rom this commerce in colonial productions, has been from
_two_ to _three millions sterling_; for although large remittances have
been made in bills to the African merchants, yet these bills have been
provided for in produce by the planters. Politically considered, it will
appear, that its regeneration might have been more appropriately the
progressive work of time; and humanely viewed, it will also appear, from my
subsequent remarks, that by those means alone the African can be freed from
his shackles, and his condition efficaciously improved.

But to proceed with the intention of this chapter, I shall next make some
remarks on the religion, customs, and character of the natives of the
Windward Coast.

The natives on this part of the coast, and indeed throughout Africa, are in
general extremely superstitious; they believe in witchcraft, incantations,
and charms, and in certain Mahomedan doctrines, adopted from itinerant
devotees and priests of that persuasion, who are numerous among them, and
make a trade of selling charms. The Baggoes, Nellos, Susees, Timinees, &c.
occasionally worship and offer sacrifices to the Devil, and are equally
confused in their conception of the Supreme Being, of whose attributes they
entertain an assemblage of indistinct ideas, of which it is impossible to
give any clear description. They will tell the traveller with great apathy,
"they never saw him, and if he live he be too good to hurt them." Their
acts of devotion are the consequence of fear alone, and are apparently
divested of any feelings of thankfulness or gratitude for the blessing they
receive from the good Spirit which they suppose to exist. The Devil, or
evil spirit, which they suppose to exist also, claims their attention from
the injury they suppose him capable of inflicting, and is worshipped under
a variety of forms; at one time in a grove, or under the shade of a large
tree, consecrated to his worship, they place, for the gratification of his
appetite; a _country mess_, a goat, or other offering of this nature, which
they may conceive to be acceptable to his divinity, who, however, is often
cozened out of the offering by some sacreligious and more corporeal
substance, to whose nature and wants it is more congenial; at some periods
great faith is attached to their _fetish_, as an antidote against evil; and
at others the alligator, the snake, the guava, and a number of other living
animals and inanimate substances are the object