellar and my- self had to act as drivers to several hundreds of these people, and at times gentle means were not used to make them return towards the front. I regret to say it was the most fatiguing part of this day's work acting as whippers-in to these people." But, although the action was not unsuc- cessful, the Fantis next day began to retreat. The movement commenced with the Goomoah (Mr Bentill's) people, and soon became general ; and Lieutenant Hopkins, abandoned by the FANTI AND ASHANTI. 8l native levies, was forced to retrea.t on Cape Coast, where he arrived on the evening of the 16th. The Houssas and Volunteers behaved excellently. In a later report, Colonel Harley says of the Houssas : " With officers they are tractable and obedient ; without them, they scatter like sheep." As excuse for this pitiful cowardice of the Fantis, who are reported by Dr Eowe as nearly 6000 strong, they alleged that Mr George Blankson, a member of Council, had betrayed them to the Ashantis, and given full information to the enemy. Mr Blankson was arraigned at the camp, charged with treachery and treason, and his life would have paid the forfeit, had he not been claimed by Dr Eowe, and sent as a prisoner to Cape Coast Castle. In consequence of this retreat, the roads to Elmina and Cape Coast were opened to the Ashantis; and considering the serious nature of affairs, a detachment of 110 marines and marine artillery was sent out from England, F 82 FANTI AND ASHANTI. with two mountain guns, and 200 rockets, and a quantity of ammunition. Lieut. -Col. Fest- ing, E.M.A., was selected to command the detachment. They were sent out in H.M.'s ship Barracouta, Captain Fremantle. Four additional companies of the 2d West India Eegiment were ordered to the Gold Coast, and Colonel Harley was directed to enlist additional Houssas. On the 21st April, Colonel Harley reported the Fantis dispersed to their homes, sadly demoralised. Mr Loggie and 60 Houssas had been sent to Annamaboe. The Assims, Abrahs, and Akims, in very small numbers only, were still on the main road to Dunquah, which the Ashantis now occupied; and around Elmina a cordon of lesser chiefs, professing readiness to fight. Colonel Harley thus writes of the condition of affairs : "I concur with Dr Eowe in thinking that the sad spectacle of the people being driven FANTI AND ASHANTI. 83 by thousands into slavery by a savage and relentless foe such as the Ashanti, while the weak and sickly would be mercilessly butchered, is a thought too horrible to dwell upon, and which I can assure your lordship no effort of mine shall be wanting to avert, with all the resources I have at my disposal. " I may, however, inform your lordship that I have no apprehension whatever for the safety of Cape Coast and Elmina, the two points of immediate possible attack ; but it is in districts more remote where the Ashantis will make their cruelties felt, and where a country over- run and depopulated will leave traces of suffer- ing and misery for years to come/' About this date Atjempon, whom we last remember sent back with all the honours due to his rank, starts from Coomassie with 3000 men to assist the king of Apollonia in invad- ing the Western Protectorate. Colonel Harley also received information that the Ashantis were suffering from small- 84 FANTI AND ASHANTI. pox and dysentery, and would probably have retired had the Fantis made another stand : that even now they would retire, but for their fear of being attacked in rear ; and also because, the rains having set in, they would be drowned in swimming the Prah. These reports require to be received with caution. Here is one of them : " The Ashanti General had orders not to attack until the king had received a reply from Colonel Harley ; but that if attacked they were to defend themselves, which is what they did on the 8th and 14th April. That in those two engagements they suffered most severely, and especially from the Hales rockets served by the Houssas. " That they are now in possession of the late Fanti camp, but not finding an enemy, they imagine the Fantis have gone round them. They are now afraid either to advance or retire, not knowing in the bush when they may meet the Fantis. FANTI AND ASHANTJ. 85 " That the Ashanti camp is in a most wretched condition, a large quantity of them suffering from wounds and fractures. " Small - pox has broken out dreadfully amongst them. They are starving, a plan- tain, the price of which is usually about 2d. a dozen, now selling for the same sum each plantain ; and besides, there is an abominable stench from dead bodies scattered through the bush in all stages of decomposition." In May the Ashantis appear to have left Dunquah, after having received reinforcements there. It was reported that they had moved into the Denkara country. Colonel Harley was still unable to induce the coast people to stir : he reports them as "absolutely like children, looking up for pro- tection and guidance, and yet when they are afforded both, flying from their own respon- sibility and self-defence." After the departure of the Ashantis, a short fit of bravery seems to have come over some 86 FANTI AND ASHANTI. of the chiefs ; a force began to assemble u very small force again at Dunquah. But the Cape Coast people would do nothing. On the 30th May the Ashantis had evi- dently moved to their right, towards Elmina, their original object. The Marines in the Barracouta arrived off Cape Coast on the 7th June, and on the 10th Colonel Festing and Captain Fremantle in- spected Elmina. A large body of Ashantis were reported near at hand in the bush, and the unfriendly portion of Elmina was openly assisting them with arms and ammunition. Whereupon, at a Council on the 12th, it was decided to proclaim martial law, and disarm the disaffected Elminas. The town is thus situated : Fort George closes the east, the sea the south, and the river the north side. At daylight on the 13th, the boats blockaded the river, and prevented escape through the surf on the sea side ; while Colonel Festing marched his marines from Cape Coast, and guarded the FANTI AND ASHANTI. 87 west exit from the village with them and the Houssas and West India troops. Martial law was proclaimed, and arms were demanded. No arms were given up. Then Elmina was bombarded and set on fire. Many men escaped through the prickly-pear bush, where they could not well be followed. But the Houssas pursued, and a skirmish ensued. Then 2000 Ashantis came through the bush, extending their right to the sea; and Colonel Festing, with the Marines and Naval Brigade, attacked and drove them back, aided by rockets from boats beyond Ampenee some three miles. A halt was sounded, and the troops retired to the fort. About 5 P.M. large bodies of Ashantis were reported advancing on the eastern side of Elmina. The troops were assembled, and met the enemy. But the Ashantis were out- flanking our right, when Lieutenant Wells, R.N., came up with the Barracouta's men, took 88 FANTI AND ASHANTI. the outflanking Ashantis in flank, and drove them back. Then a general advance ensued, and the retiring enemy were pursued till they were completely defeated. Their loss is reported to have been about 200 out of 3000, and 4 chiefs out of 6. No guns or rockets were used. The destruc- tion was due to the Snider. So far as we know, there has been no further fighting on any large scale since this action. Unfortunately it was the rainy season. The rains were excessively and unusually heavy, sickness attacked the Marines, and they were sent home to England. There is now at the Gold Coast a force of Marines and the 2d West India Regiment, 720 of all ranks. Captain Glover has been sent out to the River Volta to raise the friendly native tribes, and move towards Ashanti from the eastward. Major-General Sir G. Wolseley has been sent out, to combine in his hands the civil and FANTI AND ASHANTI. 89 military power. He comes out as Governor of the Gold Coast, and Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty's troops in the West African Settlement. Let us hope that in his hands this plague of Ashanti invasion may be rooted out ; that such a lesson may be taught to the enemy as shall insure peace during at least the memory of the present generation. I have heard often in England, and more than once on board this ship, the expression that this is an unjust war. I ask you to say where is the injustice. Is it in our accepting the Dutch forts, with the full consent, as far as we knew, honestly and freely given, of the kings of Elmina and Ashanti 1 Did we not offer even a double stipend to that paid by the Dutch? Is it in our dealings as regards the Ashanti people or the missionaries 1 Surely there we dealt only far too generously. No this war is not of our provoking, not of our seeking. 90 FANTI AND ASHANTI. In direct violation of treaty engagements in the midst of peaceful negotiations the king, having for months prepared war, has deliber- ately made it upon us. He has made it with every circumstance of brutality and savage horror. He has destroyed villages, carried off and murdered women, and children, and men, to swell the list of his hideous human sacrifices to the foul fetishes of his priests. Let me end in the words of our greatest English writer : " If these be motives weak, break off betimes, And every man hence to his idle bed ; So let high-sighted tyranny range on, Till each man drop by lottery. But if these, As I am sure they do, bear fire enough To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen, What need we any spur, but our own cause, To prick us to redress ? " III. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI AND THE PRO- TECTORATE OF THE GOLD COAST. THE subject of the paper I have prepared for to-day is the " Geography of the Gold Coast." It is intended to supplement the two papers which you have heard read by Captain Brack- enbury, on the earlier history of the British Protectorate, and the relations subsisting be- tween the British, the Ashantis, and the native protected tribes. I shall try to describe the topographical features of this land we are about to visit ; but in venturing on a descrip- tion of a country I have never yet seen, and of the existence of which I, in common with the majority of my countrymen, had a few months 92 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. or weeks ago the vaguest conceptions, I must premise that I am doing so at the request of Sir Garnet Wolseley. The sources of our information of the interior are very meagre, and resolve themselves into five or six visits to Coomassie; the best known and best written (those of Bowdich, Dupuis, and Button) having been made fifty years ago ! One of the latest, Lieutenant-Governor Win- niett's, made in 1848, added very little to our previous knowledge. It is in many cases very hard to reconcile conflicting statements ; and if our future experience should prove that some or many of my statements to-day are inaccu- rate, I hope you will remember that I have only compared the assertions of others, and adopted those which have appeared to me the most likely to be correct. As an instance of the difficulty of fixing distances, -I may mention that the village of Paintree or Dunquah, where the Fantis were encamped last April, is vari- ously estimated at 15, 19, 20, and 25 miles THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 93 from Cape Coast Castle. Native names are also often difficult to recognise under the very various and peculiar spelling they undergo, the "taste and fancy" of the speller being the sole guide. This is not to be wondered at, as none of these negro tribes appear to possess any written characters or alphabet, if we except the Arabic in use amongst the Mohammedans of the interior. For the sake of clearness I have divided this paper into the following heads : 1. The Coast-line and its Fortified Posts. 2. The British Protectorate. 3. The Topographical Features of the Country, with a few words on the principal Eivers and Hills. 4. The Kingdom of Ashanti, and its Capital, Coomassie. Lastly, 5. A few remarks on the Climate, Tempera- ture, &c. 1. The Gold Coast extends from the French 94 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. possessions on the Assinee Eiver, in 3 25' The coast- W - longitude, to the mouth of line - the Volta Eiver, in 4 1 7 2" E. lon- gitude, thus possessing a seaboard of, roughly, 250 miles. It has an approximate area of 20,000 square miles, and a population of about half a million. This coast-line is usually divided into the " Windward " and " Lee- ward" somewhat ambiguous terms, which require explanation. What is called the Windward extends from Cape Apol Ionia to the mouth of the Secoom river, near the old Dutch port of Barracoe ; the Leeward, from this point to the Volta. This is in contradis- tinction to the custom on the east coast of Africa, where windward means to the east- ward, and leeward to the westward.* Along this line of 250 miles the flags of England, Holland, Portugal, and Denmark once waved ; * On the Guinea coast the name has evidently arisen from the fact that the prevailing Avind is from the south-Avest, and therefore every place lying to the west of Cape Coast or Elmina Avould naturally be " to windward." THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 95 the English possessing 12 posts, the Danes 5, and the Dutch 17, including those of which they had dispossessed the Portuguese. These forts or posts were intermingled one with another in a very complicated manner : thus, beginning on the west, Apollonia was British; Axim was Dutch; Dixcove, British; Tacorady, Chamah, and Elmina, Dutch; Cape Coast and Annamaboe, British ; and so on as far as Accra, where the Danish settlements commenced, reaching to Quittah, on the other side of the Volta. The Danish forts were purchased by the English in 1850 for 10,000; and in 1867 an equitable division of the whole line of coast was made with the Dutch, the Sweet Eiver (half-way between Cape Coast Castle and Elmina) forming the boundary between the two nations all to the westward being Dutch, all to the eastward British. In 1872 the Dutch transferred, not sold, as is sometimes erroneously stated, the whole of their forts and settlements to the British, who 96 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. now remain sole masters of this portion of the West African coast. The principal forts now kept up are Accra, Cape Coast Castle, Elmina, and Dixcove. James Fort, British Accra, was the first English fort ever built on the Gold Accra. Coast. It was the work of the first African Company, called " The Com- pany of Adventurers of England trading to Africa." It is built on the summit of cliffs of red clay and sandstone, and is situated at the edge of an open plain covered with grass, studded here and there with clumps of trees, having little or no underwood, and extending for some 12 miles into the interior, towards the Aquapim Mountains. Horses will thrive here for years, if not taken into the bush, where the tetse fly prevails; while at the other forts it is barely possible to keep them alive for more than a few weeks or months. Alto- gether, the climate is considered favourable to European constitutions. From Accra there is THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 97 a good road to a German missionary station at Accropong, 40 miles from the coast. This road was made by the missionaries at a very trifling cost about 500 and is fit for wheeled vehicles. There is said to be a bush-road from Accropong direct to Coomassie. Cape Coast Castle is in 5 7' N. latitude, and Cape Coast 1 9/ W. longitude. It was built in the seventeenth century on a spot of land taken originally at an annual rent from the Fetus, a tribe now under Fanti sway. It stands on a rock overhanging the sea, of a black-looking gneiss with granite and quartz interspersed. The coast trends away on either side in lines of red cliff, the country inland rising in wooded knolls with intervening basins. Cape Coast Castle is the headquarters of the Government of the Gold Coast, which is ad- ministered by the Governor, aided in local matters by a Legislative Council, consisting of three official and two or more non-official G 98 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. members. At eight miles' distance from Cape Coast Castle is Elmina. The Fort of St George della Mina, so called from the gold-mines in Elmina. the neighbourhood, was originally built in 1383 by a company of French mer- chants of Dieppe and Rouen. This is disputed by the Portuguese, who claim the honour of having built this, the first European fort on the Gold Coast, in the year 1481. However this may be, it was captured by the Dutch in 1637, and held by them until its transfer to the British in 1872. Fort St George stands obliquely fronting the sea, on a black rock a little above high-water level. Above it, on a hill 100 feet in height, and commanding both the fortress and the town, stands Fort St Jago. The little river Beyah divides the native town into two parts the western half being the one so recently de- stroyed by the English and makes Elmina the THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 99 only place on the Gold Coast deserving the name of a harbour. . Elmina is in almost the same longitude as Coomassie, and there is said to be a road lead- ing from it to the capital of Ashanti, through the Wassaw and Denkara country, which is a, day's journey shorter than the road through Assim vid Mansue and Prahsue. Dixcove, originally Dick's Cove, was built in 1681 by the English, as its' Dixcove. name imports, and was at one time the strongest outpost on the coast. It has a territory of its own, independent of the Ahontas (Ahantas), of about five miles of sea- board and twenty miles inland. It is a place of secondary importance, having only a small garrison, resembling also in this respect Secpn- dee and Axim. The other posts, as Moree, Chamah, Barracoe, and many others, are no longer garrisoned, and are gradually falling into decay. 100 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 2. THE BRITISH PROTECTORATE Includes six large independent tribes viz., the Fantis, Assims, Akims, Aquapims, Wassaws, and Denkaras, besides several smaller tribes, more or less independent, as the Apollonias, Ahantas, Tufels, Elminas, Accras, and Kroboes. The Fantis appear to occupy and hold sway over the tract of country included nearly within the curvature of the Kiver Prah, and touch the Wassaws on the west, the Assims on the north, the Aquapims on the east, and on the south the sea-coast. I imagine that the boundaries of the various tribes are never dis- tinctly fixed, and possibly vary from time to time. As marked on this map, they are only approximate, as accurate as the imperfect data at my command will allow. The Fanti territory is divided into three principal districts, called Fetu, Braifo, and Goomoah, each with its own king ; in addition to which, each large town or collection of THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. IOI villages in each district appears to have its own chief, dignified with the high-sounding title of "king" This applies equally to all the native tribes, so that the number of kings is very great, and their relative importance much the same probably as that of the kings in the land of Canaan, when the Israelites under Joshua overran that country, and razed its cities to the ground. Here are the names of some of the principal Fanti kings : Amfoo Ottoo, king of Abrah. Coffee Ackinney, Acoomfie. Quassi Tando, Goomoah. Amoanoe IV., ,, Annamaboe. Quassi Fram Denkara (in Fanti). Moqua, Adjumacoo. Quassi Asando Inkoosookoom. Besides, there are two principal kings of Assim, Eastern and Western viz., King Irkey and King Chibboo ; and two of Akim, names unknown. 102 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. The Fetu district surrounds Cape Coast, and its king is called Quassie Attah. The Braffo and Goomoah districts lie to the eastward. Altogether, the Fanti tribe occupy a seaboard of about 90 miles, and extend inland at one point as much as 40 miles to the northward. The population of the different tribes varies so much that it is impossible to fix that of any one, but the whole Protectorate has been estimated to contain half a million of in- habitants, much less than in former years. Each successive irruption of the Ashantis depopulates whole districts ; the track of the invading army is marked by burning towns and villages ; the inhabitants are put to the sword or carried away captive to Coomassie, to furnish victims for their hideous "cus- toms :" in process of time, the wretched villagers who have managed to make their escape in time return to their desolated homes, and build other towns and villages THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 103 never, however, on the same spot ; so that we may possibly find that many of the villages marked on our map have disappeared, and others have sprung up, since the accounts were written from which our map has been compiled. Colonel Winniett in 1848 speaks of an ex- tensive village of a thousand inhabitants on a spot which in 1839 was covered with forest, and says that many villages of considerable extent were pointed out to him as having been built by the Assim refugees, whom the king of Ashanti had driven out of that part of Assim which lies on the right bank of the Prah. There is no doubt that the Fantis and Ashantis are cognate races, as is proved by their both speaking the same language, the Oji or Otyi. This is the tradition of their separation : There was a great famine in the land, and a portion of the people wandered away to the south, feeding themselves on " Fan," or herbs and cabbage ; hence they were called Fan-tis, from Fan, and "didi," to eat. 104 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. The others subsisted on Indian corn, yams &c., "San/' hence called San-tis or Siantis, A nglice, "Ash antis. " The same language, the Oji, is also spoken by the Assims, Akims, and Aquapims, and most probably, too, by the Wassaws and Den- karas ; but the Akims are the only tribe that can speak Ashanti without betraying them- selves by their provincial accent, much in the same way as a native of Brittany or Lan- guedoc would be instantly detected by a Parisian. The Accras, on the other hand, speak an entirely different language, called the Ga tongue. Of religion they have very vague ideas. They believe in One Supreme Being, called Nyankuponfi, or " The Most High," who, how- ever, is too far removed from earth to trouble himself with human affairs, which are com- mitted to the "Bossoms" or Spirits. These Bossoms enter into and inhabit all sorts of curious things, animate or inanimate. Thus THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 105 each person has his private Samari or fetish (literally a goblin, skeleton), an idol, a fowl, a bit of rag, a bunch of grass, or what not, into which the Bossom has entered, and to which, therefore, he pays the greatest deference. In affairs matrimonial they adhere to the old Biblical system of polygamy, which seems to be an instinctive feature of the social life of all wild races inhabiting the tropical regions of Asia and Africa. The number of wives or concubines is unlimited, and, as amongst the Mormons, only bounded by the wealth of the husband, and his power of feeding additional mouths. The king of Ashanti has 3333 wives, a mystical number which is always kept up. Among the Ashantis, as among the Fantis, the sister's son inherits, to the prejudice of direct descendants. By this means they say they are sure that the heir has some at least of the true blood in his veins ! This custom tells with fatal significance that " it is a wise child that knows his own father." 106 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. According to Bosman, there are five classes or ranks of society viz., 1. The kings; 2. The Cabooceers, captains or headmen ; 3. The Pynims or sub-chiefs ; 4. The peasants or mechanics ; 5. The slaves. The latter are usually captives taken in war, or men sold by their relations, or occasionally men who have become slaves through extreme poverty. The relation of master and slave, especially in the case of the home-born, is much the same as in the days of Abraham. But though the slave may accumulate wealth, all that he makes is his master's. Among many curious customs, too long to be touched upon in the limits of this paper, I may mention that of intermural sepulture, which on the Gold Coast seems to have reached its climax. Corpses are buried in the base- ments of dwelling-houses, -a most pernicious custom, fatal to health. With the dead body, which is sprinkled with gold-dust, are interred pearls, precious metals, ornaments, Aggri beads, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. IO/ and clothes of the greatest value. Hence it comes about that the tombs of the kings of Ashanti in Coomassie are supposed to be the despositories of fabulous amounts of gold and jewels. This idea of burying treasures with the dead dates from the earliest history the Jews, whose rites and ceremonies show distinct traces of African fetishism, having long pre- served the custom. The native houses are usually but one story high, though occasionally the chiefs have two stories to their houses. They are built of swish, clay puddled with water ; the floors are of mud, daubed over strong lathing ; and the roofs of a substantial thatch made of palm-leaves. If not protected by deep overhanging eaves, these swish walls are apt to crumble and fall away during heavy rains, as happened lately in Cape Coast and Elmina. 108 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 3. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. A long green-grown tongue of reddish land, Topographical broken with dwarf cliffs and scaurs, features. an( j ij ne( j below w ith clean sand ; on the outline three projections, two of which are martello-like towers, the third a castle with a mass of native huts clustering at the back, this is the voyager's first sight of Cape Coast Castle. To the westward the long batteries and rectangular towers of St George della Mina, commanded by the single central tower of Fort St Jago the background a wavy mass of little hills, paps, and hummocks, all bushy, some with rounded tops, others with little table-lands, and prolonged in crescent shape towards the Atlantic. This is the coast of Guinea, the land which gave its name to the British coin, the land where " Afric's sunny fountains Boll down their golden sands." Around Cape Coast the soil is sandy and THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 109 highly ferruginous, with a stunted vegetation, the country rocky and undulating, the most noticeable feature being the round-topped hills of disintegrated granite, showing unmistakably that they belong to the primary geological period. After the first ten or fifteen miles along the road to the Prah, the stunted vege- tation gives way to an entanglement of high bush, blended with tall trees ; and this forest gradually becomes denser and denser until at last the traveller enters what Dupuis calls " a solid rampart of vegetation, extending east and west from Aquapim to Ahanta, in the form of one compact forest of the most stupen- dous character." This forest extends north- ward to some forty or fifty miles on the other side of Coomassie, where it gives place to vast plains reaching to the foot of the Kong Moun- Theroadto tains. The total distance from Coomassie. Cape Coasfc Castle to Coomassie, by the windings of the path, is 160 to 180 miles in a direct line, not more than 125. 1 10 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. The River Prali is about half-way, and up to this point the road may be described as being what would be considered in England an indifferent path : this portion of the route was cleared and widened during the last Ashanti war in 1863-64; and though doubtless the bush has again grown over, leaving only a narrow pathway wide enough for one man, yet the labour of reclearing it will not be so great. The route winds amongst the trees, crossing many small streams, which at first flow to the east and south-east to the Amissa or Okee River ; but on approaching the Prah, the streams flow west and south-west to join that river. Dupuis says that the waters of the rivers, with few exceptions, were "limpid and sweet-flavoured;" and Hutton speaks of them as "clear and murmuring streams, delightful to the traveller in this country, where the exces- sive heat and fatigue almost constantly occa- sion thirst." On the other side of the Prah the route is THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. Ill spoken of by an eyewitness who has only lately travelled over it, as a mere track, here and there scarcely any sign of a path to be seen, though the natives know the true direction to follow by conspicuous trees and other signs, and tokens peculiar to woodcraft. How this description is to be reconciled with the fact that the whole Ashanti army of invasion lately passed over this track, and that provisions and ammunition have been in all probability fre- quently sent down it, it is hard to say. I daresay we shall know more about it by-and- by. From the Elver Prah to the Adansi Hills, about forty miles, the forest is more open, and has less undergrowth ; the country is thinly peopled, the crooms being small and scattered, seldom containing more than 500 inhabitants. It formerly belonged to the Assims ; and it is not until we cross the Adansi range that we get into Ashanti proper, from which point to Coomassie the villages are more populous and more frequent. 112 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. The soil generally may be described as being, on the higher hills, a reddish earth, Soil. with gravel and large masses of iron- stone and granite ; and on the lesser hills, white flint and whinstone. The earth is black, strong, and rich, producing grass 4 to 10 feet in height, and in the plantations a great variety of tropical plants, such as cotton, in- digo, coffee, rice, sugar-cane, maize, yams, plantains, bananas, casavas, guavas, and pine- apples. The principal trees are the cotton, ironwood, doom palm, bamboo, and papaw. The cotton trees form the most distinguishable feature in the landscape, attaining an enor- mous height and size 150 feet high and 50 feet in circumference at the base being spoken of as not uncommon : they are used by the natives for making canoes, as the wood is light and porous. Flowering shrubs, convolvuli, and exquisite parasitical plants, abound in tropical profusion. Briefly, the whole country is one mass of THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 113 dense forest, impenetrable to man, and forming the chief physical obstacle to the advance of an army ; but in addition to this " bush," the two rivers, Prah and Dah, and the Adansi Hills, must be noticed. The Prah River rises in a mountain between The Prah Akeya and Quahoo (two provinces River. lying N> and NK of Coomassie), near a little croom called Sumtassoo. It is looked upon as a tutelary god, or fetish, and is generally called " Bossom Prah," or the Sacred Prah. Human sacrifices are made to it at its spring-head, said to be a large gaping rock half- way up the mountain. Its course is first south- erly, then south-west, until a few miles beyond the town of Prahsue, where it bends again to the south, and falls into the sea at Chamah, 25 miles west of Cape Coast Castle. At the mouth there is a somewhat dangerous bar, with a depth of water varying according to the season from three to five feet. In the rainy season the current is constantly running H 114 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. out ; in the dry season there is a three hours' flood and nine hours' ebb. The river is navi- gable for small craft for some distance about two days' journey when navigation is stopped by rapids and waterfalls, occasioned by a tract of hilly country. For about 60 miles of its course, counting from its bend at Prahsue up- stream in an N.E. direction, it forms the boundary between Ashanti and the British Protectorate. Opposite Prahsue the Eiver Prah flows be- tween steep banks 40 to 60 feet high, with a strong current of three or four miles per hour; and is estimated to be from 4 to 7 feet deep, and 40, 80, and 100 yards broad a discrepancy doubtless owing to the season of the year, and the amount of the previous rain- fall. The ford is below some shelving rocks in the centre of the river, and crosses in a slant- ing direction up-stream : the bottom is a rich clay, free from pebble, and covered with a bed of light sand. At this point it is described as THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 11$ being a " noble " river, flowing through a richly- wooded country, with beautiful scenery resem- bling the Thames at Richmond ! When the first detachment of the Ashanti army, 12,000 strong, crossed this river in three divisions last February, it was apparently unfordable, as the men are reported to have been ferried over in two canoes, each of which held 30 men, and made four trips an hour. The passage was unopposed, and occupied five days. The Dah River rises in Akeya near the The River village of Jacomasi, passes the large town of Juabim, and crosses the Cape Coast road at Sarassoo, about seven miles from Coomassie. Its course is south- westerly, and it falls into the Ofim River, a tributary of the Prah, about two days' journey west of Prahsue. Where the road crosses it, it is about three feet deep and forty feet wide, with a bed of coarse and very white sand ex- tending many hundred paces from the river. Il6 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. The Adansi or Moinsey range of bills con- The Adansi stitute by far the most serious Hills. physical obstruction between Cape Coast Castle and Coomassie ; indeed they are the only hills worthy of the name. Very little is known as to their extent; but they are believed to commence on the N.W. side of Bequa, from thence inclining easterly to Datiassoo and Doompassi, where they divide into two branches, one running N.E. to the Echony Lake, the other S. of east, through Assim and Akim to Aquamboe, and the neighbourhood of Accra, where it unites with the chain that may be seen at the distance of twenty miles from that place. The Adansi Hills cross the Coomassie road at about thirty- nine miles N. of the Prah, the ascent on the south side being abrupt, rugged, and broken into deep gullies. On the summit, 1600 feet above the sea -level, is a small undulating table -land of only a few hundred yards in extent, and there the path leads down the THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 117 north slope at a much more favourable in- cline, the country on that side being at a higher elevation than that on the south side. There are said to be two other paths across this range besides the main route : one, called the King's Road, (because it is usually fol- lowed by the king of Ashanti) leaves the main path near the village and stream of Ansah, and passing round to the eastward, rejoins the path at Fomanah ; the other leaves the main path at the foot of the ascent, and passes round to the westward. It therefore appears probable that the point at which the main path crosses the hills is the steepest and worst, though perhaps the most direct ; and that a more feasible road might be found on one side or the other illustrating the old proverb, that "the longest way round is the shortest way home." Il8 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 4. THE KINGDOM OF ASHANTI. The kingdom of Ashanti (pronounced Sianti) from W. to E. embraces Ashanti. about 4 longitude, and from N. to S. about 4 latitude ; consequently it has an area of some 70,000 English square miles. Over this tract the king rules with undis- puted and despotic sway, every king, chief, viceroy, or cabooceer, being his unconditional and absolute vassal and slave. Coomassie (or Kumassi), the capital, situ- ated according to Dupuis in lat. 6 51' N., long. 2 16' W., is a large and well-built city, containing a population which has been variously estimated at 25,000 and 200,000 inhabitants, rather a wide discrepancy ! Lieut. - Governor Winniett says it is very different in appearance from the other native towns of this part of Africa. The streets are generally very broad and clean, and or- namented with many beautiful banyan-trees, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 119 affording a grateful shade from the powerful rays of the sun. The houses looking into the streets are all public rooms on the ground- floor, varying in dimensions from 24 feet by 12 to 15 feet by 9 ; they are entirely open to the street in front, but raised above its level from one to six feet by an elevated floor consisting of clay polished with red ochre. They are entered from the street by steps made of clay and polished like the floor. The walls consist of wattle-work plastered with clay, and washed with white clay ; the roofs are made of palm -leaves, and as the eaves extend far over the walls, the front base- ments of the raised floors (which are generally covered with rude carvings of various forms) have their beautiful polish preserved from the effects of both sun and rain. This mode of building gives to the streets a peculiar aspect of cheerfulness. Each of these open rooms is connected with a number of rooms behind it, quite concealed from public view, which consti- 120 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. tute the dwellings of the people ; and there may be connected with each public room, in the manner above described, from 50 to 250 inmates. The city is built upon the side of a large hill of ironstone, embosomed in an immense forest, and may be described as an oblong of nearly four miles in circumference, without including the populous suburbs of Assafoo on the south, and the Bantammah on the north, which are respectively a half-mile and a quarter-mile distant, and were formerly connected with the city by streets. Coomassie would be a com- paratively healthy town, were it not that it is surrounded by an extensive tract of swampy land, varying in width from 20 to 100 yards, and in depth from 2 to 5 feet, according to the season. This swamp is caused by the overflow of the little river Soubin, which flows nearly all round the town ; and the exhalations from it cover the city morning and evening with a THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 121 dense fog, engendering dysentery, to which natives coming from the coast are especially liable. It has, however, the redeeming feature of affording a good supply of water to the town, and it would doubtless play a most important part in any military operations. The principal buildings are "the King's Palace," the Bantammah, and the Iminihiah. The king's palace is built of quarried stone, and is a large and spacious edifice, two stories high, with large and lofty rooms. It covers a space of five acres. The Bantammah is described as a " fortified The Bantam- building ; " in what manner " for- ma ^- tified" I cannot ascertain. In it are deposited the tombs of the kings of Ashanti, the crown jewels, and the most valu- able treasures ; it is also one of the principal magazines for military munitions in the king- dom, thus answering the double purpose of our Tower of London and Woolwich Arsenal. The charge of this important building is 122 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. always intrusted to one of the greatest of the Ashanti nobles, who is called Governor or Keeper of the Bantammah. This post is now held by Amon Quartier, the general in com- mand of the Ashanti army. The Iminihiah, or king's summer palace, is The situated about two miles N.E. of Iminihiah. ^ town< j t ig not ment i one( i by Bowdich or Dupuis, from which it may be in- ferred that it is of modern construction. The king constantly retires to it for a few days' relaxation and change of air, and it appears to be his favourite residence. It is not nearly so large as the palace in Coomassie, and this is all I have been able to ascertain about it. May we hope that it rivals in beauty and barbaric magnificence the far-famed summer palace at Pekin ! Coomassie has eight principal roads, bear- Roads * n & * ne name f * ne king in whose reign they were cut, or of the country they lead to. Four of these connect THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 123 the capital with the sea-coast, the other four with large towns in the interior. Of the four maritime roads, the most westerly is one lead- ing to Assinee and Apollonia, along which the Ashantis now obtain their principal supplies of powder and lead ; the next westerly is the Wassaw road, leading through Denkara, and thence branching off to Cape Three Points, Chamah, and Elmina ; the third road is the main route through Assim and Fanti, vid Prahsue and Mansue ; the fourth runs S.E. through the large town of Juabim, and parts of Akim and Aquapim to Accra. This last road is said to be 160 miles as the crow flies, and 240 by the windings of the path ; which little fact will give a good idea of the serpentine windings caused by the denseness of the forest. The four inland roads run in directions from N.W. to N.E., and connect Coomassie with large cities in the interior; for instance, one leads to Salgha, a large town on the upper Volta, supposed to be twice the size of Coo- 124 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. massie, and to contain 400,000 inhabitants. This road passes through a beautiful country, in which the crooms are environed by exten- sive plantations : there is much traffic on it, and caravans pass regularly to and fro. The inland roads are infinitely superior to the mari- time roads. .There is much more traffic on them; and as they emerge on the fourth or fifth day from the great forest which surrounds Coomassie, they then extend over vast plains, where there is no impediment to the traveller. Not so, however, with the coast or maritime roads. These are but paths cut in the forest, and as the natives invariably travel in single file, these paths are only wide enough for one man at a time : no beast of burden could pass unless the path were widened. They are also, unavoidably, most capricious and serpentine, since the labour of cutting them straight, ac- cording to our European notions, would be immense. It is fair to infer that in the immediate THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 12$ vicinity of the capital the roads are in good order. Lieutenant -Governor Winniett, writ- ing in 1848, mentions a visit paid to him at the Wesleyan Mission-house in Coomassie by the king, who came "in the beautiful little phaeton presented to him in 1841 by the Wesleyan Missionary Society." As no beasts of burden are mentioned, this phaeton was probably drawn as a four-in-hand by slaves harnessed two -and -two between the shafts, with a kind of yoke or cross-bar resting on the head. The district in the immediate vicinity of the capital is well peopled, particularly on the north side. The largest town within a radius of thirty miles is Juabim, bearing S.E. from Coomassie one day's journey, or about fifteen English miles. This town is said to contain 70,000 inhabitants, and to be one-third the size of the capital. The eight principal roads above mentioned have many towns situated on their lines, which are totally unknown to Euro- 126 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. peans : it has been ascertained that many others, more or less populous, are situated on cross - paths intersecting the main roads. Beecham says that sixteen towns are acces- sible by the pathway leading northwards, and fourteen on the pathway to Salgha. It must not, however, be supposed that these eight roads form the only means of native intercommunication : there are small towns and villages scattered about all over Fanti and Ashanti land, hidden away in the bush, never visited by Europeans. Each little village has its bush-paths to the neighbouring villages, which paths are more or less acces- sible, according to the size of the villages and the consequent traffic over them. The Ashantis, like the Fantis, have their lucky and unlucky days, depending on the day of the week that the king's Adai custom begins, which occurs every twenty days. If it begins on a Wednesday, then Wednesday is a most unlucky day, also the following Friday THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 127 week. Monday is a favourite day with them for an attack ; but they never attempt night surprises all their movements are conducted with the utmost deliberation ; they remain for days and weeks in the same spot, building for themselves neat and comfortable lean-to huts made of bamboos thatched over with palm- leaves. When they intend attacking a town, they commence by cutting numerous war-paths from the bush where they are encamped, so as to surround the town. They love the bush, and dislike fighting in the open. Their tactics are invariably the same an attempt to out- flank their enemy on both flanks, withdrawing or refusing their centre; and these simple tactics have never failed to win them success in their wars against the neighbouring negro tribes. The king's great oath, when he is really in earnest, is by " Meminda Carmanti " or Cormanti Saturday, when their great king, Osai Tootoo Quamina, was slain by the Akims. It is said that the present king of Ashanti, 128 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. Coffie Calcalli, has sworn by Meminda Cor- manti'that he will drive the white men into the sea, and that his army shall remain in Fanti-land until this is accomplished. Similar to this Ashanti oath is that of the people of Cape Coast, who swear by " Karte Ukuda " or " Macarthy's Wednesday," the day of the week on which Sir Charles Macarthy was killed. 5. CLIMATE, TEMPERATURE. The climate of the Gold Coast differs con- siderably from that of the other Climate. J British settlements in West Africa. The thermometer is actually lower ; but the air, particularly on the coast, is heavily charged with moisture, giving out a kind of damp heat, which makes one feel as if constantly in a vapour-bath, and making everything rust that can rust ; even gold and silver getting rapidly tarnished. The hot weather, or dry season, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 129 when the thermometer ranges from 72 to 88 F., lasts from the middle of December to the middle of April, when rain may be expected until the end of August or beginning of Sep- tember the heaviest in May and June. At Coomassie the rainy season begins a month earlier. September and October are tolerably free from rain until the " little rains " (or " tor- nado season "), which last about six weeks from the middle of October. In December, January, and February, a dry wind from the Great Des- ert, called the Harmattan, sets in, and dries up everything, making woodwork warp, and pens and paper crack and split. This wind is con- sidered healthy, and sometimes goes by the name of " the Doctor." It is very little felt on the coast, not having strength enough to over- come the strong sea-breeze which sets in every morning about 9 or 10 o'clock. As the country rises gradually from the coast, its salubrity increases, although the actual range of the thermometer is higher 96 F. in the I 130 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. open spots ; and after passing the Adansi Hills there is a marked improvement, the whole range of the land being higher. With regard to the amount of rain we ma}' expect in the next few months, the following table, taken from Dr Madden's Eeport for the year 1840, may prove interesting ; but the rain- fall in the interior is greater than that on the coast : In October it rained on 8 days. Amount, 3.5 inches. November 8 3.13 , December 5 .803 , January 2 1.56 , February 4 .214 , April 8 5.68 , May 20 19.5 , June 21 7.69 , As regards the mode of living, and preserva- tion of health, so much has been dinned into our ears of late on this subject, that it has become wearisome in the extreme. There is scarcely a single article of diet which somebody has not written to the newspapers to warn us THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ASHANTI. 131 against. Every one who has been out to the Gold Coast for ever so short a time has his own peculiar nostrum, his infallible recipe for the preservation of health. I need only say that flannels should be worn day and night, and that cold tea is unanimously allowed to be the best thing to work on. Healthy exercise, moderation in all things, avoidance of unnecessary exposure to the mid- day sun, and constant occupation, will, I firmly believe, dissipate this bugbear, and rob this so-called dangerous climate of more than half its- risk. THE END. 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