Page:The land of fetish.pdf/208

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and the Gold Coast," speaks (pp. 28 and 29) of "the plains of Massa," "the Gaman cavalry," and "the Mahometan soldiery of Gaman"; and that people was popularly believed to be an offshoot of the Houssa tribes and to possess Houssa characteristics. It was reserved for Mr. Smith to explode all these theories, and to make it known that the Gaman territory was covered with forest, like that of Ashanti, and that the people were fetish-worshippers, differing in no important particulars from the tribes in their neighbourhood.

Mr. Smith left Cape Coast on May 15th, 1879, and reached Jooquah, the seat of Quasi Kaye, king of Denkera, on the 16th. He left Jooquah on the 18th, with the king's son, an ocrah, and a sword-bearer, and arrived at Becquai, the first Sefwhee town of importance, on June 6th. He remained at Becquai two days, and reached Yorso, the capital of Sefwhee, on June 10th. Here the Governor's message, to the effect that Mr. Huydekuper's statements were false, was delivered, after Mr. Smith had been detained twelve days waiting for the chiefs to assemble. In the course of conversation the king told him that the events of 1874 had decided him and his chiefs to give up their friendship with the Ashantis and to ally themselves with the British; but that when Mr. Huydekuper's