AFRICAN BARBARITY.

Or the enormous barbarities continually committed by uneducated and uncivilized savages, the following dreadful and extraordinary sketch will exhibit a fearful example. A modern traveller says, speaking of a periodical custom of the Ashantee nation on the Gold coast of Africa:

I was assured by several, that the custom* for Sai Quamina was repeated weekly for three months, and that two hundred slaves were sacrificed, and twenty-five barrels of powder fired each time. But the custom for the king's mother, the regent of the kingdom, during the invasion of Fantee, is most celebrated. The king himself devoted three thousand victims, (upwards of two thousand of whom were Pantee prisoners,) and twenty-five barrels of powder. The villages of Dwabin, Kokofoo, Becqua, Soota, and Marmpong, furnished one hundred victims and twenty barrels of powder each, and most of the smaller towns ten victims, and two barrels of powder each.

Hence then it appears, that nearly four thousand victims were sacrificed at the death of one person! And when it is considered that many hundreds are also immolated on the Yam and Adai customs, as well as on the death of any person of rauk, how many thousands may we suppose to be annually sacrificed to these horrible superstitions.

The following account of the Adai custom is given by Mr. Hutchinson, the British resident at Coomassie, for some months after the departure of Mr. Bowdich.

When any public execution or sacrifice is to take place, the ivory horns of the king proclaim at the palace door, "Wow! wow! wow!" "Death! death! death!" and as they cut off their heads the bands play a peculiar strain till the operation is finished.

The greatest human sacrifice that has been made during my residence in Coomassie, took place on the eve of the Adai custom, early in January. I had a mysterious intimation two days before, from a quarter not to be named

Periods set apart for murder,

My servants being ordered out of the way, I was thus addressed: "Christain, take care and watch over your family; the angel of death has drawn his sword, and will strike on the neck of many Ashantees. When the drum is struck on Adai eve, it will be the death signal of many. Shun the king if you can, but fear not." When the time came to strike the drum, I was sitting, thinking on the horrors of the approaching night, and was rather startled at a summons to attend the king. This is the manner he always takes to cut off any captain or person of rank: if they are thought desperate characters they are thrown down, and a knife is thurst into the mouth to keep them from swearing the death of any other.

This sacrifice was in consequence of the king imagining, that if he washed the bones of his mother or sisters, who died while he was on the throne, it would propitiate the fetish and make the war successful. Their bones were, therefore, taken from their coffins, and bathed in rum and water with great ceremony; after being wiped with silks, they were rolled in gold dust, and wrapped in strings of rock gold, aggry beads, and other things of the most costly nature. Those who had done any thing to displease the king were then sent for in succession, and immolated as they entered, that their blood might water their graves. The whole of the night the king's executioners traversed the streets, and dragged all they met with to the palace, where they were put in irons. Next morning being Adai custom, every place was silent and forlorn, and his majesty proceeded to the morning sacrifice of sheep, &c. attended only by his confidents, and the members of his own family. As soon as it was dark the human sacrifices were renewed. The victims, with their hands tied behind them, and in chains, proceed: the bones of the deceased were removed to the sacred tomb of Bantame. The procession returned about three in the afternoon, when the king took his seat in the market place with his small band, and "Death! death! death !" was echoed by his horns. He sat with a silver goblet of palm wine in his hand, and when they cut off any head, imitated a dancing motion in his chair, and a little before dark he finished his terrors for that day. I dared not send out my people, lest they should

be murdered. The sacrifice was continued till the next Adai custom, seventeen days!

A most inhuman spectacle presented itself on another occasion. It was a man whom they tormented previous to sacrifice. His hands were pinioned behind him, a knife was passed through his cheeks, to which his lips were noosed like a figure of eight; one ear was cut off and carried before him, the other remaining hung to his head by a small bit of skin; there were several gashes in his back, and a knife was thrust under each shoulder blade; he was drawn by a cord passed through his nose, by men disfigured by immense caps of shaggy black skins; drums beating before them as they marched.

EXECUTION OF AN INNOCENT MAN.

JOHN C. HAMILTON was executed in Kentucky in 1817, for the murder of Dr. Sanderson, of Natchez, Mississippi, and a man was executed in Mobile, who confessed himself the murderer of Sanderson, and declared that Hamilton was innocent. The following are the particulars of this melancholy affair, the perusal of which are sufficient to wring tears of anguish from the heart of apathy itself.

"The annals of judicial proceedings rarely afford a report of a trial and execution of a more extraordinary and distressing character than this, and it should be universally circulated that judges and jurors may be guarded against condemning supposed culprits on circumstantial evidence. Young Hamilton, through life, supported an unblemished character, and obtained the love, esteem, and admiration of all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. As is common with the young gentlemen of Kentucky, he was in the practice of spending the winter season in the more genial climate of the Mississippi. On his return from a winter residence in that quarter, he accidentally fell in company with Dr. Sanderson, who being in ill health was journeying to the celebrated watering place at Harrodsburg Spa, with hopes of recovering his lost health; as he was anxious to make something out of his pilgrimage, he took with

"I fear sir,' said the General, 'our dinner will not prove so palatable to you as I could wish, but it is the best we have.' The officer, who was a well bred man, took up one of the potatoes and affected to feed, as if he had found a great dainty; but it was very plain that he ate more from good manners, than good appetite." -See page 190, Vol. I.