CONSIDERABLE contributions have been this year made to the science of Geography; and although we are not aware that any thing very important has been discovered, we have been furnished with more extended, and, in general, more accurate information, on a variety of points hitherto involved in obscurity, and with details of the manners, customs, and conditions of several tribes of whom almost nothing was previously known. On the subject of Africa, always one of prominent in terest, we have only to notice the account given by Mr Bowdich of the Mission to Ashantee, which, crude and ill-digested as it is, nevertheless supplies some curious particulars of this warlike and ferocious tribe, and of the court of his sable Majesty Sai Tuoto Quamina.

The origin and objects of this mission were, if possible, to form a treaty of amity with the King of Ashantee, and to prevent those invasions of the country of the Fantees, our allies, which, in 1806, 1811, and 1816, had spread general destruction, and been accompanied with unparalleled atrocity and bloodshed;

while, on all these occasions, the Governor of Cape-Coast Castle had been obliged to purchase the retreat of the invaders by the payment of large sums of money. To prevent the recurrence of such disasters, the Governor had earnestly requested his superiors at home to authorise a mission to the King of Ashantee; and this request being acceded to, some valuable presents, together with a draft of instructions, were forwarded by the Spring ship of 1817; and on the morning of the 22d of April, the mission, consisting of Mr James, its nominal head, Mr Bowdich, a young writer, Mr Hutchison, also a writer, Mr Tedlie, assistant surgeon, with a proper number of bearers, Ashantee guides, and two native soldiers, set out from Cape Coast Castle. On the last day of April, the party reached the banks of a stream called the Boosempra, of which Mr Bowdich says,

Nothing could be more beautiful than its scenery: the bank on the south side was steep, and admitted but a narrow path; that on the north sloping; on which a small Fetish house, under the shade of a cachou tree, fixed the eye; whence it wan

dered over a rich variety of tint and foliage, in which light and shade were most happily blended: the small rocks stole through the herbage of the banks, and now and then ruffled the water: the doom trees towering in the shrubbery, waved to the most gentle air a rich foliage of dark green, mocking the finest touch of the pencil; the tamarind and smaller mimosas heightening its effect by their livelier tint, and the more piquant delicacy of their leaf: the cotton trees overtopped the whole, enwreathed in convolvuli, and several elegant little trees, unknown to me, rose in the background, intermixed with palms, and made the coup d'œil enchanting. The bright rays of the sun were sobered by the rich reflections of the water; and there was a mild beauty in the landscape congenial to barbarism, which imposed the expectation of elegance and refinement. I attempted a sketch, but it was far beyond my rude pencil; the expression of the scene could only have been traced in the profile of every tree; and it seemed to defy any touches, but those of a Claude or a Wilson, to depict the life of its beauty."

At last they reached the capital Coomassie, which is estimated at 146 miles, (or about 97 miles of direct distance) from Cape-Coast Castle, and which they entered in great state. And here they were soon doomed to witness a spectacle of the most horrid and revolting description, and which they soon found to be as frequent as it is disgustingly dreadful and inhuman.

"Here our attention was forced from the astonishment of the crowd to a most inhuman spectacle, which was paraded before us for some minutes; it was a man whom they were tormenting previous to sacrifice; his hands were pinioned behind him, a

knife was passed through his checks, to which his lips were noosed like the figure of 8; one ear was cut off and carried before him, the other hung to his head by a small bit of skin; there were several gashes in his back, and a knife was thrust under each shoulder blade; he was led with a cord passed through his nose, by men disfigured with immense caps of shaggy black skins, and drums beat before him; the feeling this horrid barbarity excited must be imagined."

It is not german to our present purpose to notice the " palavers” held with Sai Tooto Quamina, and his caboceers, in which, by his own shewing, Mr Bowdich acquitted himself to a miracle, and even drew forth a compliment from the sooty monarch, who said, "he liked his palaver very much," a matter in which we are sorry to differ with so high an authority): But the following passage will give a frightful idea of some of the customs prevalent among the Ashantees, who indeed offer up human sacrifices on almost every occasion. Whether they are also addicted to cannibalism, we are not informed.

“ On the death of a King, all the customs which have been made for the subjects who have died during his reign, must be simultaneously repeated by the families, (the human sacrifices as well as the carousals and pageantry) to amplify that for the monarch, which is also solemnised independently, but, at the same time, in every excess of extravagance and barbarity. The brothers, sons, and nephews of the King, affecting temporary insanity, burst forth with their muskets, and fire promiscuously amongst the crowd; even a man of rank, if they meet him, is their victim, nor is their murder of him or any other, on such an occasion, visited or prevented; the scene can

scarcely be imagined. Few persons of rank dare to stir from their houses for the first two or three days, but religiously drive forth all their vassals and slaves, as the most acceptable composition of their own absence. The King's Ocras are all murdered on his tomb, to the number of a hundred or more, and women in abundance. I was assured by several, that the custom for Saï Quamina, was repeated weekly for three months, and that two hundred slaves were sacrificed, and 25 barrels of powder fired, each time. But the custom for the King's mother, the regent of the kingdom during the invasion of Fantee, is most celebrated. The King of himself devoted 3000 victims, (upwards of 2000 of whom were Fantee prisoners) and 25 barrels of powder. Dwabin, Kokoofoo, Becqua, Soota, and Marmpong, furnished 100 victims, and 20 barrels of powder, each, and most of the smaller towns 10 victims, and two barrels of der, each. The Kings, and Kings only, are buried in the cemetery at Bantama, and the sacred gold buried with them; their bones are afterwards deposited in a build. ing there, opposite to which is the largest brass pan I ever saw, (for sacrifices,) being about five feet in diameter, with four small lions on the edge. Here human sacrifices are frequent and ordinary, to water the graves of the Kings. The bodies of chiefs are frequently carried about with the army, to keep them for interment at home, and eminent revolters or enemies also, to be exposed in the capital. Boiteäm, (the father of Otee the fourth linguist,)

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who accompanied the army of Abiniowa in his political capacity, dying at Akrofroom in Aquapim, during the campaign, his body was kept with the army two months before it arrived at Coomassie. I could not get any information on their treatment of the corpse, beyond their invariable reply, that they smoked it well over a slow fire."

The population of Coomassie was asserted by the Ashantees to exceed 100,000 souls; but, judging from the crowd which he saw collected on gala-days and festivals, Mr Bowdich thinks it not greater than that of Sansanding, which Mr Park estimated at 30,000. How Mr Bowdich could establish a comparison with Sansanding, which he had never visited, he does not think proper to inform us.

The chapter on Geography is singularly obscure and involved. The routes obtained from the Moors may be correct; but Mr Bowdich is mistaken, in supposing them "to trace the Niger to the Nile." It is evident from inspection, that none of them pretend to follow the course of the river, but only the usual routes which lie very considerably to the northward of it. All the information collected from the Moors by Horneman, Burckhardt, Jackson, and others, agrees, however, in one point-and the coincidence is remarkable and deserving of particular attentionthat the Joliba or Niger is the same river with the Bahr el Abiad, or Nile of Egypt. The testimony collected by Mr Hutchison, who was left as resident at Coomassie, and whose Diary, by the way, is the most valu

able part of Mr Bowdich's book, substantially agrees with that gathered by the travellers just named.

"My attention being anxiously turned towards information concerning the Niger and its course, all inquiries end in making the Nile its continuation. An old Moor from Jennë told me, unasked, that while he was at Askanderee (Alexandria) twenty-six years ago he saw a fight at the mouth of the Nile between ships, and one of them was blown up in the air with a terrible explosion. This must have been the battle fought by Lord Nelson, although there is a mistake in the date of seven years; he surely could not invent such a story. He states also, that returning to Masser (Grand Cairo) the European armies advanced to that place; the first army took every thing they wanted and would not pay but when the second European and Turkish army got possession of it, they paid for whatever they wanted. All the Moors were ordered to retire to one quarter of the city, and not allowed to mix with the soldiers; this agrees with Sir Robert Wilson's account of the Egyptian campaign. I shewed him a seal I have, of Pompey's pillar, which he said he knew; he had travelled from Jennë to Masser on a joma (camel) and drew me a map of the Quolla and Nile from its source to its emptying itself into the sea at Alexandria.”

The name of the brave and unfortunate Park is inseparably connected with that of the Niger. Baba, the chief of the Moors at Coomassie, from whom Mr Bowdich says he obtained much information, sent one day for another Moor, who, he observed, was a very learned person, and had just arrived from Timbuctoo. "This man expressing no surprise when he first saw me, Baba explained it, by telling me, spontaneously,

that this Moor had seen three white men before, at Boussa. I eagerly inquired the particulars of the novelty, and they were again repeated to Baba, and were thus interpreted: 'That some years ago a vessel with masts suddenly appeared on the Quolla or Niger near Boussa, with three white men, and some black. The natives, encouraged by these strange men, took off provisions for sale, were well paid and received presents besides: it seems the vessel had anchored. The next day, perceiving the vessel going on, the natives hurried after her, (the Moor protested from their anxiety to save her from some sunken rocks, with which the Quolla abounds); but the white men mistaking, and thinking they pursued for a bad purpose, deterred them. The vessel soon after struck, the men jumped into the water and tried to swim, but could not, for the current, and were drowned. He thought some of their clothes were now at Wauwaw, but he did not believe there were any books or papers.' This spontaneous narrative, so artlesly told, made a powerful impression on my mind. I saw the man frequently afterwards; his manners were very mild, and he never asked me for the most trifling present. He drew me a chart before he went away, and I dispatched some certificates for Major Peddie by him, indorsed with Baba's recommendations. I heard exactly the same thing afterwards from another Moor, but he had not been an eye-witness."

The establishment of residences at the head quarters of the different chiefs of the interior for young men of talents, temper, and judgment, to collect and arrange statistical and geographical information, and to extend the field of knowledge by new discoveries in natural history, is suggested, we think, with great propriety, by Mr Bowdich; and were the sug