ones for the lower orders without the town.' -(pp, 305, 306.)

a first floor, the under room was divided | lation of Coomassie was above 100,000: into two by an intersecting wall, to support but this is thought, by the gentlemen the rafters for the upper room, which were of the Mission, to allude rather to the generally covered with a frame-work thickly plastered over with red ochre. I saw but population collected on great occasions, than the permanent residents, not comone attempt at flooring with plank; it was cotton wood shaped entirely with an adze, puted by them at more than 15,000. and looked like a ship's deck. The windows The markets were daily; and the were open wood-work, carved in fanciful articles for sale, beef, mutton, wildfigures and intricate patterns, and painted hog, deer, monkeys' flesh, fowls, yams, red; the frames were frequently cased in plaintains, corn, sugar-cane, rice, pepgold, about as thick as cartridge paper. pers, vegetable butter, oranges, papans, What surprised me most, and is not the least of the many circumstances deciding pine-apples, bananas, salt and dried their great superiority over the generality fish, large snails smoke-dried; palmof negroes, was the discovery that every wine, rum, pipes, beads, looking-glasses; house had its cloace, besides the common sandals, silk, cotton cloth, powder, small pillars, white and blue thread, and calabashes. The cattle in Ashantee are as large as English cattle; their sheep are hairy. They have no implement but the hoe; have two crops of corn in the year; plant their yams at Christmas, and dig them up in September. Their plantations, extensive and orderly, have the appearance of hop-gardens well fenced in, and regu. larly planted in lines, with a broad walk around, and a hut at each wickergate, where a slave and his family reside to protect the plantation. All the fruits mentioned as sold in the market grew in spontaneous abundance, as did the sugar-cane. The oranges were of a large size and exquisite flavour. There were no cocoa trees. The berry which gives to acids the flavour of sweets, making limes taste like honey, is common here. The castor-oil plant rises to a large tree. The cotton tree sometimes rises to the height of 150 feet.

The rubbish and offal of each house are burnt every morning at the back of the street; and they are as nice in their dwellings as in their persons. The Ashantee loom is precisely on the same principles as the English: the fineness, variety, brilliancy, and size of their cloths is astonishing. They paint white cloths not inelegantly, as fast as an European can write. They excel in pottery, and are good goldsmiths. Their weights are very neat brass casts of almost every animal, fruit, and vegetable known in the country. The king's scales, blowpan, boxes, weights, and pipe-tongs were neatly made of the purest gold. They work finely in iron, tan leather, and are excellent carpenters.

Mr. Bowdich computes the number of men capable of bearing arms to be 204,000. The disposable force is 150,000; the population a million; the number of square miles 14,000. Po- The great obstacle to the improvelygamy is tolerated to the greatest ment of commerce with the Ashantee extent; the king's allowance is 3333 people (besides the jealousy natural to wives ; and the full complement is barbarians) is our rejection of the slave always kept up. Four of the principal trade, and the continuance of that destreets in Coomassie are half a mile testable traffic by the Spaniards. While long, and from 50 to 100 yards wide. the Mission was in that country, one The streets were all named, and a thousand slaves left Ashantee for two superior captain in charge of each. Spanish schooners on the coast.-How The street where the Mission was is an African monarch to be taught lodged was called Apperemsoo, or that he has not a right to turn human Cannon Street; another street was creatures into rum and tobacco? or called Daebrim, or Great Market Street; that the nation which prohibits such an another Prison Street, and so on. A intercourse are not his enemies? To plan of the town is given. The Ashan-have free access to Ashantee, would tees persisted in saying, that the popu- command Dagwumba. The people of

Inta and Dagwumba being commercial, rather than warlike, an intercourse with them would be an intercourse with the interior, as far as Timbuctoo and Houssa northwards, and Cassina, if not BoorDoo, eastwards.

After the observation of Mr. Bowdich, senior officer of the Mission, follows the narrative of Mr. Hutchinson, left as chargé d'affaires, upon the departure of the other gentlemen. Mr. Hutchinson mentions some white men residing at Yenné, whom he supposes to have been companions of Park; and Ali Baba, a man of good character and consideration, upon the eve of departure from these regions, assured him, that there were two Europeans then resident at Timbuctoo.In his observations on the river Gaboon, Mr. Bowdich has the following information on the present state of the slave trade :

:

"Three Portuguese, one French, and two large Spanish ships, visited the river for slaves during our stay; and the master of a Liverpool vessel assured me that he had fallen in with twenty-two between Gaboon and the Congo. Their grand rendezvous is Mayumba. The Portuguese of St. Thomas's and Prince's Islands send small schooner boats to Gaboon for slaves, which are kept, after they are transported this short distance, until the coast is clear for shipping them to America. A third large Spanish

ship, well armed, entered the river the right before we quitted it, and hurried our

and Dagwumba. The river Volta flows into the Gulf of Guinea, in latitude 7° north. It is navigable, and by the natives navigated for ten days, to Odentee. Now, from Odentee to Sallagha, the capital of the kingdom of Inta, is but four days' journey; and seven days' journey from Sallagha, through the Inta Jam of Zengoo, is Yahndi, the capital of Dagwumba. Yahndi is described to be beyond comparison larger than Coomassie, the houses much better built and ornamented. The Ashantees who had visited it, told Mr. Bowdich they had frequently lost themselves in the streets. The king has been converted by the Moors, who have settled themselves there in great numbers. Mr. Lucas calls it the Mahometan kingdom of Degomba; and it was represented to him as peculiarly wealthy and civilised. The markets of Yahndi are described as animated scenes of commerce, constantly crowded with merchants from almost all the countries of the interior. It seems to us, that the best way of becoming acquainted with Africa, is not to plan such sweeping expeditions as have been lately sent out by Government, but to submit to become acquainted with it by degrees, and to acquire by little and little a knowledge of the best methods of arranging expeditions. The kingdom of Dagwumba, for instance, is not 200 miles from a well-known and regular water carriage, on the Volta. Perhaps it is nearer, but the distance is not greater than this. It is one of the most commercial nations in Africa, and one of the most civilised: and yet it is utterly unknown, except by report, to Europeans. Then why not plan an

ezit, for one of that character was comitting piracy in the neighbouring rivers. Having suffered from falling into their hands before, I felicitated myself on the escape. We were afterwards chased and boarded by a Spanish armed schooner, with three hundred slaves on board; they only desired provisions." These are the most important ex-expedition to Dagwumba? the extracts from this publication, which is certainly of considerable importance, from the account it gives us of a people hitherto almost entirely unknown; and from the light which the very diligent and laborious inquiries of Mr. Bow-to proceed with much greater ease and dich have thrown upon the geography of Africa, and the probability held out to us of approaching the great kingdons on the Niger, by means of an intercourse, by no means difficult to be established with the kingdoms of Inta

pense of which would be very trifling, and the issue known in three or four months. The information procured from such a wise and moderate undertaking would enable any future mission

safety into the interior; or prevent them from proceeding, as they hitherto have done, to their own destruction. We strongly believe, with Mr. Bowdich, that this is the right road to the Niger.

Nothing in this world is created in each district, before they are transmitted vain lions, tigers, conquerors, have to the Secretary of State: - they are their use. Ambitious monarchs, who then laid before Congress by the Preare the curse of civilised nations, are sident. Under this Act three census, the civilisers of savage people. With or enumerations of the people, have a number of little independent hordes, been already laid before Congress-for civilisation is impossible. They must the years 1790, 1800, and 1810. In have a common interest before there the year 1790, the population of Ame can be peace; and be directed by one rica was 3,921,326 persons, of whom will before there can be order. When 697,697 were slaves. In 1800, the mankind are prevented from daily quar-numbers were 5.319,762, of which relling and fighting, they first begin 896,849 were slaves. In 1810, the to improve; and all this, we are afraid, numbers were 7,233,903, of whom is only to be accomplished, in the first 1,191,364 were slaves; so that at the instance, by some great conqueror. We rate at which free population has prosympathise, therefore, with the victories ceeded between 1790 and 1810, it of the King of Ashantee-and feel our-doubles itself, in the United States, in selves, for the first time, in love with a very little more than 22 years. The military glory. The ex-Emperor of slave population, according to its rate the French would, at Coomassie, Dag- of proceeding in the same time, would wumba, or Inta, be an eminent bene- be doubled in about 26 years. The factor to the human race. increase of the slave population in this statement is owing to the importation of negroes between 1800 and 1808, especially in 1806 and 1807, from the expected prohibition against importa tion. The number of slaves was also increased by the acquisitions of territory in Louisiana, where they constituted nearly half the population. From 1801 to 1811, the inhabitants of Great Britain acquired an augmentation of 14 per cent; the Americans, within the same period, were augmented 36 per cent.

AMERICA. (E. REVIEW, 1820.)

Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By Adam Seybert. 4to. Philadelphia. 1818.

THIS is a book of character and authority; but it is a very large book; and therefore we think we shall do an acceptable service to our readers, by presenting them with a short epitome of its contents, observing the same order which has been chosen by the author. The whole, we conceive, will form a pretty complete picture of America, and teach us how to appreciate that country, either as a powerful enemy or a profitable friend. The first subject with which Mr. Seybert begins, is the Population of the United States.

Population. As representatives and direct taxes are apportioned among the different States in proportion to their numbers, it is provided for in the American Constitution, that there shall be an actual enumeration of the people every ten years. It is the duty of the marshals in each State to number the inhabitants of their respective districts: and a correct copy of the lists, containing the names of the persons returned, must be set up in a public place within

Emigration seems to be of very little importance to the United States. In the year 1817, by far the most considerable year of emigration, there arrived in ten of the principal ports of America, from the Old World, 22.000 persons as passengers. The number of emigrants, from 1790 to 1810, is not supposed to have exceeded 6000 per annum. None of the separate States have been retrograde during these three enumerations, though some have been nearly stationary. The most remarkable increase is that of New York, which has risen from 340,120 in the year 1790, to 959,049 in the year 1810. The emigration from the Eastern to the Western States is calculated at 60,000 persons per annum. In all the American enumerations, the males uniformly predominate in the proportion of about 100

to 92. We are better off in Great | ing 1804, were consecutively, in milBritain and Ireland,-where the women lions of dollars, 16, 17, 13. were to the men, by the census of 1811, as 110 to 100. The density of population in the United States is less than 4 persons to a square mile; that of Holland in 1803, was 275 to the square mile; that of England and Wales, 169. So that the fifteen provinces which formed the Union in 1810, would contain, if they were as thickly peopled as Holland, 135 millions of souls.

Imports. In 1791, the imports of the United States were 19 millions; on an average of three consecutive years, ending 1804 inclusive, they were 68 millions; in 1806-7, they were 138 millions; and in 1815, 133 millions of dollars. The annual value of the imports, on an average of three years ending 1804, was 75 millions, of which the dominions of Great Britain furThe next head is that of Trade, and nished nearly one half. On an average Commerce. In 1790, the exports of of three years ending in 1804, America the United States were above 19 mil- imported from Great Britain to the lions of dollars; in 1791, above 20 amount of about 36 millions, and remillions; in 1792, 26 millions; in 1793, turned goods to the amount of about 33 millions of dollars. Prior to 1795, 23 millions. Certainly these are counthere was no discrimination, in the tries that have some better employment American Treasury accounts, between for their time and energy than cutting the exportation of domestic, and the each other's throats, and may meet for re-exportation of foreign articles. In more profitable purposes.-The Ame1795, the aggregate value of the mer-rican imports from the dominions of chandise exported was 67 millions of Great Britain, before the great Amedollars, of which the foreign produce rican war, amounted to about 3 millions re-exported was 26 millions. In 1800, sterling; soon after the war, to the the total value of exports was 94 mil- same. From 1805 to 1811, both inLions; in 1805, 101 millions; and in clusive, the average annual exportation 1808, when they arrived at their maxi- of Great Britain to all parts of the mam, 108 millions of dollars. In the world, in real value, was about 43 year 1809, from the effects of the French millions sterling, of which one fifth, or and English Orders in Council, the nearly 9 millions, was sent to America. exports fell to 52 millions of dollars; in 1810. to 66 millions; in 1811, to 61 millions. In the first year of the war with England, to 38 millions; in the second to 27; in the year 1814, when place was made, to 6 millions. So that the exports of the republic in six years, had tumbled down from 108 106 millions of dollars after the peace, in the years 1815-16-17, the exports rose to 52. 81, 87 millions of dollars. In 1817, the exportation of cotton was 85 millions pounds. In 1815, the agar made on the banks of the Missisippi was 10 millions pounds. In 1792, when the wheat trade was at the maximum, a million and a half of bushels Lands. All public lands are surwere exported. The proportions of veyed before they are offered for sale; the exports to Great Britain, Spain, and divided into townships of six miles France, Holland, and Portugal, on an square, which are subdivided into thirtyaverage of ten years ending 1812, are six sections of one mile square, contain27, 16, 13, 12, and 7; the actual ing each 640 acres. The following value of exports to the dominions of lands are excepted from the sales. Great Britain, in the three years end-One thirty-sixth part of the lands, or a

Tonnage and Navigation. Before the revolutionary war, the American tonnage, whether owned by British or American subjects, was about 127,000 tons; immediately after that war, 108,000. In 1789, it had amounted to 437,733 tons, of which 279,000 was American property. In 1790, the total was 605,825, of which 354,000 was American. In 1816, the tonnage, all American, was 1,300,000. On an average of three years, from 1810 to 1812, both inclusive, the registered tonnage of the British empire was 2,459,000; or little more than double the American.

-

and panel (that is, the master, the party | ness had been ten minutes in the room, accused), had been sweeping vents together. | during which time panel was swearing, and About four o'clock in the afternoon, the asking, What's keeping you, you secunpanel proposed to go to Albany Street, drel? When witness returned with the where the panel's brother was cleaning a boy and ropes, Reid took hold of the rope, vent, with the assistance of Fraser, whom and, having loosed it, gave Alison one end, he had borrowed from the panel for the and directed him to go up the chimney, occasion. When witness and panel got to saying, 'Do not go farther than his feet, the house in Albany Street, they found and when you get there fasten it to his foot.' Fraser, who had gone up the vent, between Panel said nothing all this time. Alison eleven and twelve o'clock, not yet come went up, and having fastened the rope, down. On entering the house they found Reid desired him to come down; Reid took a mason making a hole in the wall. Panel the rope and pulled, but did not bring down said, what was he doing? I suppose he has the boy; the rope broke! Alison was sent taken a lazy fit. The panel called to the up again with the other end of the rope, boy, 'What are you doing? what's keeping which was fastened to the boy's foot. When you?' The boy answered that he could not Reid was pulling the rope, panel said, 'You come. The panel worked a long while, have not the strength of a cat ;' he took the sometimes persuading him, sometimes rope into his own hands, pulling as strong threatening and swearing at the boy, to get as he could. Having pulled about a quar him down. Panel then said, 'I will go ter of an hour, panel and Reid fastened the to a hardware shop, and get a barrel of rope round a crow bar, which they applied gunpowder, and blow you and the vent to the wall as a lever, and both pulled with to the devil, if you do not come down.' all their strength for about a quarter of Panel then began to slap at the wall-wit-an hour longer, when it broke. During ness then went up a ladder, and spoke to the this time witness heard the boy cry, and boy through a small hole in the wall pre- say, My God Almighty!' Panel said, 'If I viously made by the mason-but the boy had you here, I would God Almighty you.' did not answer. Panel's brother told wit-Witness thought the cries were in agony. ness to come down, as the boy's master knew best how to manage him. Witness then threw off his jacket, and put a handkerchief about his head, and said to the panel, 'Let me go up the chimney to see what's keeping him.' The panel made no answer, but pushed witness away from the chimney, and continued bullying the boy. At this time the panel was standing on the grate, so that witness could not go up the chimney; witness then said to panel's brother, 'There is no use for me here,' meaning that panel would not permit him to use his services. He prevented the mason making the hole larger, saying, Stop, and I'll bring him down in five minutes' time. Witness then put on his jacket, and continued an hour in the room, during all which time, the panel continued bullying the boy. Panel then desired witness to go to Reid's house to get the loan of his boy Alison. Witness went to Reid's house, and asked Reid to come and speak to panel's brother. Reid asked if panel was there? Witness answered he was; Reid said he would send his boy to the panel, but not to the panel's brother. Witness and Reid went to Albany Street; and when they got into the room, panel took his head out of the chimney and asked Reid if he would lend him his boy; Reid agreed: witness then returned to Reid's house for his boy, and Reid called after him, 'Fetch down a set of ropes with you.' By this time wit

The master of the house brought a new piece of rope, and the panel's brother spliced an eye on it. Reid expressed a wish to have it fastened on both thighs, to have greater purchase. Alison was sent up for this purpose, but came down, and said he could not get it fastened. Panel then began to slap at the wall. After striking a long while at the wall he got out a large stone; he then put in his head and called to Fraser, 'Do you hear, you sir?' but got no answer: he then put in his hands, and drew down deceased's breeches. He then came down from the ladder. At this time the panel was in a state of perspiration: he sat down on a stool, and the master of the house gave him a dram. Witness did not hear panel make any remarks as to the situa tion of the boy Fraser. Witness thinks, that, from panel's appearance, he knew the boy was dead."-(Commons' Report, pp. 136-138.)

We have been thus particular in stating the case of the chimney sweepers, and in founding it upon the basis of facts, that we may make an answer to those profligate persons who are always ready to fling an air of ridicule upon the labours of humanity, because they are desirous that what they have not virtue to do themselves, should appear to be foolish and romantic when done