The Tamworth Examiner and Working Men's Journal. — 1873-12-27 (Tamworth, Staffordshire, England)

ASEUNTEE, AND ITS INHABITANTS. • PAPER READ BY R. A. JONES, AT NADELEY, SALOP. .  Aehantee is an extensive and powerful kingdom on the West Coast of Africa, on the Gold Coast, Upper Genies, capital town, Coomassie. It is bounded west by the Assince,east by the Volta and Goka, north by the bong mountains, and south by the Atlantic. It is Mont 310 miles from east to west, and nearly the same from north to south, its general form being very compact. It is well watered, particularly towards the coast, where the country is intersected by several considerable streams, besides those namod. 'rho principal ere the Seence, or Ancraba, ;called the Bossempra, or Prah, and Birrim. The country is in general mountainous, though it has no systems, nor any great elevations. It is covered by dense forests from sue coast to a distance of 200 miles inland. Them are wholly impenetrable, excepting by paths which have been opened tip in various places with great labour. Ashantee abounds with gold; the richest mines are in Gsman. and its provinces of 'lsmail, Safoy, and Ghowy. In these places the precious metal is found in large pieces, some of about four pounds weight, called met gold. The ore is of a deep colour, and is dug out of pits frau five to nine feet in depth. About 10,000 slaves are employed on the banks of the Bans for two months in the year collecting gold dust, which is found ip great quantities, as well as the solid metal. The climate is very unhealthy; the great heat, though perhaps not so excessive as the position of the country would lead us to expect. Vegetable productions attain here the most gigantic dimensions. On the coast flourishes the enormous hashish, with the mangrove, palm, and cotton trees, all of which reach the most stupendous sizes. The country is etremely fertile, producing abundant crops of rice, corn, sugar cane, and yams, which last form the staple vegetable food of the people. The domestic animals are cows, horses of a small breed, goats, and a species of hairy sheep. The wild animals are elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, buffaloes, door, antelopes, apes, monkeys, baboons, lions, tigers, leopards, jackals, wolves, wild boars, Ate. The rivers sworn with crocodiles and hippopotami; and reptiles of itt sizes, some of them enormous, and many poisonous. abound everywhere. Birds of all descriptions, with every variety of plumage, many of extreme beauty, aro also numerous. Few of them, however, excel as eongaters. Insects of various kinds abound. Sharks are as ntimerons on the coast, that they form the principal food of the nstives. The rivers are also well stocked atth fish.  The Ashantees are warlike and ferocious, with a love for shedding human blood, and inflicting violent and sanguinary deaths, amounting to a pasaion. In war they spore neither age nor sex; and human teeth, and human jaw bones are worn as personal ornaments. Human sacrifices arc made to an extent, with a frequency, and accompanied by an atrocity of circumstances hardly credibl2.  The great traveller Bowditch, who was in Coomassie during one of their saturnalia, relates that a pts,cession eater,4 tie' town, disphving a number of human heads. and are ,mpanhal by two parties of executioners of about 100 each, dancing with the most frightful gestures, and dashing their knives on the skulls which they carried. hared persons, says this traveller, were sacrificed in different parts of the town on this occasion, the victims being led to execution with knives thrust through their laws and tongue, from side to side. The manner of death is hacking with large knives and swords. Slaves V e sacrificed over brass pans, that their blood may sling!, with the charmed ingredients contained in them. The ex,entioners wrangle and straggle with each other for the victims as they are brought up to suffer death. Ott the death of any great personage, or any member of Ike Royal Family, these horrors are icreased tenfold; ffie streets are deserted, and from morning to night, the work of murder goes on. Flowditch passed several headfrge trunks, in whose blood vultures were roveiling ; Pod aanther traveller, Trnpins, witnessed a royal progress. In whlch the most conspicuous figure was that of &Mamie nem bearing the axecntion-stool, encrusted