The king of Ashantee has a fair government.  His power is well-nigh absolute.  He has a House of Lords, who have a check-power.  Coomassi is the famous city of gold, situated in the centre of the empire.  The communication through to the seacoast is unobstructed; and it is rather remarkable that the Ashantees are the only nation in Africa, who, living in the interior, have direct communication with the Caucasian.  They have felt the somewhat elevating influence of Mohammedanism, and are not unconscious of the benefits derived by the literature and contact of the outside world.  They are a remarkable people:  brave, generous, industrious, and mentally capable.  The day is not distant when the Ashantee kingdom will be won to the Saviour, and its inhabitants brought under the beneficent influences of Christian civilization.

FOOTNOTES: 

[62] The following telegram shocks the civilized world.  It serves notice on the Christians of the civilized world, that, in a large missionary sense, they have come far short of their duty to the “nations beyond,” who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

“MASSACRE OF MAIDENS.  LONDON, NOV. 10, 1881.—­Advices from Cape Coast Castle report that the king of Ashantee killed two hundred young girls for the purpose of using their blood for mixing mortar for repair of one of the state buildings.  The report of the massacre was received from a refugee chosen for one of the victims.  Such wholesale massacres are known to be a custom with the king.”—­Cinn.  Commercial.

CHAPTER VI.

THE NEGRO TYPE.

     CLIMATE THE CAUSE.—­HIS GEOGRAPHICAL THEATRE.—­HE IS
     SUSCEPTIBLE TO CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION.

If the reader will turn to a map of Africa, the Mountains of the Moon[63] will be found to run right through the centre of that continent.  They divide Africa into two almost equal parts.  In a dialectic sense, also, Africa is divided.  The Mountains of the Moon, running east and west, seem to be nature’s dividing line between two distinct peoples.  North of these wonderful mountains the languages are numerous and quite distinct, and lacking affinity.  For centuries these tribes have lived in the same latitude, under the same climatic influences, and yet, without a written standard, have preserved the idiomatic coloring of their tribal language without corruption.  Thus they have eluded the fate that has overtaken all other races who without a written language, living together by the laws of affinity, sooner or later have found one medium of speech as inevitable as necessary.

But coming south of the Mountains of the Moon, until we reach the Cape of Good Hope, there is to be found one great family.  Nor is the difference between the northern and southern tribes only linguistic.  The physiological difference between these people is great.  They range in color from the dead black up to pure white, and from the dwarfs on the banks of the Casemanche to the tall and giant-like Vei tribe of Cape Mount.