e is a
powerful and rich nation, called the Aahantees: they seem first to have
been heard of by Europeans about the year 1700; but they were not seen near
the coast, nor had they any intercourse with our factories till the year
1807: they visited the coast again in 1811, and a third time in 1816. These
invasions produced great distress among the Fantees, and even were highly
prejudicial to our factory; in consequence of which, the governor resolved
to send a mission to them. Of this journey an account has been published by
Mr. Bowdich, one of those engaged in it. The travellers passed through the
Fantee and Assen territories. The first Ashantee village was Quesha; the
capital is Coomastee, which the mission reached on the 19th of May, 1817.
Mr. Bowdich paints the splendour, magnificence, and richness of the
sovereign of the Ashantees in the most gorgeous manner; and even his
manners as dignified and polished. But though his work is very full of what
almost seems romantic pictures and statements of the civilization and
richness of the Ashantees, and gives accurate accounts of their kingdom,
yet, in other respects, it is not interesting or important, in a
geographical point of view. There are, indeed, some notices which were
collected from the natives or the travelling Moors, regarding the countries
beyond Ashantee, and some of their opinions respecting the Niger. The most
important point which he ascertained was, that the route from the capital
to Tombuctoo is much travelled; and it is now supposed that this is the
shortest and best road for Europeans to take, who wish to reach the Niger
near that city. Indeed, we understand that merchants frequently come to the
British settlement at Sierra Leone, who represent the route into the
interior of Africa and the neighbourhood of the Niger from thence, as by no
means arduous or dangerous.

We shall next direct our attention to the north of Africa.

The hostility of the Mahometans, who possessed the north of Africa, to
Christians, presented as serious an obstacle to travels in that quarter as
the barbarism and ferocity of the native tribes on the west coast did to
discoveries into the interior in that direction. In the sixteenth century,
Leo Africanus gave an ample description of the northern parts; and in the
same century, Alvarez, who visited Abyssinia, published an account of that
country. In the subsequent century, this part of Africa was illustrated by
Lobo, Tellea, and Pon