appear to be a race of people who unite all the vices of savage life, to many of those which are supposed more peculiarly to belong to a state of civilization. Their form of government is republican, and the Pinins (their lawyers) are stated to be well pleased, when they can involve a European in a palaver, (equivalent, we presume, to an English Chancery suit,) because they expect a rich harvest, and prompt payment. A display of legal adroitness is, indeed, exhibited on their part, in our author's narrative, which fully equals the most legitimate proceedings among our own gentlemen of the long robe. The following extract derives interest from the late events at Cape Coast:

"The Fantees and Asshantees may be classed together as one nation; the former occupying the sea-shore, and the country extending a few miles from it into the interior; and the latter a great extent of territory north of it.

"The Fantees are black as jet, muscular, and well-formed, and those that are engaged in fishing, and employed as canoe-men, can endure much bodily fatigue, although they often make excuses to abridge their labour, however well they may be paid for it; for they are anxious to have the labour of the day concluded by noon, in order that they may wash, and dress, and gossip with their neighbours the remainder of the day. "Their national mark is three small perpendicular incisions on each temple, and on the nape of the neck.

"In the construction of their dwellings and canoes, they exhibit much superiority and skill over other African tribes; the former being substantially built, and not unfrequently having appartments over those on the basement story, and the latter having a form which renders them less liable to upset; or, to speak in a sailor's phrase, not so crank. "The Fantee women are well formed, and many of them are not wanting in personal beauty, as their features are small, their limbs finely rounded, their hands and feet small, and their teeth uniformly white and even. The toilette of one of these females consists of a large calabash, containing a small mirror, paint (generally white), teethbrushes made of a very fibrous tough wood, a bark which has a powerful musky smell, grease, and soap. She has also a large brass pan, in which she generally washes herself from head to foot every day. She often consumes an hour or two in adorning her person; and in the application of her paint, the management of her hair, and the scenting of her person, discovers no inconsiderable degree of skill.

"Young females, on arriving at the age of puberty, are dressed in their best garments, and have their persons adorned with the gold belonging to their families and acquaintances. In this garb, they are paraded through the town by a number of their own sex. This ceremony is intended to acquaint the men, that the lady is mar

riageable.

"The women here, however, as well as in most other parts of Africa, sow and reap, grind corn, carry wood and water, and perform all the drudgery attendant on housekeeping; while their husbands are perhaps gossipping, drinking, or sleeping, except during the herring or fishing season, when the villages along the sea-coast present a scene of bustle and activity, much beyond what they do in ordinary times. Then, all is life and animation. A smooth sea, a still atmosphere, and shoals of herrings, cause every canoe, capable of service, to be launched. These, with two or three fishermen in each, proceed outside of the surf, where they use the cast-net with great address. This is twisted three or four times round the right arm of the individual who throws it; the depending or lower part of which is loaded, at short distances, with lead, for the purpose of spreading and sinking it. With a jerk he casts it from him, having first given it a quick, circular motion, by which means the lead flies off in radii, as from the centre of a circle, and spreads the net to its extreme circumference, which is generally thirty or forty feet; and, as it sinks in the water, encloses such fish as cannot escape. Having reached the bottom, it is gently drawn by a cord attached to its crown, or centre, until it is collapsed, when it is hauled up, and the fish shook out of it into the canoe. These fish are afterwards cured, by being smoked, or dried in the sun; and which, with maize, constitute the chief food of the inhabitants. Maize is ground between two stones, of which the lower one is large, ponderous, and concave at the upper surface; the lesser stone is worked upon it by the hand, and pulverizes the grain, which, during the operation, is occasionally moistened with water: this mode of grinding corn is common in North Africa. After it has been thus ground, it is permitted

- to become slightly acid, when it is boiled, or baked, to suit the palate of the consumer ; and, in either state, forms a pleasant and nutritious food. It is called, by the natives, canky; they call European biscuit, panoo.

"Daughters are purchased from their fathers for wives, and are paid for according to the rank and wealth of the bridegroom and the bride's father. The common price of a wife is one ounce of gold, one anker of brandy, and cloth of the value of one ounce in trade.

Grewke, which contains 6 or 7000 inhabitants, is considered as a sea-port of the kingdom of Dahomy, with which Governor Dalzel's account has already made us acquainted. They have a custom here of dedicating females to their fetiche, which bears a striking resemblance to the Roman Catholic custom of consecrating nuns. In the town of Ardrah, which contains from 7 to 10,000 inhabitants, there are many persons that profess the Mahometan religion. The people are extremely industrious, manufacturing iron (into various articles), cotton, soap, &c. The government is republican; but they pay tribute to the King of Hio, because he protects them from the incursions of the Dahomians. The extensive country of Benin lies to the east of Dahomy and Hio; and on this coast the trade in slaves was once very extensive. "But the extreme unhealthiness of the country," says Captain Adams, "was, I apprehend, the chief cause, why the English trade at this place declined." Farther to the eastward, are the Heeboos, who are the chief nursery for slaves; but by what nation they are bounded on the north, our author could obtain no satisfactory account. "But it is certain," he says, ،، that there are not any slaves sold at Bonny, that pass from the interior through it." Capt. Adams next gives an interesting account of Warre, (containing about 5000 souls,) the voyage to which was conducted in a canoe, proceeding, for two days and a night, at the rate of about four miles an hour. The country through which they passed, was covered with an impenetrable forest, and the town, situated on a beautiful island, about five miles in circumference, seemed as if it had fallen from the clouds in the midst of a desert; for it is a little elevated above the surrounding country, is well cultivated, and has much the appearance of an extensive park. In the other Negro principalities (and the African coast is divided into many,) there is little worthy of notice. What applies to one, applies to all, with very few exceptions. Their religion, for instance, if religion it can be called, is the same in each country, though, in one, the object of worship is a crocodile ; and, in another, the iguana; the Calabar god eating up the god of the Bornians with very little ceremony. All attempts to convert them to Christianity have failed; but here and there the faith of Mahomet seems to have slightly taken root. In regard to the Niger, Captain Adams observes, that far in the interior, in Housa, is an immense lake, which the Africans, from whom he had the information, compared to the sea: it is so large, they said, that persons were frequently days and nights on it without seeing land, and that the sun was observed to rise and set in its waters. If a lake of these dimensions do really exist, we have at once an outlet for the waters of the Niger, without scattering them in large morasses, with one party, or leading them over or through mountains into the Congo, with another.

We should now hasten to conclude our review, were it not neces

sary to take some notice of Bonny, the principal mart of the slavetrade. Not fewer than 20,000 are annually sold there, 16,000 of whom are natives of one nation, called Heeboo; so that this single nation has not exported a less number of its people, during the last twenty years, than 320,000. The Heebnos inhabit a country of great extent, the southern boundary of which may be comprised between Cape Formosa and Old Calabar. They are tall and well formed ; many of the women symmetrically so; and they may be distinguished from the other tribes of Africans, by their skins being generally of a yellow, bilious cast, although varying in some instances to a deep black. There is a class of them, called Breeché (or Gentlemen), whom masters of slave-ships have always had a strong aversion to purchase; "because the impression made on their minds, by their degraded situation, was rendered more galling and permanent, from the exalted rank they occupied in their own country." It is pleasing to observe, from the numerous anecdotes scattered through the volume, as well as from the author's unhesitating assertion, that the natural talents of the inhabitants of Africa are not inferior in any respect to those of Europeans. With respect to the slave-trade, Captain Adams places the horrible nature of the trading atrocity in its strongest light, by shewing that the first approaches of the Africans to "laying the foundation of becoming a civilized people," cannot exist till the slavetrade is abolished. "Wars of aggression," he says, "will then become less frequent, and the chiefs will turn their attention to the cultivation of the soil." For what a scourge has Africa to thank her visitors! With what feelings must she regard these European vessels, big with the knowledge and crimes of civilization; its intelligence ministering to the evil passions; and its refinement operating as a stimulant to vice! There is, at least, this consolation for those who consider profit as a good, only when the hands are clean, that when these men discharge the load of their crimes on the shores of Africa, and leave behind, when they depart, despair and execration, they carry back with them to Europe ruined constitutions, forfeited characters, and ulcerated hearts. Sail where they will, they cannot shun themselves.

The World in Miniature: the South Sea Islands. Edited by Frederic Shoberl.-2 vol. 18mo. Ackerman.

We are happy to see this elegant and useful work proceeding so well. The above constitutes a new portion of the world in miniature, and derives particular interest from the visit which the late King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands lately paid this country. The present volume is inferior, neither in interest nor decoration, to any of the divisions already published; and, in some respects, particularly on account of the nature of the subject to which we have referred, it may boast of features superiorly attractive. The literary sketches accompanying the work are well written, with unaffected animation and unpretending vivacity. They do much credit to the editor, Mr. Shoberl. The embellishments are also entitled to warm approbation; and to conclude, the book, in every respect, is worthy of the acknowledged taste of the publisher.

A Topographical, Statistical, and Historical Account of the Borough of Preston; with a List of the Mayors, Bailiffs, Recorders, and Representatives in Parliament, who have served the Borough. By Marmaduke Tulket. 8vo. pp. 347. 10s. 6d.

THIS work, numerous as are the particulars announced in its titlepage, corresponds in its execution, with the magnitude of its promises, and forms a very useful vade-mecum for those for whose accommodation it is professed to be published; viz. the ladies and gentlemen residing at Preston, and persons resorting to that borough and its vicinity. It includes an account of the antiquities and modern improvements in that town; a copy of the charter granted in the reign of the second Charles; biographical sketches of eminent men; an extensive chronology, brought down to the present time; and a description of the guild merchant's fête, held there every twentieth year, and a variety of other information, some of which, few of the inhabitants possessed.

Considering of how much real utility is the study of topography, and of what rational recreation it may be rendered the source, we are inclined to give our unqualified praise to the ingenious industry that produced the History of Preston. One of the many advantages derived from intelligence of the nature afforded by works of this kind, is that of the views they present of the progress of man, and the current of human affairs. Where,-as in the case of Preston, a simple military station, and a casual assemblage of the cottages of peasants and the huts of hinds, (to speak in the language of the present writer,) have risen into commercial towns and cities, the most interesting operations of time, as regarding society, civilization, and the advancement of those arts on which depend the comforts and the elegancies of life, are spread before our view, and we see the various wheels of the great machine of human improvement working, and producing their conjoint effects. Regarding the amelioration of external things as the result of industry and mental illumination, we derive from its contemplation a higher pleasure than could arise from the survey of mere personal convenience; we see in the improvement of surrounding objects, the improvement of our species, and feel a generous gratification. Of this kind of enjoyment, Mr. Tulket's work is qualified to afford a considerable portion, especially to his fellowtownsmen and the visitors of Preston; and, of course, we cannot hesitate to recommend it to their attention.

Gray's New Book of Roads; on a Plan entirely new.-16mo. pp. 170.

Price 7s.

THIS is the most useful travelling companion with which we are acquainted. Its compact form, though a great, is not its only recommendation. The various routes which connect any two places are seen at a single glance; many new lines of road are pointed out; and any required route from any given place to any other, whether it be along the principal or cross-roads, is, from the novel mode adopted in this book, traced out with the greatest facility. In reducing such a mass of information into so small a compass, a portion of the topo

graphical details to be found in some works of this kind, is of course omitted. But this is a very trifling deduction from the general merit of the book, when put in contrast with its complete information in respect to the roads, the readiness with which this information is presented to the traveller, and the neat compact form of the volume.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POLITICS.

Immediate, not gradual, Abolition of West Indian Slavery. 8vo. pp. 24. price 4d.

OUR author is one of those intemperate advocates who, to be sincere, are more likely to prejudice than benefit the cause they undertake. Non istis defensoribus, &c. Instead of waiting for that slow and natural process by which the negro mind will be prepared for a better condition, and without which no durable and substantial benefit ever was obtained by man, he wishes to overleap the necessary interval. Like the boy with the golden eggs, he would possess all the advantages at at once and immediately, or not at all. It is well that there are not many of so rash an opinion, and that judgment, not feeling, is the usual object of appeal. Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Buxton, and all the great advocates of the Slave Trade Abolition, have declared, and prudently declared, that immediate emancipation is out of the question.

The moral, civil, and physical condition of the slave population has evidently and undoubtedly been improving for these last thirty years; and as there is a constant succession of persons going to the colonies, who take with them the opinions, habits, and manners of the parent state, the latter will gradually diffuse themselves.

We are quite convinced, notwithstanding the reasoning of our author, that no solid amelioration in the condition of the slave population can take place but by slow, gradual, and benevolent means, imperceptible almost to the masters, but absolutely so to the slave; for if the undefined object of freedom is held out to them, incapable as they now are of understanding, that freedom requires obedience to the laws and the necessity of labour, a feverish restlessness will be the result, and convert the hitherto tranquil and orderly slave into a sullen, turbulent, and refractory character. It is impossible to effect any amelioration of the condition of the slave, except through the means of the planter. To stir up discontent between them would raise a flame, which could only be extinguished by blood. Neither is the loss of our colonies, in a political point of view, to be contemplated with indifference. Our West India colonies are the Atlantic outworks of the empire; and situated near the Gulf of Mexico, are capable (Jamaica in particular,) of facilitating those commercial enterprises with the ancient country of Montezuma, and other rising states in that empire, from which so many advantages may fairly be anticipated. Liberty, therefore, and the interests of humanity, are connected with the tranquillity and security of our West India possessions.

Our author says, that it is the slave who ought to be compensated for his sufferings, and not the slave master for the loss of his services,