# Africa by Élisée Reclus/Volume 3/Chapter 6

Contents
CHAPTER VI.
UPPER GUINEA.
Liberia.
HE "Land of Liberty" has not yet fulfilled all the promises made on its behalf by its founders. Hence, by an inevitable reaction, most travellers casually touching at some port of the republic allow themselves to indulge in severe censures, too often inspired by racial prejudice. But surely the very constitution itself of a society consisting exclusively of the children of slaves or freedmen, developed in a region where the slavers were wont to collect their gangs of captives, must be regarded as an event of supreme importance. In any case, far from being a weaker or worse organised state than the neighbouring European "colonies," Liberia has at least the advantage of being a colony in the true sense of the word. Its immigrant founders were not more passing travellers, but here took their permanent abode, and here their issue have continued the work begun by them. In speech, usages, and institutions they even represent European culture itself. Yet they are blacks like the natives, and, although too often keeping aloof from them in the fatal character of "civilised aristocrats," they have none the less, in the long run, exercised considerable influence on the tribes in whose domain they have taken up their abode. With their neighbours they have mostly dwelt in peace, and less by force of arms than by friendly treaties they have succeeded in acquiring the political supremacy over the extensive region at the western angle of the continent. Still the Liberians have also had their wars with the surrounding wild tribes, whom they have reduced by barbarous measures, cutting down their palm-groves and wasting their tilled lands.
In 1815 some forty American Negroes were brought over to Sierra-Leone by a Wealthy fellow-countryman of Massachusetts, and next year an American society was founded for settling emancipated slaves on the African seaboard, whence their ancestors had been carried off. But the first expedition under its auspices did not take place till 1820. It was directed to Furah Bay in the Sierra-Leone estuary; but having been badly received by the English, the settlement was removed in 1822 to a bay commanded by Cape Mensurado, 210 miles south-east of Freetown. ​After tho first difficulties were surmounted the colony gradually expanded, strip after strip of territory being added year after your, and parcelled out in the American fashion in geometrical parallel lines at right angles with the coast, But the settlement did not yet constitute an independent state, and continued to be administered by delegates of the American society, whence arose frequent diplomatic difficulties, tho English traders on the coast refusing: to pay customs to a private company, At last the society surrendered its claims, and the revolutionary your, 1848, saw the birth of the new Negro Republic on African soil,
Most of the powers hastened to recognise the independence of Liberia, which at that time comprised about eight thousand "citizens," and three hundred and fifty thousand natives, In 1482 tho first had increased to eighteen thousand, while all the other inhabitants of the vassal states were approximately estimated at one million and fifty thousand; but from this number must he deducted the people of the coast between Manna Point, near Sherbro Island, and the river Manna near Cape Mount, which was definitely annexed to Sierra-Leone in 1883,
At present the aren of colonisation covers an extent of 15,000 square miles, But the State would be four times more extensive if be included all the territories ​officially protected in virtue of treaties concluded with the native populations, some of which even lie to the east of the hills in the Niger basin.
As now delimited, the territory of the republic forms a somewhat regular ​LIBEEIA. 216 quadrilateral, stretching 380 miles along tlie coast, with an average breadth of 150 miles. The seaboard is intersected by numerous streams mostly with narrow ba?ins, and flowing in parallel beds from north-east ^o south-west, according to the normal slope of the land. At high water and during the periodical floods nearly all the low country between the first line of hills in the interior and the coast dunes is submerged. The Saint Paul, largest of the Liberian rivers, rises nearly 200 miles from the sea, north of the Foma hills and south of the Loma range, which separates its basin from that of the ^iger. It is navigable for about 20 miles by vessels drawing 10 feet, and even above the rapids the upper reaches are in many places deep enough for river craft. But a dangerous bar at its mouth obliges all seagoing vessels to ride at anchor in Monrovia Bay. The Saint Paul is joined in a common delta by the Mensurado, and farther east two other rivers, the Queah and the Junk, converge on the coast. Other considerable streams are the Cestos, Sangwin (Sanguin), Sinu, and Cavally (Cavalla), the last so named by the Portuguese because it is within a ride ( '* cavalcade " ) of Cape Palmas. Beyond this point follows the San- Pedro, forming the eastern frontier within the limits of the Ivory Coast on the Gulf of Guinea. Several of these streams, notably the Cavally, are accessible to boats for 70 miles from the coast, which is here endangered by numerous sandbanks. One steamship company alone lost six vessels in ten years between Sierra-Leone and Cape Palmas. Most of the Liberian rivers are separated from each other by intervening ridges or spurs projecting from the ^landingan plateau. But most of the sea- board is low, either fringed with lagoons or carved by the waves into small red and white cliffs, with here and there a few conspicuous headlands. Such is Cape Mount, a wooded almost insular bluff, whose highest crest rises 1,005 feet above sea-level. Cape Mensurado (Montserrado), although less elevated (280 feet), is a more important object for mariners, as it projects farther seaward and marks the entrance to the port of Monrovia, capital of the republic. In the interior is visible a chain of hills culminating in the Table Mountain, 1,100 feet high. North of Cape Palmas, at the angle of the continent between the Atlantic and Gulf of Guinea, another hilly mass, consisting of red sandstone, ries to a height of 1,094 feet. In several places, and especially to the east of Monrovia, eruptive rocks have cropped out, but the prevailing formation appears to be a reddish clay over- lain by a ferruginous sandstone like that of Sierra-Leone and Senegambia. The Mandingan plateau when cleared of its natural growth of tall grasses is extremely fertile, and according to Anderson, potatoes here grow to a size of eight or ten pounds. On the escarpments of this plateau are strewn some granite boulders, several of which are scored with stria), another indication that these equatorial regions had also their glacial period. Climate. The seasons are less regular in Liberia than on the more northern coastlands, which must doubtless be attributed to the change in the direction of the shore-line, ​facing in one direction westwards, in another southwards. But the general distribution of the seasons is the same as in Senegambia, the year being divided into a dry period lasting from December to the end of April, and a wet, which is again divided into a period of heavy and one of slight rains. The torrential downpours last from the beginning of May to the middle of August, when an interval of fine weather is followed towards the end of September by fresh rains accompanied by sudden storms.
Notwithstanding its equatorial position, the mean annual temperature of Monrovia is not more than 81° F., the daily variations lying between 77° and 86°; in other words, its climate corresponds to that of hot summers in temperate
zones. The greatest extremes occur during the dry season, when the intense heat of the day is followed by comparatively cool nights, caused by the harmattan blowing from the uplands of the interior. The harmattan is mostly accompanied by dense fogs, which are generally dissipated during the morning, but which at times last, like those of England, all day long. Normally the atmospheric currents succeed each other with the regularity of clockwork. The land-breeze prevails in ​
the morning, following a mean direction from north to south, and is replaced in tl^iO afternoon by sea breezes from the west. The Liberian climate is considered highly dangerous for immigrants, but still Jess so than that of Sierra-Leone. The whites have a settled belief that a residence of over three years would be fatal to Europeans, who especially dread the dry season and marsh fever. Most maladies cause a certain decomposition of the blood, which is expressed by the local saying that the prick of a needle first draws a drop of water and then one of blood. Even Negroes from the United States are liable to marsh fever, from which the aborigines are exempt. Flora of Liberia. The Liberian flora, coming within the Sudanese zone, differs little from that of Sierra-Leone, which it rivals in the wealth of its vegetation and the extent and beauty of its woodlands. Even the dunes are clothed with plants, such as the convolvulus with its flowery wreaths, and the dwarf palm {hyphcene) expanding its fan-shaped foliage within a few feet of the ground. The cocoa-nut, introduced at an unknown date, here found a congenial soil, and has run wild not only on the coast but also along the riverain tracts. Few of the uncultivated plants yield edible fruits, although Liberia is the home of a variety of the coffee plant which grows spontaneously in the forests, and which has recently acquired great econo- mic importance for the revival of exhausted plantations in other tropical regions. The Lemileia vasfafrix, which has committed such havoc in Ceylon, India, Java, and Brazil, has compelled growers to replace the old Abyssinian and Arab stock by the Liberian plant, at least on plantations at a corresponding altitude, this variety generally occupying a lower zone than that of the common species. Its berry also is equally fragrant, when subjected to suitable treatment. It is not, however, a shrub like that of Arabia, but a tree, which in the primeval AYest African forests occasionally attains a height of from 40 to 50 feet. More pre- cocious and productive than the ordinary plant, it resists the attacks of the Lemileia vastatrix, and flourishes in the vertical zone comprised between sea-level and 2,800 or 3,000 feet of altitude, thriving best in an argillaceous and slightly silicious soil. Liberia also exports palm-oil, caoutchouc, and the camwood {baphia Lcematoxylon) employed especially in France for dying textiles. The native flora also includes a "fever tree," whose foliage appears to possess the efficacy of quinquina. Yew ground-nuts are now exported, owing to the depredations of rodents and other animals, but the lower course of the St. Paul is already fringed with cocoa-nuts and sugar-cane. But the so-called " pepper," which gives its name to the " Grain Coast," is now entirely neglected by exporters. It is a species of cardamom (amomum granum paraclisi), which in the sixteenth century was used for adding fire to alcoholic drinks, and which is still employed by the natives as a febrifuge and for perfuming the dead. 78— AF ​218 WEST AFRICA. Fauna. The slight differences that exist between the Liberian and neighbouring faunas are explained by the nature of the soil and distribution of the woodlands. On the Mandingan plateau the savannahs are roamed over by multitudes of antelopes, buffaloes, and elephants, while domestic animals — horse, ox, goat, and sheep — thrive well in the settled districts. But in the moist low- lying valleys there are no flocks or herds, and imported horses rapidly yield to the climate. The large variety of the hippopotamus is rare, and still rarer the smaller species, as well as the two varieties of the crocodile. Nor are rapacious animals very numerous in the forests, where no lions or hyaenas are met, while the leopards occasionally seen prowling about the enclosures are timid creatures, of whom the natives have no dread. The most formidable beast is a buffalo, the hush-cow of the Liberians. There are also some chimpanzees, or "baboons," as they are called, which are greatly respected and never eaten, because of their resemblance to man. The woods are inhabited by several other species of monkeys, and the clearings by various kinds of antelopes, including the spinigera, smallest of the gazelle family. Insects swarm in such numbers that Liberia has been called the home of the ant, and whole quarters of Monrovia, undermined by termites, have had to be rebuilt. Inhabitants. The plateaux and uplands of the interior are occupied by the powerful Man- dingan nation, who have advanced from the east, and who here as elsewhere in West Africa exercise great influence, thanks to their superior civilisation. At the foot of the escarpments some fortified valleys in the St. Paul basin belong to the Pessi and Bussi, warlike tribes distinguished by their extremely courteous manners. Both have their distinct speech and system of tattooing, and, according to "Win- wood Reade, cannibal feasts were held as recently as ] 870. The Bussi are good husbandmen, raising large quantities of cotton for export. A more powerful and numerous people are the Golas, or Guras, who dwell chiefly along the western afiluents of the St. Paul and the neighbouring rivers. They are fierce warriors, who are said to have nearly exterminated the Deh or Devoi tribe, some of whom are still met about the plantations on the coast. On the north frontier the banks of the Marfa and Fisherman's Lake are held by the Yei, a branch of the Mandingans, numbering some fifty thousand souls. These peaceful agriculturists have mostly adopted Islam, but their harmonious speech, which has been carefully studied by Koelle and other grammarians, is gra- dually being replaced by Liberian-English. It possesses a syllabic alphabet of over two hundred characters, invented in 1834 by Doalu Bukere, a powerful member of the tribe. This writing system is even still used in correspondence and for record- ing family events, and in it the inventor wrote a history of his nation and a treatise on ethics. South of the St. Paul follow the still savage Barlins, and beyond them the ​Bassas, the Kroos south of the Sinu River, and the Grebos near Cupe Palmas. The peaceful and industrious Bassas, numbering fifty thousand, supply a great part of the republic with rice, poultry, and other provisions, A southern branch of the Bassas, together. with the Fishermen, the Nifus, Grebos, and Krus, numbering collectively about forty thousand, are grouped under the general designation of Kroomen, or Krooboys, either a corruption of "crew-men," "crew-boys," or else derived from Kraoh, the primitive name of one of their tribes living near Settra-Kroo. They are traditionally from the interior, the kindred Grebos having apparently reached the Cape Palmas district since the Portuguese discoveries. But they
have now become skilful fishermen and excellent sailors, displaying uncommon daring, coolness, and dexterity.
The Kroos, properly so called, form a compact body only in the narrow strip of coast between the Sinu River and Cape Palmas, where are situated their five chief villages, Kroober, Little Kroo, Settra-Kroo, Nana Kroo, and King Williamstown. But beyond this territory they occupy numerous hamlets on the coast, where every town has also its Kroo quarter (Krootown), exclusively inhabited by these seafaring Negroes. They are a stout, muscular, broad-chested race, probably the most vigorous and robust of all African peoples. The head, joined by a bull's neck to their broad shoulders, presents the ordinary Negro type — flat nose, prominent checkbones, thick lips, slightly projecting incisors, yellow, bloodshot eyes; in fact, "the ​220 WEST APEICA. head of a Sileniis on the body of an Antinous.'* Morally, as well as physically, the Kroos are one of the most remarkable peoples in Africa. At once honest and proud, and conscious of their power, they are passionately fond of freedom, never enduring servitude at the hands of any masters. Although settled on a seaboard exposed for four centuries to the visits of the slavers, they have always combined to resist every attempt at capture, and when they were seized they either starved or drowned themselves to escape bondage. Nor did they ever themselves trade in human flesh with the whites, although domestic slavery was a national institution. The Fishermen, however, originally a distinct tribe, but now mainly assimilated to the Kroos, made no slaves, but sacrificed captives taken in war under a fetish tree. The Kroos constitute small commonwealths, whose hereditary chief is, so to say, merely a ^'minister of foreign affairs," whose duty it is to deal for the common good with European captains and the representatives of Liberia. He does all the speaking at the palavers, gives and receives the presents, but takes no part in the government of the tribe. The elders,^ recognised by the iron ring worn on their leg, discuss all the communal interests, deliberating on the measures to be taken and securing their execution. Their president, who is at the same time head of the fetish-men, has charge of the national symbols. His house is a sacred asylum for fugitives, whom he protects until convinced of their guilt. He is regarded as specially entrusted with the welfare of the nation, so that if all goes well he receives the public thanks, but otherwise is deposed and reduced to the position of a private citizen. Property, apart from a few personal objects, is held in common by the whole family, and cannot be alienated without the consent of its adult members. The land also is theoretically a collective property, but the actual tiller of the soil is its de facto owner, and he can be dispossessed by no one, although he has no right to sell it. When he ceases to work his plot it reverts to the community. Notwithstanding their devoted attachment to their homes and families, the Kroos are of all Africans the most given to temporary emigration. Leaving the cultivation of the soil to the women and captives, they offer themselves in their fourteenth or fifteenth year for emploj^ment either in the factories or on board ship, usually, however, stipulating for a short engagement, seldom extending beyond " thirteen moons." But for them European trade on the Guinea coast would be almost impossible. Vessels that have lost all or most of their white crews would be at the mercy of wind and water but for these hardy and daring mariners, who thus completely disprove the commonly accepted statement that the natives of tropical lands are always hopelessly indolent. Full of respect for their employers and loyal to their engagements, the energetic and persevering Kroomen also expect and insist on the faithful execution of the contract by the traders or skippers engaging them. They also do some trading on their own account, selling to the ships' companies cattle, rice, ground-nuts, palm-oil, and preparing sea- salt for the Mandingans of the interior. The Kroo language, a member of the Manda family, which also includes the Fanti, Ashanti, Bassa, and Grebo, is gradually giving place to English, at least in the neighbourhood of the factories. Most of the chiefs have received and accepted ​jocular English nicknames, such as Jack-after-Supper, Flying Jib, Two-pound-ten, and the like. Most of the villages also have an English by-name, and nearly every group of huts has in its vicinity a quarter bearing a similar name, preceded by the words "half," or "picanniny." The Kroos are also taking to European clothes, pea-jackets, felt or straw-hats, umbrellas, bracelets, and other ornaments, and the houses themselves are often fitted up with English furniture.
It may be questioned whether this native race is not exercising more civilising influences on the indigenous elements than the "American" colonists with their
pedantic ways and borrowed formulas. The white population numbered in 1884 no more than forty persons, all males except the wife of a missionary. The coloured people call themselves whites, and as such aspire to the government of the republic. Here party struggles turn on the ascendancy of the "coloured" or half-caste and full-blood Negroes, and hitherto the former have maintained themselves in office.
Apart from a few upright men who have endeavoured to carry out the work of moral regeneration for which the colony was founded, most of the Weegee, or "civilised" Liberians, endeavour to assert their own superiority by despising the ​"stinking bush-niggers," as they call the aborigines, and keeping them in a state of servitude and degradation. Scarcely any alliances are contracted between the "Americans" and the native women, so that the civilised population is mainly recruited by fresh arrivals, such as the numerous emancipated Negroes from South Carolina in 1877. Left to itself, it would diminish from year to year, and finally become absorbed by the surrounding aborigines.
Slavery has been abolished only in name, for although the law pronounces severe penalties against purchasers of slaves, it does not prohibit the traffic in
"boys," whom the planters get from insolvent chiefs in the interior and keep in bondage. The missionaries, who are here relatively numerous, have founded several inland stations, where they buy orphans and bring them up in the American way, giving them the name of some United States patron, who pays for the education of his adopted child. Several of the tribes about the plantations have also been converted to various Protestant sects, and like their kinsfolk in the New World, hold those camp-meetings at which prayers, psalm-singing, and preaching or shouting are intermingled with groans, sobs, frenzied dancing, fits, and convulsions. ​LIBERIA. 223 The foreign trade of Liberia, which iu 1885 was almost monopolised by three commercial houses, bears but a slight proportion to the extent of the state. Formerly the chief relations were with America, but at present nearly all the traffic lies with England and Hamburg. The people themselves take a direct part in the coasting trade, which employs a number of small craft of fifteen to eighty tons burden, built at Monrovia. Ivory, formerly a staple of export, has now been mostly replaced by dyewoods, caoutchouc, palm-oil, cofPee, ground-nuts, exchanged for textiles, implements, paper, and especially spirits and tobacco. The barter system of trade still prevails almost everywhere except in Monrovia and the other seaports, which have adopted a metal currency. Topography. Despite its convenient position, Bobertsporf, the northernmost town in the republic, is still little more than a rural commune dotted over with houses and huts. It is pleasantly situated at the foot of Cape Mount, whence an extensive prospect is commanded of the blue waters of Fisherman's Lake and of the sea, with its white fringe of breakers encircling the verdant headland. One of the crests of this peninsula, rising above the fever zone, has been chosen as the chief residence of the Liberian missionaries. Robertsport is the natural depot of all the streams converging in the common basin of Fisherman's Lake, but its pros- perity is impeded by the incessant local feuds of the Vei, Kosso, and Gallina chiefs, and so recently as 1882 it only escaped destruction by the opportune arrival of trooj)S from Monrovia. In times of peace it receives its supplies from the hamlets of Madina on Johnny Creek, Besscf, Coro on the Japaca, CoboUa, residence of the Vei king, " Sandfish," and Baporo, capital of king "Boatswain," in the Condo country. Baporo is a busy trading place, which at the time of Anderson's visit in 1868 had a population of about ten thousand, including representatives of all the sur- rounding tribes. But the dominant element were the great slave-owning Moham- medan Mandingans, who treat their slaves much more rigorously than do the neighbouring pagan tribes. All the towns in this district have sacred fishponds, inhabited by ** armed fish," formidable animals which struggle furiously for the offal thrown to them by the natives. They are covered with scars, and Anderson had reason to think that they were occasionally fed with human victims. Monrovia, capital of the republic, was so named in honour of the United States President Monroe. Its position is somewhat analogous to that of Robertsport, standing at the foot of a marine headland at the outlet of an estuary which re- ceives the discharge of several inland streams. But in the absence of fresh spring water, the inhabitants have to depend on cisterns, or to draw their supplies from the interior. The town is laid out in the regular American style, the chief thoroughfares running east and west at right angles with the by-streets. But the stone or wooden houses are not continuous, being built at considerable mtervals, with intervening courts and gardens planted with cocoa-nut palms and mangoes. The finer quarters are centred on the higher and more salubrious grounds near the fortifications which command the roadstead. ​A steamer penetrating from Monrovia through Stockton Creek northwards to the St. Paul River at Caldwell, keeps up the communications with all the sugar and other plantations lining the banks of this artery. Here all the groups of houses bear some American historic or geographic name, such as Virginia, Clay-Ashland,
Kentucky, New York. Millsburg, the Mühlenburg of the German missionaries, has also some plantations and small factories on the rapids of the St. Paul. But the Mandingan traders, who avoid all contact with the despised “ Americans,” and prefer to deal directly with the natives, have chosen as their depôt the town of Vanswah, situated in the marshy district a few miles west of the river. Here they ​have a school and a mosque, and from this place runs a well-kept highway across the forests northwards to Baporo. At Bojeh, about 60 miles from the coast, this road crosses another running south-west through Sublum, capital of the Gola territory, to Fisherman's Lake. These trade routes have a normal breadth of from 6 to 7 feet.
The upper valleys of the St. Paul, hitherto visited by only one explorer, seem destined to become one of the most flourishing regions in Africa. Here the population
is very dense, towns and cultivated districts following continuously along the slopes of the plateaux. The towns visited by Benjamin Anderson in 1860, Zolu, Fessabué, Bokkasah, Zigah Porah Zué, in the Bussi territory, and Zu-Zu on the St. Paul, are all places of several thousand inhabitants, and their fairs are attended by multitudes from the rural districts.
The eastern slope of the Vukkah Hills belongs to the Mandingans, whose chief town is Musardu, or Masadu, which, although much reduced from its former ​splendour, had still a population of nearly eight thousand in 1869, and its solidly built
ramparts were defended by a numerous garrison. Nevertheless, since then it has ​LIBERIA. 227 been several times occupied by the Sultan of Medina, a fortified town lying two or three days' journey farther east. Recent treaties with Liberia appear to have restored peace, and given the political suzerainty to the Monrovian Government. The women of Masadu and the neighbouring Billelah Kdifal wear jewellery made with the gold imported from the Fpper Niger washings. According to Anderson, the most productive placer is at Biihi, a four days' march to the east of Masadu. The small port of Marshall, at the mouth of the Junk, is but little frequented, whereas Grand Bassa, officially called Buchanan, is the commercial centre of the republic. Here are the chief factories, and the place is regularly visited by the large steamers plying along the west coast. On the opposite side of the St. John River stands Edina, over against Grand Bassa. Farther south the port of Green- ville, at the mouth of the Sinu, lies near the Kroo territory east of the Great and Little Butu rocks, coasts, and villages. Still farther south the new port of Nifa has been lately opened to foreign trade. Cape Palmas, at the angle of the continent, marks the site of the "American " town of Harper, the Bamnepo of the natives. Capital of the old colony of Mary- land, and now annexed to Liberia, Harper occupies one of the most salubrious positions on the coast, standing on a hilly island connected by a strip of sand with the mainland. The roadstead is sheltered by the islet of Russwurm, which is separated from the headland by a navigable channel. The white houses of Harper are visible from the sea through the clusters of cocoa-nuts which have given their name to Cape Palmas. But landwards the horizon is everywhere bounded by the unbroken skyline of the woodlands. The chief station of the Protestant m^'ssions lies to the north-east, on the banks of the Cavally River, and above this point follow several other settlements as far as Bohlen, at the head of the fluvial navigation. Bohlen lies in a region of auriferous sands, which have not yet been explored, because the tutelar deity demands human victims, and in this land of petty republican confederacies men are too valuable to be thus sacrificed. (Win wood Reade.) Not far from the mouth of the Cavally rises the " Stone of the Great Devil," a rock pierced at the base, which is frequented by awe-stricken pilgrims from every part of the Kroo territory. Their presents of corals, glass beads, tobacco, rum, animals, when placed at the entrance of the grotto suddenly disappear in a mysterious way. The sound made by the hidden demon swallowing the offerings of his worshippers is distinctly heard, say the believers. Near the stone is also shown the twisted stem of a tree, which is stated to be an impious scoffer, who laughed at the miracle as the clumsy trick of some knavish priest concealed in the recesses of the cave. Administration. The Liberian constitution is slavishly modelled on that of the L^nited States, without the slightest original feature adapted to the difference of race and climate. The Government consists of a President and a Vice-President, each selected for a period of two years from the class of proprietors worth at least £120. The ​electorate comprises all citizens twenty-one years of age. In case of death the President is replaced by the Vice-President, who is also President ex-officio of the Senate. The executive is entrusted to five cabinet ministers, irresponsible to the Congress, which comprises a Senate of eight members elected for two years, and a Chamber of Deputies elected for four years. These at present number thirteen, but are liable to be increased with the increase of population. The citizens are not eligible before their thirtieth year, and whites are excluded from the franchise. Till recently they could not even purchase land without first becoming naturalised; but since the late modification of the laws they are able to acquire real property, although still only indirectly through Government agency.
As in the United States, justice is administered through district courts and a high court at Monrovia. There is no state religion, although the American
Episcopal Church predominates, and public opinion exacts a formal observance of the Sabbath, even on the part of the Mohammedans. Every village of three hundred inhabitants supports a primary school, besides which two colleges have been founded for the higher instruction of both sexes.
All citizens between their sixteenth and fiftieth years are bound to military service, although seldom enrolled except during the wars with the surrounding tribes. The national militia comprises four territorial regiments, under the supreme command of a brigadier-general. The navy is limited to a few sloops and rowing-boats. The revenue falls short of £40,000; but the debt, imposed on the state by some dishonest. speculators, is relatively heavy, amounting in 1886 to £316,000.
Liberia is at present divided into four counties: Mesurado, Grand Bassa, Sinu, ​and Maryland. Until 1860 the last mentioned was a free Negro colony, forming a separate republic under the patronage of a Baltimore society. But since its union with Liberia it is administered by a "superintendent," who is charged with the duty of gradually assimilating the local institutions to those of the other counties. These are again subdivided into townships, defined, as in the United States, by geometrical lines, and each averaging 3 square miles in extent.
Ivory Coast — Grand Bassam — Assini.
East of Cape Palmas the coast-line develops a curve of surprising regularity stretching for 370 miles eastward to Cape Three Points. The greater part of this gently curved seaboard takes the name of the Ivory Coast, and also that of
the Leeward, in contradistinction to the Windward Coast, exposed to the fury of the Atlantic storms. It is divided by no prominent natural landmarks into distinct regions, nor have the political frontiers been accurately drawn till quite recently, to indicate the extent of territory appropriated by France. This territory, which extends for a still undetermined distance inland, presents a coast-line of about 130 miles.
The rest of the seaboard, stretching for 120 miles between the San-Pedro and ​230 WEST AFRICA. Lahu rivers, is one of the few sections of the continental periphery which has not yet been claimed by any European power. The western section of the Ivory Coast is also one of the least explored in the whole of Africa. Apart from the seaboard and the summits of the hills visible from the shore, nothing of this region is known except the names of some tribes and towns. The dark curtain of forest trees has not yet been raised. Yet few other countries reserve more inte- resting revelations for travellers. Due north were formerly supposed to lie the culminating points of the so-called Kong Mountains, figured on our maps from vague reports, but which would appear to form a comparatively low waterparting between the coast streams and the Niger basin. The western and still independent section of the Ivory Coast is the most elevated, and here the Sassandra (Saint Andrew) hills attain an extreme altitude of 980 feet. Farther on, Mount Langdon and the Sisters rise to- elevations of 360 and 390 feet respectively. Most of the cliffs appear to be of sandstone formation, and the streams here reaching the coast are said by the natives to traverse a large inland lagoon called Gle. The Lahu River, which now marks the western limit of the French possessions, seems to be of considerable length, and evidently rises in the uplands of the interior. It sends down a large volume, and enters the sea through three arms with intervening wooded islands. But the bars are so dan- gerous that they cannot be crossed even by canoes. Here the submarine bank stretches for a considerable distance seawards everywhere except at Little Bassam Bay, that is, the point where the arc developed by the Ivory Coast reaches its extreme northern convexity. An extremely deep trough or ditch, Ij mile wide, opens normally with the shore-line between the two submerged banks, which slope gently seawards. At 4 J miles off the coast the Little Ba-sani " ditch " has a depth of 1,600 feet ; at a third of a mile 600, and close in shore 120 feet. This submarine valley resembles the so-called " Gouf " near the south-east angle of the Bay of Biscay. Before reaching the sea the Lahu spreads out westwards in an island-studded lagoon separated from the Atlantic by a narrow strip of land. But east of the river this lagoon formation acquires far greater proportions. For a space of over 130 miles between the Lahu and the Tanwe there is, so to say, a double shore-line, the outer or seaward beach running in an almost straight line for an interminable distance west and east between the foam of the breakers and the verdant forests. The inner or continental line is broken by creeks and secondary inlets, presenting a labyrinth of approaches to the rivers of the interior. The Ebrie lagoon, forming the western section of this system of inland waters, comprises a multitude of channels, passages, isles, islets, and banks, stretching for 70 miles parallel with the coast, and navigable at all seasons for boats drawing 2J feet. The Akba or Comoe, largest of its affluents, and said to be 240 miles long, enters the lagoon at its east end, where it pierces the outer coast-line to reach the sea. During the floods it has a velocity of from 8 to 9 miles an hour, and its alluvia causes the bar to silt up to such an extent that vessels draAving 10 feet are unable to enter the lagoon. But at other times the bar is easily crossed, and the Great ​Bassam mouth, as it is called, gives the best access to the interior on the whole coast from Cape Palmas to the Bight of Benin. But about 24 miles from its mouth the Akba is interrupted by rapids near the village of Little Alepé.
The approach to the Assini (Issini) lagoon, some 22 miles farther east, resembles that of Lake Ebrié, but is shallower, more tortuous, and inaccessible to craft drawing more than 5 feet. But in the interior the lagoons ramify into numerous deep creeks and inlets, the two chief influents being the Bia or Kinjabo in the north-west, and the Tanwé, forming in the east the frontier of the French possessions.
The latter has been ascended to a distance of 60 miles from its delta in the Assini lagoon, but on the Kinjabo all navigation is soon arrested by the Aboiso Falls. Both rivers, as well as their tributaries, are washed for gold, the tenacious clayey soil of their beds yielding an average of about two shillings the cubic metre. On the slopes north of the lagoon, Chaper has discovered boulders and clays of glacial origin. Thus for a space of 900 miles, from the south Senegambian rivers to the Gold Coast, traces are presented of former glacial action.
Climate, Flora, and Fauna.
The climate of the Ivory differs little from that of the Grain Coast. Here also ​the year is divided into two rainy seasons, with two intervening periods of dry weather. For strangers the most dangerous period begins in October with the north-east winds, corresponding to the harmattan of the Liberian coast. The exports, such as oil, dyewoods, gums, ground-nuts, wax, ivory, also show that the flora and fauna of the unexplored interior are much the same as in Liberia. The
only plant extensively cultivated is coffee, which is largely grown by a French house along the west bank of the Albi. Here are found three species of monkeys, including the chimpanzee; the elephant also is occasionally seen on the coast. But the hippopotamus, which formerly frequented the creeks and lagoons, has almost entirely disappeared, at least from the Assini district. Chaper has met the ​
sloughs of pythons over thirty feet long and twenty inches round in the middle. But notwithstanding their size, these animals are little dreaded by the natives. Inhabitants. The populations in the western districts of the Ivory Coast are still classed as Kroomen. The Glebos (Gleboe), as they are called, belong probably to the same stock as their western neighbours, the Grebos, and the two names are perhaps fun- damentally one. Cannibalism is said to have only recently disappeared, and mention is made of a tribe in this district with such a limited vocabulary that their speech requires to be supplemented by continuous gestures and play of features. On the banks of the Gle lagoon report speaks of a colony of fetish women, vowed to celi- bacy, and governed by a queen, who by means of certain herbs develops a kind of artificial elephantiasis. All male children born in these Amazonian villages are at once put to death, but girls are carefully trained for their future profession of fetish women. East of the Glebos follow numerous tribes, scarcely better known than the fore- going, and speaking dialects of which very incomplete vocabularies have hither- to been procured. The leading people appear to be the Avekvoms or Avikoms, who occupy a part of the Adu country to the west of the Lahu river. For over two centuries these Negroes have been commonly known by the name of Kwa-Kwa (Quoa-Quoa), from their salutation, which Bosman compares to the quacking of ducks. The trading station of Great Lahu on the outer coastline west of the Lahu mouth is inhabited by Avekvoms. The tribes farther east about the Ebrie Lagoon are generally known by their English nickname, Jack-Jack. They are active traders, playing the part of agents or middlemen for the inland populations, and dealing directly with the European shippers of palm-oil, nuts, and other local produce. In 1884 they thus disposed of five thousand tons of oil, chiefly consigned to Liverpool and Bristol houses. The villages are very numerous about the Ebrie Lagoon, which has an estimated popu- lation of eighty thousand, largely engaged in fishing. Grand Bassam alone owns ever five hundred canoes. The whole population of the Ivory Coast inland to the Niger water-parting cannot be less than five hundred thousand. The tribes dwelling to the north of the French territories of Grand Bassam . and Assini appear to belong to two distinct stocks — the Agni, the original owners of the land, and the Oshin conquerors, who according to their tradition, arrived towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Agni are shorter, more thickset and robust, the Oshins slimmer, with longer head, and more projecting lower jaw. In some villages the women go naked, while the men wear a sumptuous robe or blanket of many-coloured strips. But whatever their origin, all the tribes on this coast are alike noted for their mild disposition and trustworthy character. All business transactions are carried on exclusively by verbal contract, and although at times lasting for months or years, they are always scrupulously fulfilled. At present their territory may safely 79-AF ​be traversed in all directions; only expeditions are still very expensive, as the inhabitants of every village expect a present from every white traveller. For several generatious there have been no wars in the district; still every native has his gun, with which he burns much powder, noise and uproar being indispensable elements of all festive gatherings. Islam has not yet reached this region, where the religious
observances are still of a purely Animistic character. But they do not appear to be celebrated with much zeal. The fetishes set up at the entrance of every village and at the cross roads are much neglected. and the tabooed or sacred groves are now mostly reduced to small enclosures, surrounded with skulls of animals and potsherds. In some places even the enclosures have disappeared, and the fetish temple is reduced to a mere diorite boulder brought perhaps in remote times ​from the interior and new forming a stumbling-block in the path of the unwary wayfarer.
Kinjabo—Administration of the Ivory Coast.
A powerful French vassal state has been founded on the shores of Lake Assini by a chief of Ashanti origin, who resides at Kinjabo, a place of about thirty thousand inhabitants, on the left bank of the river. This bloodthirsty potentate's chief occupation seems to be the administration of justice, and under the shed where he presides at the "sessions," the heads of his victims are piled up in pyramids. So recently as the middle of the present century the foundation of every village was preceded by a human sacrifice. The victim, made drunk with palm-wine, was beheaded and disembowelled, the fetish-man predicting the destinies of the future settlement by inspecting the entrails. The king keeps a band of captives, and it was recently feared that the old custom of the "blood bath" for the royal corpse might be revived by the massacre of these wretches.
The few French factories belong nearly all to a house in Rochelle, and the only places where any French officials reside are Grand Bassam and Assini, both situated near the bars of like name, and Dabu on a creek on the north side of the Ebrié Lagoon. Dabu is a fortified outpost, which holds in awe the Burburi, a fierce and restless tribe occupying some large villages near the Jack-Jack territory. The French settlements on the Ivory Coast were formerly administered from the Gaboon. But by a recent decree they were, jointly with the factories on the Slave Coast, attached to the Senegal Government.
The Gold Coast and Yolta Basin.
Nowhere else in Upper Guinea have the Europeans secured such a firm footing as in this region. The English, masters of the territory officially known as Cape Coast, from the name of its former capital, occupy a section of the seaboard 360 miles long, between the French possessions of Assini and the German factories of Togo. Inland their domain extends to a point 120 miles from the coast, and beyond these limits their political ascendancy is recognised far and wide by the conterminous populations. According to the approximate statistics. Cape Coast has a total area of 17,000 square miles, with a population of over 500,000 in the year 1886. The northern kingdom of the Ashantis, Gyaman, and the contiguous provinces have upwards of one million inhabitants, and the whole population of the Gold Coast, taken in its widest sense, is estimated at three millions.
The very name of this region accounts for the eagerness of the whites to establish factories on this coast and to explore the interior. Traders from all the European states were tempted to establish factories for the purpose of exchanging their wares for gold dust, and most of the Powers erected fortified stations to protect the trading posts of their subjects. The French, Prussians, Dutch, Danes, and Portuguese possessed such stations, but the English have become the exclusive heirs of the trade and political supremacy in this rich territory.
​The actual priority of possession is one of the most warmly discussed questions in historical geography. In 1666 the traveller Villant de Bellefond, who had reached the Grain Coast, for the first time alluded to the Dieppe navigators who were supposed to have made settlements on the Gold Coast in the second half of the fourteenth century. But the undoubted discovery of this region dates only from 1470 or 1471, when it was first explored by the Portuguese navigators, Santarem and Escovar. About twelve years later King Fig. 103. — Routes of Chief Explorers North and East of Cape Coast. had the fort of Sam Jorge de la Mina erected on a headland of the coast, and by his orders the transports were scuttled which had accompanied his ships of war. This was done in order that foreigners might suppose the Guinea waters unnavigable except for vessels of Portuguese build.
Nevertheless other nations also in due course found their way to the Gold Coast. The Dutch made their appearance towards the close of the sixteenth century, and after expelling the Portuguese, purchased the Brandenburg settlements founded in 1682 on Cape Three Points. The Dutch were in their turn driven out by the English, who in 1850 claimed the whole coast, except a few Danish and Dutch factories. The former were purchased by the English, the latter and acquired in exchange for the rights possessed by the British to certain territories in Sumatra. But the surrender of the Dutch factories in 1871 involved the English in hostilities with the natives, which terminated with an expedition against the Ashantis and the destruction of their capital. Since then the whole country has been traversed by surveyors and pioneers, and even in the conterminous territories the routes of explorers are continually expanding. ​THE GOLD COAST. 237 Physical Features. Tlio whole seaboard of tlie British possessions projects seawards beyond the normal coastline. But the most prominent headland is Cape Three Points, whose granite, diorite, sandstone, laterite, and conglomerate hills terminate in three sharp peaks. Several of the promontories at this angular section of the coast rise to a height of about 350 feet, and one of the inland summits 12 miles from the sea attains an altitude of 2,000 feet. Most of these hills in the interior are either isolated, or else disposed in short ridges, such as the Ajamanti group north-west of Accra. But north of this town occurs the dome-shaped Dampa, the first summit of the Akwapem hills, which develop a true range running north-east and gradually increasing in elevation. Beyond the gorge pierced by the river Volta, this range is continued nearly in the same direction through the Busso country towards the lofty crests of North Dahomey. West of the Volta other ridges branch o£P from the Akwapem system. Such are the Okwahu hills, which run north-east, merging in a broad plateau 2,200 feet high, which falls southwards through a series of abrupt terraces, but slopes gently northwards to the thinly peopled steppes beyond the Okwahu territory. West of these grassy plains a few isolated masses 1,600 or 1,700 feet high, form the escarpment of the less elevated Ashanti plateau. Such are the Adansi hills, which have become famous in the history of recent wars, their densely wooded slopes forming the natural frontier of the Ashanti" country on the route between Cumassi and Cape Coast. In this hilly district lies the Bussam Och^, or " Sacred Lake," a landlocked lacustrine basin, which has become one of the great fetishes of the country. The fish here captured are smoked and exported, wrapped in banana leaves, to every part of Ashanti. North of the hilly zone stretch vast plains strewn with a few isolated bluffs, such as the majestic rocks resembling Gibraltar which Lonsdale met on the route between Cumassi and Bontuku. The grassy plateaux are con- tinued north-westwards to the still unexplored highland region generally known by the Mandingan name of " Kong," or " Mountains." But in the Salaga and Jendi territories north-east of Ashanti these Kong Mountains are completely inter- rupted, so that the route from the Upper Volta to the Niger is nowhere obstructed by any elevated ranges. EivER Systems. Copious streams descend from the hills and upland plains forming the water- parting east of the Upper Niger. In the w^est the first important river is the Ancobra, or Ankobar, which encircles the promontory of Cape Three Points, falling into the Bay of Axim through a broad mouth with a sill scarcely 7 feet deep. The Ancobra rises at least 150 miles from the sea, in the Ashanti country between the basins of the still larger rivers, Tanvv^^ and Boosum Prah, whence it flows south-west and south through Wassaw, one of the richest auriferous districts ​on the Gold Coast. Its name is a corruption of the Portuguese Rio da Cobra, or "Snake River," so called from its numerous meanderings.
East of Cape Three Points flows the Boosum Prah (Bussam Pra), that is, "Holy River," so named because it served a sort of Via Sacra for the Ashantis, who followed its course on their marauding expeditions to the south of their territory. Its formidable bar once crossed, the Prah, or "River," as it is now commonly — called, may be ascended in large craft for a distance of about 100 miles, while higher up the Ashanti country may be reached in canoes through its western affluents.
Towards its eastern frontier the Gold Coast is traversed by the great river Volta, or Amu, probably the most copious on the African seaboard between the Gambia and the Niger. For five months in the year it is accessible to vessels drawing seven feet as far as Medica (Amedica), 55 miles from its mouth; and Bonnat ascended in a canoe beyond the rapids to Yeghyi, the port of Salaga, 240 miles from the coast. The floods, lasting from July to October, rise at Medica 46 feet and beyond the Krakye Gorge 65 feet above low water, and at Akwamu, 62 miles from the coast, the current is confined to a rocky channel little over 80 feet wide. Mere five dangerous rapids follow within a space of half a mile, but above this point the stream flows placid as a lake in a broad bed 60 feet deep. ​CLIMATE OF THE GOLD COAST. 239 In tlie low-lying plains below the gorges the Volta expands in the rainy season to a breadth of some miles, and, although obstructed by a shifting bar, it is then accessible to vessels drawing 18 or 20 feet.- On approaching the sea it develops a delta with several branches ramifying round the Kennedy Archipelago and other islands. Communication is also afforded through side channels with the coast lagoons, separated from the sea only by narrow strips of sand against which the surf breaks furiously. The Quetta, one of these lagoons, is a veritable inland sea no less than 160 square miles in extent, and studded with numerous thickly peopled islands. Such is the geometrical symmetry of the semicircular beach facing seawards that the mariner has a difficulty in discovering the Cape St. Paul figuring prominently on the maps, but really indicated only in a conventional way by a buoy, which itself often disappears beneath the muddy foam of the raging surf. Nowhere else does the calemma, or endless line of parallel breakers bursting on the sandy beach, present a more formidable aspect than at this point of the Guinea coast. Seafarers call it the "bar," comparing it to the sills which obstruct the river mouths, and it really acts like a " bar," or barrier, between the high seas and the shore, dreaded even by the most skilful sailors. At all times, even when the sea is calm, these crested billows roll in from the deep, lashed into fury by the tides, the winds, and opposing currents. Occasionally the daring Kroomen them- selves refuse to venture in their surfboats across the furious waves, beyond which the large vessels are seen riding calmly at anchor in smooth waters. Climate. On the Gold Coast the seasons follow in the same order and present the same phenomena as in the regions lying farther west. As on the Ivory Coast, the wet season, beginning in March or April, is ushered in with fierce tornadoes, after which the gales gradually fall off according as the rains set in. The monsoons reappear with the dry season, when the south-west winds strike against the coast, stirring up the waves and veiling the horizon in fog and mist. In October follows the period of short rains, the most dreaded by Europeans, dry weather again setting in with the new year. Then the harmattan is most prevalent, forcing back the breakers and facilitating the approach to the rivers, but also withering up the vegetation and filling the air with clouds of dust. At the missionary station of Abetifi in the Okwahu uplands, 2,000 feet above sea-level, the temperature ranges from 51^ F. to 95^^ F., and even at 62° F. the natives already complain of the cold. On an average these uplands are four or five degrees colder than the coastlands. The rainfall is also much higher, rising from 31 inches at Elmina on the coast to 44 at Abetifi. On the whole the climate is somewhat less dangerous than that of Senegambia, more especially as the two hundred or three hundred Europeans stationed in the country have been able to establish health resorts in the hilly districts of the interior. ​240 WEST AFRICA. r J.OKA AND Fauna. Thynks to the copious rainfall, the inland Hilly districts are clothed with dense forests of gigantic timber. In Wassaw and Dankira the stem of the so-called Karkum has a diameter of 8 and even 10 feet, and grows to the height of 200 feet. But the districts stretching north of the Akwapem hills are deprived bv these woodlands of the moisture needed to support forest growths, and are conse- quently covered with herbage, with here and there a few thickets of scant foliage. Yet even here large trees interlace their branches above the streams, forming long avenues of verdure along the riverain tracts. The Gold Coast is especially rich in palms of diverse species, and the butter -tree and kola nut also flourish in the northern forests. The elephant was formerly almost as commoi on the Gold as on the Ivory Coast. Bosman, who resided at Elmina at the beginning of the eighteenth century, speaks of an elephant getting killed in the garden of that coast station, but at present these animals have almost entirely disapfpeared from the coastlands. Even beyond the Adansi, Ajamanti, and Akwapem hills, scarcely any game is now to be seen; but the more inland savannahs, and especially the Okwahu district west of the Volta, still abound in elephants, buffaloes, gazelles, wild boars, and various species of carnivora. The hippopotamus and crocodile are also numerous in the Volta, notwithstanding the European steamers now plying on that river. In the forests are met two remarkable simians, a black monkey with white beard, and an ashy grey with a long silken coat. In the savannahs the butterfly world is as varied as are the flowers themselves, and here the naturalist, Buchholz, collected no less than seven hundred species during a short trip to the interior. Amongst the insects is now included the formidable American "jigger " (Bu/ex penetrans), intro- duced from Brazil by the emancipated Negroes. The tsetse, or some analogous species, is fatal to cattle in many districts on the coast, and the destructive ants have been known to attack and devour poultry, and to drive the natives themselves from their dwellings. The great enemy of the ant is the apra {Manis longicau- datus), which is completely encased in strong scales, and sleeps like a snake coiled within its long tail. For the natives the most valuable animal is a species of snail, which is said by Bonnat to constitute the chief staple of food in Ashanti. Inhabitants. The peoples of the Gold Coast belong to two distinct stocks, the conquered aborigines and the conquerors. The former have held their ground as separate groups in the Upper Volta basin, and especially in the hilly inland districts. Those of the Brong country, north-west of the Ashanti state, are by the Ashantis collectively called Potoso, that is, "Barbarians," and most of them speak the Gwang, the Nta, or allied idioms derived from the same original source as those of their conquerors ; but nearly all are now also familiar with the Oji or Ga of their political masters. Physically, the two races differ little from one another, except that the aborigines are more robust, and practice peculiar social usages ​
But even these primitive contrasts are gradually being effaced by crossings, a common civilisation, and the spread of Islam on the one hand, and of English and Protestant influences on the other. Besides the more closely allied Ashanti dialects, there are several others which, although belonging to the same group, are mutually unintelligible. Such are the Obutu of the Fanti district, and especially of the town of Aguna, a name formerly applied to the whole region now known as the Gold Coast ; the Kyerepong of the Akwapem uplands, and the Akra (Inkram) with its two dialects, the Ga and Adamfi, spoken by over one hundred thousand persons on the Accra Coast and throughout the province of Adamfi, that is, the triangular space limited east and north by the Yolta, and west by the Akwapem hills. The Banda, Gyaraan, and Kong, current north of Ashanti, also belong to the same linguistic family, which is distinguished by monosyllabic roots and the use both of suffixes and prefixes. In Ga and Adamfi the roots are so few that the different tenses have to be distinguished by tones, as in the Indo-Chinese system. The figurative expressions employed by the Ashantis reveal a vivid fancy and considerable poetic sentiment. The ethnical group of the Oji peoples, including the Ashantis (Asante), Dankiras, Wassaws, Akims, Assins, and Fantis, is by far the most powerful in the mountainous country bounded west and east by the Tanwe and the Yolta. The kingdom founded by the Ashantis, who till lately ruled over nearly all the other states in this region, dates only from the end of the seventeenth century, when the conquering tribe advanced from the land of Inta to the north or north-east. But this migratory movement seawards has been going on for countless ages all along the seaboard from the Senegal to the Congo, successive streams of migration flowing continuously from some common centre in the interior towards the coast. It is even now proceeding in the Ashanti country, where the intruding Moham- medan Mandingans are already numerous in the chief towns, and where several petty states have been brought under the preponderating influence of Islam. The Ashantis are physically one of the finest peoples on the African continent, the men tall and well-proportioned, the women graceful, with regular features. The complexion is very black and the hair kinky, but the nose is thin, while the lips protrude very little ; hence in their original homes the Ashantis may perhaps have intermingled with the Arabs and Berbers. They have a quick intelligence and excellent memory, and readily adapt themselves to their surroundings. On the river banks they are husbandmen, in the steppes stock-breeders, on the lagoons and seacoast fishers and boatmen, in the towns eager traders and skilful craftsmen. They weave cotton fabrics, turn and glaze earthenware, forge iron, fabricate instruments and arms, embroider rugs and carpets, set gold and precious stones. Their language, variously known as the Oji, Ochi, Chi, Twi, &c., is one of the most harmonious in Africa, and has also been one of the most carefully studied, sufficient materials having already been collected for a comparative study of its various dialects during an evolution of two centuries. The best suited for literature appears to be, not the Akan, or court language, but that of Akwapem, into which the Bible, prayers, and hymns, have been translated. It scarcely ​242 WEST AFEICA. differs, except in pronunciation, from the Fanti, and before Britisli intervention these two peoples were at coDstant warfare, although conscious of a common origin. According to the legend two brothers, after long enduring the pangs of hunger, found each an edible plant, one the fail the other the s/mit, whence their national names Fanti and Aahanti. Before their power was broken by the English, the Ashantis had established an absolute government based on an organised system of terror. The despotism of the king over his subjects, of the nobles over their retainers, of the military chiefs over the soldiers, of master over slave, knew absolutely no limits. But its sanguinary code and atrocious customs at last rendered this system intolerable. Revolts and foreign wars, demoralisation within and the outward influence of more humane usages, brought about the dissolution of the Ashanti empire, the ruin of its institutions, and a gradual modification of the corresponding social order. The descriptions current in books of travel refer to a society which has ceased to be, but which has left behind it many traces of its former existence. The Ashanti king ruled over a nation of gro veilings, who crouched like whipped hounds at his feet, awed or terror-stricken at his every word or gesture. Although enjoying a traditional right of veto in questions of war and imposts, his ministers had long been content to play the part of fawning courtiers and approvers. One of the chief functionaries of the royal household was the head executioner, who wore as an emblem of his office a gold axe in a loop of his dress. The pages were armed with fetish weapons, enabling them to plunder indiscrimi- nately and with impunitj^ The sovereign was moreover the legal heir of all the gold, gems, and precious objects belonging to his subjects, and on grand occasions he decreed a general confiscation of property on behalf of the treasury. All male adults formed his army, and on the declaration of war every man seizing his gun, his bag of victuals, his amulets, hastened to join the ranks ; while the women, daubed with white clay, went in procession through the streets, searching the houses for laggards or deserters. The throne is inherited not in the male line but by the eldest son of the king's sister, or by some other nephew on the female side. According to Bowdich, the official numbsr of wives was 3,333, of whom five or six only occupied the private harem; but all were jealously guarded by eunuchs, and allowed to go abroad only at night. The king's sisters might marry the man of their choice, but this was a dangerous favour, as in case of her death or that of her son, the husband was expected, like a faithful slave, to follow them beyond the grave. Persons of royal birth were also frequently condemned to die, but without effusion of blood, by drowning in the river. The military chiefs also, in case of defeat, committed suicide in presence of their troops, in accordance with the Ashanti proverb, " Death is better than disgrace." Although, like the king, these " cabaceres " had many wives, most of the people were satisfied with one ; but all were extremely jealous, while the greatest cruelties were sanctioned for trivial offences. Women suspected of sorcery were put to the torture, gossips condemned to lose the upper lip, and eavesdroppers deprived of one ear.
​Till lately, funerals were the most dreaded events in Ashanti society. On the approaching death of a chief the slaves were watched or even chained to prevent them from escaping the terrible ceremony, and immediately after his last gasp two were sacrificed to accompany him beyond the grave. Then at the solemn burial, the whole gang of appointed victims, numerous in proportion to the rank or wealth of the deceased, walked in the funeral procession amid a throng of women howling and dancing, their bodies painted a blood-red colour. A certain magic word might save the wretches doomed to die; but the shouts of the rabble and the roll of drums always prevented the saving word from being heard. The executioners, known by their black attire, were deaf to all appeal, and to stop the cry for mercy closed the mouth of the slave either by gagging or by thrusting a dagger through bath cheeks; then they severed his right hand and pawed off his head. But slaves did not suffice, and the great captain also needed the society of a free man in his future home. Hence one of the assistants, suddenly and at haphazard seized from behind, was immolated with the rest, and his still palpitating body thrown into the pit, which was immediately filled up. When the king himself died, hundreds perished in this way, all who had served as spies, or were known as kra or "souls," of the sovereign, being immolated to continue their watch over him in the other life. With him were also buried vast treasures, which his successor could touch only in case of extreme peril to the State.
The criminal code was no less sanguinary. To break an egg or spill any palm-oil in the streets of Cumassi, were capital offences. The arms of murderers were struck off before being killed, and the bleeding wretches had then to perform a funeral dance in the king's presence, lighted torches being applied to their wounds to stimulate them in the execution of the prescribed gambols. But the great "customs," or feasts were the chief occasion of the wholesale massacres, which had become a necessary institution under the Ashanti system of government. The autumn harvest feast had especially to be copiously watered with blood; at that season the provincial cabaceres were required to visit the coast, and on entering the town they offered a slave to the local genius. Each quarter had its sacrifices, blood flowed everywhere; the executioners indulged in frenzied dances, beating their drums decked with human skulls, and the fetish-men concocted philters against death by mixing human blood with corn. Licence reigned in the riotous city, for it was the feast of renewal, of life and death.
One of the streets of Cumassi was called "Never dry of blood," and according to a Fanti play of words the very name of the city meant "Kill them all." The new-born infant was slain on a day of ill-omen; in certain districts the poison cup was the means of solving all difficulties, and in this way whole villages were nearly depopulated. In such a land of terror and oppression life was held in slight esteem, and suicides became very frequent, especially amongst the slaves. When one of this class made up his mind to die he gave notice to his owner, who gave him a bottle of brandy to make him drunk, and then had him clubbed to death. It was full time that by the influence of the English on the one hand and ​of the Mandingans on the other, an end should at last be put to such a frightful reign of carnage.
Before the war of 1873, which brought the English to Cumassi, the kingdom of Ashanti with all its vassal states occupied a space comprising in the north and north-east all the mountain slopes, while the plains of Dugomba for a distance of 240 miles paid it tribute. In the south the Ashantis had reduced the Dankiras, their former masters, and developing a crescent from the Assini to the Lower Volta, they were pressing the allies of the Europeans more and more towards the coast.
They had even reached the sea at the mouth of the Boosum-Prah, and elevated by former successes over the whites, as at the battle of Essemacu, in 1824, when they "devoured the courage of the English" by eating General MacCarthy's heart, they even attacked the fortresses on the coast, scaling the ramparts to the very canon's mouth.
But in the decisive campaign of 1873, said to have been foretold by the fall of the great fetish tree at Cumassi, they were fain to yield to British valour, the flight of the king immediately involving the whole empire in complete disorganisation. All the vassal provinces resumed their independence, and many Ashantis themselves were glad to settle in Dankira under British protection. The kingdom ​INHABITANTS OF THE GOLD COAST. 246 is now reduced to the district limited on the south by the wooded hills of Adansi, and a mere threat of the Resident at Accra sufficed to induce the once formidable Ashanti potentate to surrender to the Queen of England, if not his golden axe, at least an imitation of that terrible fetish, symbol of the right of murder which he claimed over his whole people. According to Lonsdale, the Ashanti chiefs would now find it impossible to raise an army of over six thousand men. The Fantis had been the almost constant allies of the British, as the Ashantis had been of the Dutch. General MacCarthy, who died at their head early in the century, had become for them a tutelar deity ; their most solemn oath was taken Fig. 106. — Gold Coast Possessions and Surrounding Districts. Scale 1 : 4,500,000. Depths. to 660 Feet. eCO Feet and upwards. _ 60 Miles. in his memory, and many gave their children the name of Karte, Fanti form of the Irish MacCarthy. Kinsmen, but hereditary enemies of the Ashantis, the Fantis resemble them in disposition and versatility of character. But their manners have changed, and instead of a single monarchical government, they have formed an almost republican confederacy of petty states. Thanks to long contact with Europeans, they have ceased to celebrate their feasts with massacres, and at burials the human victims are replaced by gifts of clothes, ornaments, and the like. Nevertheless the Fanti penal code is still severe, capital punishment being often inflicted for several offences. Amongst these peoples wealth is held in special honour, and till recently justice was sold in the most cynical manner. In lawsuits one of the suitors would challenge his opponent to prove the righteousness of his cause by a better present than his own to the pa'imiu or " elders." Each party then displayed in open court ​246 WEST AFEICA. all the bottles and jars of whiskey that he could afford in support of his case, sentence being given in favour of whoever made the greatest show. The insolvent debtor is held in dishonour, and at his death cast on the highway without funeral rites. The Fanti is distinguished from the neighbouring peoples by incisions on the cheek-bones and nape. The Akims, also on the south-east frontier of the Ashan- tis, are said to be easily recognised by remarkable prominences on the cheek-bones, forming, as it were, two rudimentary horns on either side of the nose. Till recently every Fanti was a soldier bound to follow his hrqffo, or " leader," to death. At the time of the first migrations towards the coast, the warriors are said to have declared that they would choose as their supreme chief whatever nobleman Fig. 107. — Inhabitants of the G-old Coast and Sueroundixo Districts. Scale 1 : 4 500,000. Denkera 0° West of Greenwich Depths. to 660 Feet. 660 Feet and upwards. 60 Miles. was willing to sacrifice his right hand for his country. Thereupon a chief eagerly tendered his arm, which, being severed at a blow, he was proclaimed braffo by acclamation. In this family, which was nearly exterminated by the Ashantis, the order of succession is always from the uncle to the sister's son, as amongst so many other African peoples. Every town, every village and family has its fetish, besides which there is a " master of masters, father of all," who by many tribes is confounded with the firmament. All natural objects are supposed to act for good or for evil on the destiny of each individual, and these influences have to be solicited or conjured by magic ceremonies. When a whale is stranded great evils are threatened, because the marine mammals are an ancient race swallowed uj) b}^ the waves, but ​TOPOGEAPHY OF THE GOLD COAST. 247 ever anxious to recover the land. On the other hand, the Xyphias gladim is a fish of good omen, whose sword is* regarded as a priceless heirloom, protecting the family from all mishaps. Trees, plants, rocks, streams, are all classed amongst the beneficent or hostile spirits, and Bosman tells us that, till recently, the second wife in wealthy circles was specially dedicated to the genii, and as such declared to be fetish. On the coast and uplands occur a great variety of tribal names, although most belong to the same stock as the Ashantis and Fantis, whom they resemble in speech, usages, political and social institutions, and religious views. Still the eastern tribes — Accras," Krobos, Awunas, Agotimes, Krepis — are distinguished from the Ashantis proper by greater physical strength, courage, and industry. They were formerlj^ collectively known as Minas or Aminas, a term now reserved for those living still further east on the Slave Coast. At present numerous stations are supported by the Catholics and Protestants, but especially by the Lutherans of the Basle Mission, successors of the Moravian Brothers who arrived in 1736. But although some new villages are exclusively occupied by converted Negroes, very rare, comparatively speaking, are those calling themselves Christians for disinterested motives. Some, no sooner than baptised, make themselves Mohammedans ; yet amongst them spring up new sects, which may, in many respects, be compared to that of the Chinese Taipings. The fetishes have lost their credit in the Adele and Akabu territories, east of the middle Volta, where the native missionaries are proclaiming a new gospel, announcing that a " son has been born unto God, who has forbidden all work on the Lord's day." When the Portuguese spoke to them of a supreme God the coast populations regarded him as the great fetish of the European peoples. " Not he," they said, " but the earth gives us gold ; not he, but our work has given us maize and rice ; the sea yields us fish, and to you, Portuguese, we owe the fruit-trees." This foreign god was for them a white being like the men that worshipped him. But were they not blacks, and how could they invoke any other fetish except one of their own colour ? By destiny itself their lot was made different from that of the whites. When the two first men had to choose between gold and letters, the Negro had taken the metal, while the white man learnt to read and write. Thus he became the stronger, and his God was the most powerful of all gods. Topography. West of Cape Three Points the English have no important seaport. Albnni, standing on the strip of sand between the lagoon and the sea, is a' mere hamlet sometimes called Ilalf-Assini, as compared with the French factory at the issue of the lakes. Behien, the Apollonia of the Portuguese, is a mere group of huts like all the palisaded villages following in a continuous line eastwards. This section of the coast is one of the most densely peopled in Africa, although till lately posses- sing only a single centre of population. On a hill between the two villages stands the fort of Axim, originally Portuguese, then Dutch, now English, erected to ​248 WEST AFRICA. command the Ancobra valley, beyond which, towards Cape Three Points, are seen the ruins of the Brandenburg fort Gross-Friederic/itiburg. Axira, the Emm of the natives, offers the best landing on the whole coast, thanks to the shelter afforded by the islets of Bobowusua and Poke. Here Burton picked up some implements of the Stone Age, and nowhere else on this coast have so many stone hatchets been found as in the Axim district. Axim must one day become the port of the whole region stretching away to the Kong, and comprising the still little known territories of Aowin, Sahwi, and Gyaman. A good road now connects it with the Ancobra, which affords the easiest access to the Wassaw gold mines. The petty chiefs have also been called upon to clear the forest routes and bridge the streams in order to keep the com- munication open between the coast and Tarkwa {Tarquah), headquarters of the mining district. A railway, 56 miles long, has even been proposed for the convey- ance of the he ivy machinery needed for the systematic working of the gold mines. Aodwa, formerly capital of Wassaw, is now a mere hamlet, most of the people having gravitated towards the mines granted to English and French capitalists after Bonnat's careful survey of the ground. The gold is obtained especially from the gneiss and other primitive rocks, the yearly yields, excluding that collected by the natives, averaging £125,000 between 1860 and 188^. Veins of silver, copper, and tin have also been met in the hills, while iron and manganese occur every- where. Gold dust is the only currency in this province of Guinea, from which the old English gold piece took its name. Most of the labourers engaged on the works are Apollonians and Kroomen, nearly all demoralised by the vices almost inseparable from this industry. The only noteworthy place beyond the mining district is Mansu, lying about midway on the new route between Tarkwa and the mouth of the Prah. The fort commanding the little creek of Dixcove, east of Cape Three Points, has some strategic importance, thanks to its position near the headland. Most of the other old forts on this part of the coast are now in ruins, but Chama has been maintained and even enlarged in consequence of its position at the mouth of the Prah. But most of the trade with the interior has been transferred to Elmhm, the oldest European factory on the Gold Coast. The French first settled at La Mine towards the end of the fourteenth century, and after their departure the Portuguese made Elmina their chief stronghold on this seaboard. Later it became the head- quarters of the Dutch possessions on the Gulf of Guinea, and passed from them to Great Britain in 1871. Since then, having ceased to be a capital, it has lost most of its inhabitants, although enjoying the advantage of good carriage roads, both with the mouth of the Prah through the station of Commendah, and eastwards with Cape Coast CaHle, which has become a chief centre of British authority on the Gold Coast. The Igwah {Egwa, Ogwa, Gwa) of the natives owes its English name of Cape Coast Castle to a misunderstanding of the Portuguese Capo Cor so, the Cap Corse
Prah valley and the Ashanti state, and here is the seaward terminus of the main ​250 WEST AFEICA. route leading through the Upper Prah basin to Cumassi. On this route the chief military stations are Marisu, at the confluence of the chief branches of the Prah, and Prahsu, or " Prah-head," on the river of like name, below the junction of the Birim. At the latter station, described as the "key" to Ashanti, the chiefs of that state come to consult or receive the orders of the British authorities. Cumassi, capital of Ashanti, is a large place nearly 4 miles in circumference, situated on an extensive plain watered by a tributary of the Dah, the chief western branch of the Prah. Before the war it was said to have a population of seventy thousand, but since the destruction of the royal palace and neighbouring quarters by the English in 1874, most of the inhabitants have emigrated, and at the time of Lagden's visit in 1883, Cumassi differed little from the other Ashanti villages in the neighbourhood. But in 1884 a great change took place: the trade routes were again opened, thousands of natives returned, and new houses, some with two storeys in the European style, sprang up in all directions. Gold mines are worked in Ashanti, and especially in the provinces of Dadeassi and Inquanta, where the rich deposits of Tarkwa are continued towards the north- east. During the rainy season the gold -seekers wash the sands for the precious dust in the very streets of Cumassi itself. The clouds of vultures and other carrion birds have ceased to hover above this city, and its sacred groves and royal necropolis or charnel-house of ^flfw^amr/, formerly girdled round with dead bodies and reeking with human blood. The last sacrifice appears to have taken place in 1882, at the funeral of one of the king's aimts. In the other Ashanti provinces cities have risen and fallen according to the vicissitudes of peace and war, subsequent to the invasion of the conquering race. Jiiabim, former rival of Cumassi, is still a populous place ; Kokofu, Inquanta, and Mampong, lately capitals of vassal states, were almost completely abandoned at the time of Kirby's visit in 1874 ; Becqua, at one time nearly as populous as Cumassi, was also deserted in 1885 in consequence of an outbreak of small-pox. On the other hand, the more fortunate towns of Akim, in the Upper Prah and Birim basins, have increased in population and wealth. Insuaim {Nsuaem) or Oba, capital of West Akim, near the Birim river, has become one of the great cities of Africa ; Soadra, half a mile to the south, is also a large place, and probably over twenty thousand people are concentrated in a space of about 4 miles round Oba. Bompata, capital of Akim- Ashanti, lies on a headstream of the Upper Prah, where it has replaced the now ruined town of Diciransa in the Okwahu uplands. Here also are the picturesque towns of Wrasn in the wooded hilly districts between the Prah and Yolta basins. East of Cape Coast follow the seaports of Anamahn, Koromaniin, Aliemfo or Salt-Fond, so named from the neighbouring salines, Winnchah (Simpa), and 90 miles from Cape Coast, the important town of Acera {Nkran or Ga), commanded by Fort James. Since 1875 the old Danish citadel of Christ ianshorg^ has been the official capital of the British possessions, but Accra is the chief centre of European life, and the governor resides in the neighbourhood of the fort, which was much damaged by the earthquake of 1862. Christiansborg, which presents the ​appearance of an imposing feudal castle, contains vast cisterns for the supply of the garrison and shipping. In the vicinity the Basle missionaries have founded a technical school, where are trained the best artisans on the whole seaboard between Sierra-Leone and the Gaboon.
Accra is the starting-point of several routes for the interior, and it is now
proposed to connect it by rail with Kpong, on the bend of the Volta, 50 miles distant. Some 24 miles to the north lies the little health-resort of Aburi (Abudé), founded by the Basle mission, amid a forest of fruit trees over 1,300 feet above sea-level. Akropong, former capital of the Akwapem state, serves also as a sanatorium for the whites and a centre of instruction for the natives. ​252 WEST AFEICA. Between Accra and tlie Yolta lie the little fishing villages of Tcm, Prampram, Big Ningo (Fredenshorg) , and a few others buried amidst the coco-palms here fring- ing the coast. The natives are said to have often collected gold on a reef near the shore, but the precious metal is revealed only at certain feasts and through the intercession of a potent fetish. The Yolta basin, which reaches inland far beyond the British possessions, contains some trading centres visited by the Mohammedans of the Niger for the purchase of the coast produce and European wares introduced especially through the Assini and Kinjabo routes. Bontuku, on the Tin in Gyaman (Gaman), a con- federacy of seventeen " kingdoms," was visited for the first time by Lonsdale in 1882. Since the fall of Cumassi it has become a thriving place, dealing chiefly in gold dust and local cotton fabrics, and inhabited mainly by Wangaras, or Moham- medan Mandingans. In the valley of the Kong, five days farther north, has been founded the new capital, Hirabo, in the Mandingan territory between the Niger and Volta basins. In 1884, Brandon Kirby reached Qnantampoh {Kutampo), the Tintinpoh of the Mussulmans, a city situated on a southern affluent of the Upper Yolta, 70 miles north of Cumassi. At that time this great emporium contained nearly forty thousand inhabitants, natives of every country between Sierra- Leone and Lake Tsad, all living in separate communities under their respective chiefs. The province of Koranza, between Quantampoh and the Ashanti state, has also received numerous immigrants from the unsettled districts in the south. During a long period of peace it has become a prosperous country, studded with populous villages and doing a profitable export trade in kola-nuts. Afeobu (Atabuobu), lying on a grassy plain watered by the headstreams of the Poro and Sene, afiluents of the Yolta, is capital of the " kingdom " of Brong. It appears to have been formerly a very large place, and still comprises several quarters connected by avenues of shady trees and surrounded by heaps of grass- grown ruins. Its decay is due to the closure of the two trade routes connecting Cumassi with Salaga, and by which gold and kola-nuts were formerly exported to North Sudan. Salaga, first visited in 1875 by Bonnat, although much reduced, is still a con- siderable centre of trade, with a population reduced from twenty thousand in 1877 to ten thousand in 1885. The suppression of the slave trade all along the seaboard has ruined the Salaga dealers in human flesh, and at present the staple exports are cattle and kola-nuts. The town has an Arab appearance with its mosques and schools, its tanneries, weaving, goldsmiths' work, and other industries, all carried on as in North Africa, and the products exposed in the same way for sale in the bazaars. Some 50 miles to the north-east, and also in the valley of a northern affluent of the Yolta, stand Jendi {Yendi, Yanda^ Yene), another large trading place and capital of Dagomba, a great kingdom which stretches northwards to the Mandingan territory in the direction of the Niger. But the trade of Jendi seems to have been affected by the same causes that have reduced that of Salaga. At present ​the chief town in the middle Volta region is Keté, till recently a mere suburb of Krakye (Karati, Krachi), which has retained the rank of a capital. Krakye, which stands on a bluff 200 feet high opposite the Séné confluence with the Volta, is a fetish city, whose tutelar deity, the Denté or Odenté, dwells in a neighbouring cave shaded by a sacred grove where the oracle is consulted by votaries from all quarters. The high-priest of the temple, the most distinguished person in the country, is at the head of a confederacy of petty states formed since the dismemberment
of the Ashanti empire. But the fetish and this potentate appears to have recently lost some of their influence, the Mohammedan traders having gradually become the real masters of the land.
Every town in this region has its fetish, whose power increases or diminishes with that of the community itself. The genius of Wuropong, who is enthroned on the table-mountain of Sia, some 60 miles south-east of Krakye, is an evil spirit who demands human victims, and to whom a man was, till recently, immolated every year. To the north-east lies the extensive but thinly peopled land of Busso, that is, "highlands," whose two capitals, Siadé and Dadeassi, have each a very powerful ​protecting fetish. Nevertheless, three-fourths of the inhabitants are said to be afflicted with goître.
The Afram, which joins the Volta above the gorges, flows through an almost uninhabited region. But on the waterparting between its basin and the sources of the Prah stands the picturesque city of Abetifi, capital of the kingdom chosen
by the Basle missionaries as the centre of their stations. Nearly opposite the Afram confluence lies Peki, capital of a confederacy including several towns, such as the large Mohammedan markets of Kpando, Angvoé, Avatimé, the triple city of Anum, and over a hundred villages on the eastern watershed of the Volta basin. Farther down follow Akuamu, former ally of Ashanti, and like it noted for its ​TRADE OF THE GOLD COAST. 255 sanguinary " customs," and Kpong, favourably situated on a great bend of the Volta, which is here navigable and connected by a trade route with Accra, Kpong is the port of the little state of Krobo, whose capital, Odumaasi, lies on the Accra route at the foot of an isolated hill rising 820 feet sheer above the sur- rounding plain. On this acropolis and sacred mountain of the nation nearly all the Krobo girls are educated for six years under fetish priests and priestesses. Below Krobo follow, on the right side of the Volta, the towns of Battor^ Aggravi, governed by a fetish priest, and near the bar the ports of Ada {Adda) and Riverside (Adftfo). To overawe the lawless populations on this part of the coast, the colonial Government has placed a strong garrison in Queitah [Keta), the old Danish Fort Prindsenstecn, near Cape Saint Paul, between the sea and lagoon. Agriculture. — Industries. — Trade. — Administration. After long industrial and commercial stagnation, the coast populations have lately made rapid progress, despite the forebodings of the proprietors whose slaves were emancipated and whose " pawns " (debtors) were released after the Ashanti war. The outer v raised by the spectacle of soldiers purchased as captives and of thousands of enslaved female porters accompanying the British troops, resulted in the formal abolition of slavery in 1874. Since then the natives work more willingly for Europeans, and the extent of cultivated land has considerably increased. In many places the palm forests have been replaced b)^ regular plantations, and more care is now bestowed on the coffee and tobacco crops. The cacao and other alimentary plants have been introduced from America ; attention is given to the production of caoutchouc, especially in the Krobo country, while the natives of Krebi already raise large quantities of cotton. The industries have also been developed, thanks to the numerous artisans trained by the Basle missionaries and to the Mohammedan craftsmen who have settled in all the towns along the banks of the Yolta, and who already occupy a whole quarter in Accra. But jewellery, formerly the staple industry, received a great blow by the destruction of Cumassi. Amongst the treasures taken from the King of Ashanti and removed to England may be admired many remarkable objects, such as bracelets, rings, gold and coral ornaments, chased metal plates, and fantastic animals whose forms remotely suggest those of the old Egyptian jewellery. Notwithstanding the name of the country, palm-oil rather than gold forms the chief article of export. Hence, like the Bonny and Calabar estuaries, the creeks along the Gold Coast also take the name of " oil-rivers." The imports are mainly restricted to cotton goods and brandy, the chief aim of European " civilisation " apparently being to clothe and intoxicate the natives. In the course of ten years the whole trade of the Gold Coast gradually rose from £640,000 to £1,200,000. The administration of the Gold Coast, which now includes Lagos on the Slave Coast, is entrusted to a governor appointed by the Queen, and assisted by a legislative and executive council composed of the chief functionaries and ​256 WEST ATEICA. European traders. After the Ashanti war the seat of government was removed from Cape Coast to Christiansborg- Accra. Each colonial district is administered by a magistrate, and the tribal chiefs are gradually being transformed to justices of the peace with power to settle all minor matters according to local usage, while affairs of importance are referred to the English court. The military forces consist chiefly of Fantis, Haussas, and Kroomen. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to enlist troops in the states north of Ashanti, the natives of which regions refuse to migrate towards the seaboard. The revenue is derived exclusively from imposts levied on imports in the twenty- five coast towns opened to foreign trade. The colonial administration, which is slowly displacing that of the tribal chiefs, has in no way modified the limits of the annexed states now reduced to provinces. Nor does it interfere directly in the affairs of the conterminous states beyond occasionally sending visitors or agents, whose advice is usually accepted. Formerly all the Upper Yolta basin formed part of the Ashanti empire ; but these agents have pursued a policy of political dismemberment, and numerous so-called " independent " kingdoms have been established in the regions coming within the influence of the British authorities. But farther inland there still exist some absolutely independent states, such as Gyaman, Dagomba, and Busso. In the Appendix is given a table of the colonial districts and petty states conterminous to the Gold Coast, together with their chief towns and absolute or approximate populations. The Slave Coast. — Togo, Popo, Ajuda, Babagry, Lagos, Dahomey, Yoruba. The section of the African seaboard lying between the Volta and Niger deltas describes an extremely regular slightly curved arc of a circle masking an inner shore-line, from which it is separated by intervening lagoons and back- waters. To this region, washed by the Bight of Benin, still clings the sad name of the Slave Coast, a reminiscence of the traffic in " black ivory " which flourished on the shores of these cursed lagoons from the first years of the Portuguese discovery down to the second half of the present century. Nowhere else were the slavers able to conduct their operations in more open defiance of the cruisers. The beach is defended by formidable breakers, where the most skilful pilots alone can dare to venture ; the mouths of the estuaries are invisible from the sea, and the inner bays offer a thousand secret inlets on the densely wooded shores, in which it was easy to conceal the human merchandise. The caravans of dealers from the banks of the Niger, the troops escorting gangs of captives forwarded by the kings of Dahomey and Yoruba, were able to consign their victims under the shelter of the gloomy forests without exposing themselves on the open seaboard. But while all the Western nations were glad to have a share in this profitable business, no foreign power except Portugal made any official settlements on this coast before the year 1851, when the English occupied Lagos and made it the headquarters of their operations for the suppression of the traffic in the Bight of ​THE SLAVE COAST. 257 Benin. In 1863 France purchased the territory of Porto-Novo, which was soon after abandoned, and again occupied by her in 188^. Next year the Germans took possession of the Togo district immediately east of the British territory on the Gold Coast, so that at present this seaboard is shared by four Powers, including Portugal, which administers the part of the coast still claimed by the King of Dahomey; but towards the interior the limits of the respective territories are nowhere accurately determined. Few travellers have ever penetrated far into this region, except towards the east in the direction of the Niger, where the routes of explorers intersect each other at several points. The natural limits of the country are clearly indicated on the west by Cape St. Paul and the lagoons fed by the waters of the Volta, on the north-west and north by the uplands which form a continuation of the Akwapem ranges, on the north-east and east by the divide between the Niger basin and the streams flowing to the Atlantic. The whole region may be approximately estimated at about 62,000 square miles, with a total population of probably not less than three millions. But no trustworthy returns have yet been made except for the British possessions of Lagos and Badagry, which in an area of 75 square miles had a settled population of over seventy-five thousand. Physical Features. — Rivers. From the sea no hills are anywhere visible beyond the slight pyramidal eminence at Badagr3^ Large timber is also rare, nor are any dunes developed on this coast, owing doubtless to the north-east winds, which carry seawards the sands washed up by the waves. But in the interior, beyond the intricate coast lagoons, the land rolls away in gentle undulations from 200 to 230 feet high in the direction of the inland plateaux. North of the isolated mass, 2,700 feet high, forming the culminating point of Dahomey, the Busso ranges rise to considerable altitudes, according to Skertchley terminating in the Mahi country with peaks over 6,700 feet high, falling rapidly towards the northern steppes, and descending in terraces on the southern side. From a summit ascended by this explorer the range, apparently the highest in Africa south of the Atlas and west of Abyssinia, was distinctly seen stretching away in the direction of the Yolta. Some of the chief crests consist of granitic domes, some of columnar basalt pyramids, and others again of trap formations piled up like frowning fortresses or else resembling isolated craters. In one of the valleys were seen accumulations of debris present- ing all the characters of moraines, and here were also noticed rocks striated by ice. (Skertchley, Dahomey as It Is.) None of the streams flowing seawards between the Volta and the Niger are of large size, their parallel basins being everywhere confined within narrow limits. During the dry season most of them fail to reach the sea, discharging into the coast lagoons without being able to force a passage through the intervening beach. But after the rains the overflow of the lagoons finds an exit, breaking the shore- line now at one point now at another. The channel at Lagos, forming the outlet ​for a considerable coast stream and for lagoons fed by several affluents, alone remains open throughout the year. The river Ogun, the largest of these affluents, rises probably some 180 miles inland, and receives numerous tributaries before leaving the uplands. The Great Popo Channel is also generally open, while at other points the natives frequently cut passages for their boats between the lagoons and the sea,
Most maps represent the Togo district as almost entirely occupied by Lake
Avon, an inland sea 1,200 square miles in extent, and so called from the English vessel which surveyed this coast in 1846. But the size of the Haho, as the natives call it, from its chief influent, has been strangely exaggerated, for it is scarcely more than 6 miles long in any direction. The Nokhwé, or Lake Denham, west of Porto-Novo, is also much smaller than it appears on the maps, while the largest of all these coast lagoons is Ikoradu, which with its numerous ramifications has given the Portuguese name of Lagos, or the "Lakes," to the town at its seaward ​entrance. These lagoons form a continuous waterway, which might be easily
made navigable all the way from the mouth of the Volta to the Niger delta. ​260 WEST APRICA. Steamers already ply for a distance of about 40 miles between Badagry and Lagos, and in 1876 one of these ascended to the neighbourhood of Abomey, by the river Whemi (Owo), which has a mean depth of 13 feet, and falls into Lake Denham north of the Kotonu channel. In its flora and fauna the Slave Coast forms a simple continuation of the Gold Coast. Its climate, with a mean temperature of about 78^ F. and two dry and two wet seasons, is regarded as the most salubrious on the whole seaboard between the Senegal and the Congo. Europeans have hitherto escaped the attacks of such epidemics as yellow fever, small-pox, or typhus ; but they have still to dread the marsh fevers, especially during the early days of their residence in the country. The most dangerous period is the close of the heavy rainy season, when the ground reeks and the atmosphere is charged with miasmatic exhalations. Inhabitants. Notwithstanding certain dialectic differences, the natives of the Slave Coast present marked affinities to their Fanti and Ashanti neighbours. Apart from the Minas, who dwelt formerly west of the Yolta, all the populations between that river and the Ogun belong to the Ewe (Ewhe, Azighe) family, from whom the whole region takes the name of Eweme, or " Land of the Ewe." The land west of the Ogun is held by the Yorubas (Yaribas), here collectively known as Nagos. The Ewe appear to form five distinct linguistic groups ; the Anlo (Anglo or Anglawa) on the Gold Coast frontier ; the Krepi, of Anfwe speech, north and north-east of the Anglo ; the Jeji, of Ajuda speech, east of the Anglo and Krepi ; the natives of Dahomey, in the interior ; lastly, in the extreme north, the tribes speaking the Mahi or Makhi, purest of all the Ewe languages. All the Ewe peoples are of tall stature and well-proportioned, with more regular features and fairer complexion than the Wolofs. Many of the natives of the interior are noted for their yellowish colour and red hair, probably a sort of albinoism rather than the result of crossings with Europeans. Others again on the west coast, collectively known as Minas, are descended from Negroes and half- castes imported from Brazil, and in the public estimation these take the foremost rank for physical strength, moral qualities, and love of freedom. They are also active traders, who compete successfully with Europeans, and who by their family alliances with the natives are steadily acquiring a numerical preponderance over all other foreigners. Under the influence of this new element the old ethnical divisions are gradually disappearing. The family names of Souza, Almeida, Andrada, and Albuquerque have become very common, and Portuguese has already become a rival of English as the current language for international relations. Near the Gold Coast English prevails, but Portuguese is chiefly spoken at Ajuda and taught in the local schools. The most powerful branch of the Ewe group are the Fons, now known as Dauraas or Dahomej^s, from the kingdom founded by them to the north of Ajuda in the first half of the seventeenth century. Although proud of their warlike ​deeds and conquests, the Fons are distinguished by great intelligence and a remarkable facility for acquiring foreign languages. According to Broca's measurements, they take a foremost place amongst the races of mankind for cranial capacity. Nevertheless, for the abject slavery of its subjects and the tyranny of its rulers the kingdom of Dahomey bears a striking resemblance to that of Ashanti.
The sovereign is a god; his power is limitless, the life and fortunes of his subjects are at his mercy; he is master of all the living, heir of all the dead. Formerly infants were removed from their mothers and brought up in other families in order to prevent the people from forming any ties of affection except
towards their sovereign. Being exempt from the ills that other mortals endure, this potentate is supposed to need neither food nor drink, and was till recently regarded almost as an invisible spirit, the delusion being fostered by the practice of taking his meals apart and hearing petitions from behind a screen. He maintains an army of "amazons" commanded by the dada, or queen, who enjoys the right of life and death within the limits of the harem, and whose sons are alone recognised as royal princes. Some of these women are state dignitaries, and when royalty condescends to take counsel, his wives consult with the mingo, or prime minister, and other high officials. The amazons rival their male companions in arms in prowess, contempt of death, and cold-blooded cruelty. Their ​262 VEST AFEIOA. war dances are performed with a precision unequalled by the best -trained ballet corps, and Skertchley describes one of these military displays with dances, songs, and sacrifices, which lasted no less than sixteen hours. Human victims were formerly immolated wholesale at the graves of the king and powerful chiefs, and, as in India, wives often volunteered to join their husbands in the other life. This continual flow of blood had accustomed the people of Dahomey to scenes of incredible cruelty. Travellers describe in detail the massacres, tortures, crucifixions, and arrangement of the dead bodies in artistic groups along the avenues. One of the yearly ceremonies consisted in filling a great reservoir left open for those who preferred to commit suicide ; while the terrible Draconic laws always supplied victims in abundance for the national
tered being roasted and devoured smoking hot. At the same time by most of the natives the prospect of a violent end was little dreaded. The belief in immortality was so absolute, that to them death seemed a mere passage from the shadow of a dream to a real and everlasting life. When the king, " cousin of the leopard," wished to hold converse with his ancestry, he despatched the first to hand as an envoy to the far-off world, and the kindred of the dead felt highly honoured at their sovereign's choice. But the struggles of rival creeds for supremacy must inevitably tend to weaken this simple faith in an after life, and thus enhance respect for the earthly existence. The boy or girl formerly sacrificed at every grave is already replaced by a kid, and the wholesale massacres attending the annual customs are no longer regarded by the sovereign as necessary for the safeguarding of the monarchy. The extensive region lying between Dahomey, the Bight of Benin, and the Niger watershed, is peopled by the Eyos, Iktus, Egbas, Yebus, and other kindred tribes collectively known as Nagos, or else Yorubas, from the name of the country and the current speech. They differ little from their Ewe neighbours, presenting the ordinary type of the coast Negroes, although of somewhat lighter complexion, with less prognathous jaw, and thinner lips. Each tribe is distinguished by a system of tattooing, which is a real national emblem uniformly executed on every individual. All travellers describe the Yorubas as a gentle, kindly people, faithful to their word, extremely docile, artless and .sincere, and ever less mindful of injuries than of favours. On the frequented highways sheds covered with foliage {arojelis) are set up at intervals for the convenience of wayfarers, who here find shelter, water, and wine, and who, if so minded, may deposit a few cowries in return. The sociable Yorubas are almost everywhere grouped in urban communities, so that populous towns are numerous in their territorv. Even the peasantry prefer to reside in the towns, willingly making long daily walks between their homes and their farms. On these they raise large quantities of maize and yams, the great staples of food, besides millet, manioc (tapioca), sweet potatoes, pulse, ground-nuts, various species of vegetables, bananas, and other fruits. Agriculture is their chief industry, and they display great skill in extracting the palm wine ​from the Raphia vinifera, which they climb with surprising agility by means of a rope attached to the stem and brought round the body, shifting it up or down by a simple movement of the arm. There are no large estates, the land being
regarded as belonging to all in common, or rather to the State for the benefit of all. Hence the actual cultivator enjoys the fruits of his labour, and when he ceases to work, the land reverts to the State, being then at the disposition of the first comer willing to occupy it. ​The Yorubas are also clever artisans, and every village has its potters, smiths,
tanners, saddlers, weavers, and dyers. They make their own agricultural ​THE TOGO TEEEITORY. 265 merits, but the white and blue cottons formerly exported to Brazil have been driven out of the market by Manchester goods. As builders the Yorubas excel all natives of Africa, some of their palaces comprising as many as fifty rooms. The doors and friezes of the verandahs are embellished with carvings representing scenes of war or the chase, fantastic animals and religious symbols. They have a special veneration for the furniture made of sassa, because this wood often creaks and moans, especially at night. Although unacquainted with letters, they are said to have had little knotted cords for recording events, like the Peruvian quippos. The power of the Yoruba obbas, or hereditary'- kings, is limited by usage, while each town has its semi-independent chief, appointed by the sovereign, and enjoying royal prerogatives. Chiefs and governors alike are assisted by councils of the notables, and on great emergencies the whole people are occasionally sum- moned to a general national assembly. The authorities are also held in check by the ahoni, a powerful secret society, whose members are bound together by solemn oaths. They are at once judges and executioners, all sentences being carried out by themselves. As in Dahomey, the kings were formerly followed to the grave by a numerous suite of ministers, women, and slaves, the latter massacred by force, the former politely invited to drink the poisoned cup. Belief in ghosts is universal, and the most minute precautions are taken to prevent the return of departed friends. Their arms are buried beyond the gates of the city, and are thus concealed from the owners who might happen to return at night from the other world. The bodies of children are thrown away in the forests, all premature deaths being ascribed to the evil spirits, who are thus circumvented. But the old nature- worship has been greatly modified during the last four hundred years by the influence both of the Portuguese and of the Filani (Fulahs), and other Mohammedans advancing from the interior. The Obba-el-Orun, or " King of Heaven," has been gradually confounded either with the God of the Christians or the Allah of the Mussulmans. He is even called Obba-t-Alla, or " Lord Allah," and has been diversely associated with the tribal traditions and missionary legends. Certain rites practised in several places along the coast are evidently of Catholic origin, introduced by the Portuguese or Brazilians. But all forms of religion are gradually giving way to Islam, which is everywhere preached by the traders from the banks of the Niger. Togo. The hitherto unknown term Togo has suddenly acquired a certain political importance, since it has been adopted as the name of the western district on the British frontier occupied in 1884 by the Germans. According to Zoller this territory, of nearly quadrilateral form, is about 22 miles long both ways, with an area of 520 square miles, and a population roughly estimated at forty thousand. More recent inland annexations in the Krapi and Mina territories have consider- 81— AF ​considerably increased the range of commercial enterprise, and the Mina town of Adanghe, 30 miles from the coast, will probably soon lose its independence. Some 60 miles farther north lies the still more important city of Atakpameh, whose inhabitants have valiantly and successfully defended their freedom from the attacks of the king of Dahomey. In Togo the chief crops are maize and ground-nuts, and of the whole area about one-twentieth is under cultivation.
Togo, the capital, comprises five villages standing close together in a forest of cocoa-nut palms on the north side of the chief lagoon. Bé, the fetish town of the Togo natives, lies much farther west, near the British frontier, and within 2 miles of the coast. The neighbouring village of Biassé is inhabited chiefly by manufacturers of fetishes and earthenware. Somé, the chief market in Togo, is quite a
new place recently founded on the coast close to the English possessions. On the same coast, but farther west, are Bagida (the Bagdad of some maps), and Porto Seguro, which was founded by immigrants from Brazil, and which had some importance before the abolition of the slave trade in 1863.
Popo.
The kingdom of Little Popo, east of Togo, was till lately a French protectorate, but has recently been transferred to Germany in exchange for some places on the South Senegambian coast. Povo, as it is called by the Germans, consists, like Togo, of two distinct zones, the seaboard on which are situated the trading places, and the almost unknown but much better cultivated region beyond the lagoons. ​DAHOMET!. 267 Little PopOj the Aneho and Plavijo of tlie natives, is an old Portuguese settle- ment dating from the end of the seventeenth century. Many of its inhabitants come from the Gold Coast, and still speak the dialect of their ancestors. Depend- ing politically on the king of Greji^ which lies on the north side of the lagoon. Little Popo had in 1884 no less than three chiefs, all claiming the title of king, and each supported by one or other of the foreign and native nationalities. The German suzerain is represented in Togo and Little Popo only by the Hamburg and Bremen traders settled in the seaports. The village chiefs and fetish priests are still the true masters of the land. Agice {Ahgwey, AJigo), 6 miles east of Little Popo, ft)unded in 1821 by the Minas, belongs politically to France, under whose suzerainty it has become a place of refuge for the persecuted of all the surrounding regions. All races and religions are thus represented in this republic, which is wrongly described as a kingdom, its chief magistrate being charged only with the executive power. Pound about are grouped several other petty states, constituting a republican confederacy and including Abanankem, bearing the French name of Baranquere. Great Popo, the Fla of the natives, also founded by fugitives, is a mere group of scattered huts, which, thanks to its favourable position on a channel always open to the sea, has developed a considerable foreign trade. French influence is dominant in this thickly peopled district, which with Agw^ has an estimated population of 120,000. Dahomey. East of Great Popo begins the Dahomey territory, guarded by the important town of Glehwehj known to Europeans by the various names of Fida, Hevedah, Whydah, Wida. The old writers called it Juda, and its inhabitants were said to be Jews, while the neighbouring river Allala, whose real name is Efra, became the Euphrates. During the flourishing days of the slave trade, from sixteen to eighteen thousand were annually transported from Ajiida, as the Portuguese called this place, which at that time had a population of thirty- five thousand. The tutelar deity of Whydah is the snake, and its famous fetish temple is served by priestesses, called " mothers " or " sisters " of serpents, and recruited by the abduction of young girls on feast days. Whydah belongs by right of conquest to Dahomey since 1 725, when it received its name of Glehweh, or "The Farm," indicating the part it played in supplying the capital with provisions. A neighbouring town was also called Ardra, or the " Calabash," because its produce was destined for the royal kitchen. The Yevo- ghan, or " Chief of the Whites," the local governor, who *' opens the roads" for travellers going inland, is the third personage in the state, although his power has long been neutralised by foreign, and especially Portuguese influence, which is here dominant. Since the blockade of the Dahomey coast was raised by the English in 1877, the trade in palm-oil, the best on this seaboard, has acquired a great de- velopment, notwithstanding the nimierous restrictions placed on free intercourse ​by the authorities. In stormy weather the roadstead is unsafe, as is evident from the wreckage constantly strewn along the beach.
On the route to Agbomey the first station is Savi (Xavier), former capital of the kingdom of Whydah, whose sovereign was said at one time to command two hundred thousand troops. Beyond Savi the route passes by Tolli, and Allada, the ancient Adara, also formerly the capital of a state, and still regarded as the metropolis of Dahomey, one of the royal titles being "Lord of Allada." Yet the place Fig. 118. — Danomey and Ajuda Coast. was ruined by the Dahomey people themselves in 1724, when they conquered the seaboard route and massacred the inhabitants of Allada.
The natural limit which formerly separated the states of Allada and Dahomey is the extensive swamp of Ko, or Lama, easily traversed in the fine season, but almost impassable during the rains. In 1784, the most difficult points were bridged and the road partly raised, but soon again subsided. North of Ko begins the true continental coastline, and here, on a terrace over 1,000 feet above the sea-level, but easily accessible from the south, stands Abomey (Agbomey), capital of Dahomey, a "City within an enclosure," as the name signifies, with monumental gates, deep ditches, and a thick-set wall of thorny trees. Abomey covers an extensive area, but most of the enclosed space consists of gardens and ruins, while the aggregate of huts called the palace is alone two miles in circuit. The wall of this residence was formerly stuck all round with human heads or skulls, eloquent witnesses of the royal power. But the Minister of Portugal, the protecting state, no longer tolerates the massacres till recently required by custom, and nothing is now seen except the iron spikes on which once stood the hideous trophies.
Both places are connected by a fine higliway, 100 feet broad and 7 miles long, lined all tbe way with magnificent trees. In the neighbouring scrub reigns a phantom king, the double of the true sovereign, with his palace, his courtiers, his amazons, and his budget. In his name are levied the taxes, and to him are attri- buted all grievances, while the actual king takes the credit and receives the public thanks for all beneficent deeds. North of Dahomey proper, in the province of Mahi and the territory of the Dassa people, follow the important market of Zeng-Numi ; the picturesque town of Zoglogho ; Logozabi, situated in a delightful region of hills, woods, and streams crossed by suspension bridges; Savalu, former capital of the Mahi country; Jallahu, surrounded by scattered granite blocks, compared by Duncan to Stone- henge. These Dahomey highlands, w^hich have been visited only by two travellers, almost captives in the hands of their escort, differ from the low-lying plains in their climate, natural history, and inhabitants. Porto-Novo. East of the Portuguese "protectorate" of Dahomey, the French possess a second enclave on the coast, the petty native state of Porto-Novo^ which was constituted at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the foundation of the town of Honi- honu. By its founder, a son of the King of AUada, or Ardra, it was also called Little Ardra, but is known to the present inhabitants by the name of Ajashey. The territory of Porto-Novo, with a coastline of about 24 miles, is estimated at 760 square miles, and the population at one hundred and fifty thousand souls. The town having been bombarded by the English in 1861, the king placed himself under the protectorate of France in 1863, which first occupied, then abandoned, and definitely re-occupied the place in 1882, attaching it to the government of Senegal. Porto-Novo, which is exceeded in population only by Lagos on this coast, forms a group of villages on the north side of the lagoon which communicates with the Badagry and Lagos rivers. The royal palace, which is approached by a fetish gate embellished with rude sculptures of tutelar deities, was surrounded so recently as 1875 by decapitated bodies and festoons of human skulls. A considerable trade is carried on with the northern towns of Aggera and Sahetey, and with the interior as far as the banks of the Niger. In Porto-Novo the unique administrative arrangement consists of two sovereigns, reigning by day and night alternately. Each has the right of inflicting the penalty of death on his colleague, if found abroad when out of office. Kotonu or Apjn, the seaport of Porto-Novo, lies to the south-west, on the channel where converge the navigable arteries of Lake Nokhwe. This place, which formerly belonged to Dahomey, and was consequently claimed by the Portuguese, was finally ceded to France in 1885, while the two neighbouring towns of Godomey and Agbomey-Kalavi were left to Portugal. The villages of Afatonu and AhivansoU are built on piles in the middle of the lake, like the old lacustrine dwellings of
Badagry and Lagos.
Badagry, on the north bank of the Ossa, here 550 yards wide, is the first English town met on the Slave Coast going eastwards. It was formerly the capital of a kingdom, and the largest slave market on the whole seaboard. Richard Lander
relates that, at the time of his visit in 1880, the supply far exceeded the demand, and the old and infirm were then got rid of by being thrown to the sharks. Others, reserved for the sacrifices, had their hearts torn out, which were eagerly devoured by the king, his wives, and chiefs. Lander himself had to drink the poisoned cup to prove his innocence of a crime, but escaped by taking a timely emetic. ​LAGOS. 271 In the basin of the Okj^ara river, north of Badagry, are the independent kingdoms of Ado, Pokra, and Okeadan, which still suffer from the incursions of the Dahomey people. On an island in the Ossa, 40 miles east of Badagry, stands Lagos, the " African Liverpool," capital of the British possessions and the wealthiest city on the West African seaboard. Lagos occupies an extremely advantageous position about the centre of the Bight of Benin, and at the converging point of several inland routes. Through the navigable river Ogun it communicates with the great city of Abeokuta, and commands the western outlet of the Ossa lagoon, which affords a navigable highway to the Niger delta. IN^early all the European trade is in the hands of the English and Germans, while the inland traffic is carried on mainly by the Mohammedans, who increased from twelve hundred in 1865 to some thirty thousand in 1886. The island of Lagos, the Auni or Awani of the natives, lies three miles from the sea, between the arms of the lagoons, the mouth of the Ogun river, and the channel opening seawards. The city occupies a large space on the west side of this marshy land, where the European quarter has been built on ground partly reclaimed from the lagoon. Of late years its trade has suffered from the frequent wars between the inland states, owing to which much of the traffic has been diverted to the factories on the Niger delta. East of Lagos, the chief places on the coast are Talma, Leckie, or Ychu, and Odi, and on the lagoon the most important town is Epe. The district of Mahin, lately occupied by the Germans, has been restored to England by a convention recognising her right to all these alluvial lands in the Yoruba country. An extensive clearance in the forest separating Odi from the Mahin channel has become famous under the name of Atijeri (Arligeri), perhaps the Atagara which the Haussa sultan mentioned to Clapper ton as the chief trading place on the Slave Coast. Mahin belonged to the formerly flourishing but now decayed kingdom of Benin, which, according to Dapper, was able at one time to raise eighty thousand fighting men in a few days. But in order to display his power and propitiate the gods, the king offered human sacrifices, which depopulated his state. Benin, now the obscure village of Beni, had schools and temples whose priests were able to carve " hieroglyphical figures " and stone images, by means of which they related the history of the country. Lagos, residence of the British administrator, has been independent of the governor of the Gold Coast since 1886 ; but the protectorate is organised in the same way, the English settlements being defended by Hauesa garrisons, while the authority of the judges appointed by the Crown is gradually replacing that of the local chiefs. The revenue is derived from imposts levied at various sea- ports, and the whole territory is divided into the four districts of Lagos, the
Yoruba.
Abeokuta, the great republican city on the banks of the Ogun, is one of the largest places in Africa, being probably exceeded in population by Cairo and Alexandria alone. Most travellers estimate at over one hundred thousand, and some missionaries at two hundred thousand, the number of inhabitants residing within the enclosures, which are formed by an earth wall 8 to 10 feet high and an outer ditch 10 feet deep and over 20 miles in circumference. This capital of the Egba nation, which is over 4 miles long by 2 broad, presents a remarkable appearance, covering an undulating plain strewn with granitic boulders of different heights. The highest of these, called the "Rock," in a pre-eminent sense, and regarded by the natives as their tutelar deity, rises 300 feet above the mean level of the plain, which is itself some 560 feet above sea-level. All these eminences present the greatest diversity of form, some being rounded off like domes, others terminating in points sharp as needles, or else serrated like the teeth of a saw or disposed like a regular wall, while one resembles the shell of a huge turtle. The houses are pleasantly grouped at the foot of these rocks, whose grey granite walls present a striking contrast to the verdure of numerous clumps of trees dotted over the plain. Hence this place has been well named Abeokuta, that is, "Under the Rocks." The Egba metropolis is of recent origin, dating only from 1825, when the inhabitants of several villages, leaving the open plain, took refuge amid this labyrinth of rocks from the raids of the slave-hunters. They were soon joined by the persecuted and outcasts from all the surrounding districts, and in a few years Abeokuta became one of the great continental cities, strong enough to resist the attacks of undisciplined and rudely armed forces frequently sent against it by the people of Ibadan and the king of Dahomey. The inhabitants, uniting for the common defence, have constituted themselves in a free confederacy of some sixty distinct communities, each retaining the usages, religions, privileges, dialects, and the very names of their original villages. Amongst them are many thousands of Mohammedans, and a few hundred Christians grouped round the chapels founded by the missionaries. For some years these stations were tolerated, but beins: afterwards regarded as the centres of religious propaganda, they were all sup- pressed and the missionaries banished, while the converts were permitted the free exercise of their religion. Recently some fresh Protestant and Catholic stations have been founded in Abeokuta.
During the floods large boats ascend the river Ogun to the Aro rapids, within 2 miles of the city, but at low water they can get no farther than the bridge of Agbameya, and have sometimes to stop at Igaon, a little above Lagos, which is 80 miles by water from Abeokuta.
The chief magistrate of the Egba republic, who bears the title of king, is chosen for life from one of the four chief tribes ; but if his subjects are dissatisfied with his rule he is invited to abdicate. Formerly he was requested to go to sleep, whereupon he withdrew to his harem, and a few days afterwards it was announced that the "royal sleep" had begun, from which he never woke.
​Ibadan, till recently the rival of Abeokuta, lies in south Yoruba, some 60 miles
north-east of the Egba capital, on the water-parting between the Ogun and ​274 WEST AFRICA. Oshun basins. In 1851 Bowen estimated its population at seventy thousand, which has been raised to over one hundred thousand by the missionaries, who have subsequently visited the place. Like Abeokuta, Ibadan is an urban confederacy of villages grouped in a common enclosure, but each with a distinct name and special organisation. The Mohammedans are more numerous than in the rival republic, whose supremacy Ibadan has at last been compelled to acknowledge after a series of sanguinary wars. During one of these the great city of Ijayeh, lying 18 miles north-west of Ibadan, was totally destroyed. Along the much-frequented highway leading through the markets of Shonga or Egga north-east to the Nupe country, follow some other large towns, capitals of independent kingdoms, in which Mohammedan influences are continually spread- ing. Here Oyo became the capital of the north Yoruba state after the destruction of Katanga by the Fulahs ; but it is a much smaller place than its neighbour Ogbomosho, which lies in a fertile valley close to the water-parting between the coast streams and the affluents of the ^iger. Since it was first crossed by Clap- perton, this divide has been visited by few travellers, every obstacle being thrown in the way of European visitors by the middlemen, who have a monopoly of the international trade.