Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1873 — Ashantee Land. [ARTICLE]

Ashantee Land.

The Ashantee nation is a great African power. It numbers about 3,000,000 souls — of whom some 200,000 are warriors—well made, muscular, war-loving barbarians; their chief and upper classes are distinguished by cleanliness, handsome attire, and something like civilization, except in regard to their worse than Dahomeyan cruelties. Every twenty-one days they hold an adai, or “blood custom,” at which rum and palm wine having been drank like water, skulls are carried in procession to the sound of drums made with human skin, and most horrible massacres and debaucheries go forward. At the annual “Yam festival,” just now coming on, they celebrate a still bloodier carnival of death, and whenever a cabooceer or freeman dies, slaves are killed to “wet his grave. ” They eat the heart and drink the blood of a conquered enemy, and wear the teeth and finger bones as ornaments. When the King dies, thousands of wretched slaves and attendants are slaughtered over his tomb; in a word, it fc a land of murder. It was meant by nature to be a land of peace and plenty, for beyond the thick forests which lie along the coasts, stretches a fertile and healthy country of rich black soil, growing two or three crops yearly, and full of vegetable wonders and glories as yet unnamed. The fruits and flowers of Ashantee-land are said to be perfectly marvelous; it boasts an entirely new citron, and a tall tree bearing magnificent goblet-shaped blossoms, while the sugar-cane grows wlid. Curious animals, such as the bird called “pookoe,” and the huge corpse-eat-ing “arompo” rat, are found in the woods and clearings. Reptiles are horribly plentiful, including enormous boas; a peculiar puff-adder, whose bite is certain death; scorpions as big as cray-fish, and toads so large that Bosman took the first he saw for a land tortoise. The possible productions of such a region are vast and numerous; but its fertility is drowned in bloodshed, and gold is the chief article exported. In that metal Ashantee-land must be fabulously rich; the chiefs wear golden breast-plates and golden or golded warcaps. The carbooceers go about with lumps of virgin gold hung about their necks and wrists, some weighing, it is said, four pounds and more; and Bow ditch has described golden window-frames in the King’s palace at Coomassie, as well as an almost universal use of cloths embroidered With gold thread, and adorned with thin plates of the precious metal. After the battle of Accra, in 1882, the Ashantee King sent in as “peace money" 6,000 ounces of dust and nuggets; and the swords, muskets, and elephant-tail fans are described as being profusely enriched with goldsmith’s work. The people are, however, very cunning at debasing the ingots—so much so as to equal European chemistry in this respect The government is a despotic monarchy; the religion Fetishism, modified by African Islamism —the effect of Mahometan neighbors on the north. They believe in aGreatSpirit, who, they say, created six white and six black people, and gave the latter the first choice- between a calabash and a sealed paper. The blacks took the calabash, which contained gold, iron, maize, and all the wealth of nature ; and the whites got the scroll, which contained instructions in the right use of all these porducts. Thus the whites are forever superior, as the Ashantees have found out In many a sharp trial, and latterly at Elmina. As for Coomassie, the capital, accounts differ -, one statement making it out a poor, straggling place'of mean huts; and an-<, other, a really fine and imposing city, for Africa. Bowditch, who went there in 1817, paints it as a remarkable place. He speaks of a population of 800,000 souls.— Leadon TrfryrapA. ■ . England is announced to be the only civilized country in the world which haa not sent home-grown tobacco to the Vienna Exhibition. Varieties are shown from Norway and Sweden, as well as from the tropics and from all intermediate territories. It is remarked that the value varies throughout very much, according to the distance from the equator, and thus while the unmanufactured leaf from Havana is valued at 10s, a pound, that from Holland is priced at no inore than £4 a hundred-weight.