Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/292

 240 WEST AFRICA. r J.OKA AND Fauna. Thynks to the copious rainfall, the inland Hilly districts are clothed with dense forests of gigantic timber. In Wassaw and Dankira the stem of the so-called Karkum has a diameter of 8 and even 10 feet, and grows to the height of 200 feet. But the districts stretching north of the Akwapem hills are deprived bv these woodlands of the moisture needed to support forest growths, and are conse- quently covered with herbage, with here and there a few thickets of scant foliage. Yet even here large trees interlace their branches above the streams, forming long avenues of verdure along the riverain tracts. The Gold Coast is especially rich in palms of diverse species, and the butter -tree and kola nut also flourish in the northern forests. The elephant was formerly almost as commoi on the Gold as on the Ivory Coast. Bosman, who resided at Elmina at the beginning of the eighteenth century, speaks of an elephant getting killed in the garden of that coast station, but at present these animals have almost entirely disapfpeared from the coastlands. Even beyond the Adansi, Ajamanti, and Akwapem hills, scarcely any game is now to be seen; but the more inland savannahs, and especially the Okwahu district west of the Volta, still abound in elephants, buffaloes, gazelles, wild boars, and various species of carnivora. The hippopotamus and crocodile are also numerous in the Volta, notwithstanding the European steamers now plying on that river. In the forests are met two remarkable simians, a black monkey with white beard, and an ashy grey with a long silken coat. In the savannahs the butterfly world is as varied as are the flowers themselves, and here the naturalist, Buchholz, collected no less than seven hundred species during a short trip to the interior. Amongst the insects is now included the formidable American "jigger " (Bu/ex penetrans), intro- duced from Brazil by the emancipated Negroes. The tsetse, or some analogous species, is fatal to cattle in many districts on the coast, and the destructive ants have been known to attack and devour poultry, and to drive the natives themselves from their dwellings. The great enemy of the ant is the apra {Manis longicau- datus), which is completely encased in strong scales, and sleeps like a snake coiled within its long tail. For the natives the most valuable animal is a species of snail, which is said by Bonnat to constitute the chief staple of food in Ashanti. Inhabitants. The peoples of the Gold Coast belong to two distinct stocks, the conquered aborigines and the conquerors. The former have held their ground as separate groups in the Upper Volta basin, and especially in the hilly inland districts. Those of the Brong country, north-west of the Ashanti state, are by the Ashantis collectively called Potoso, that is, "Barbarians," and most of them speak the Gwang, the Nta, or allied idioms derived from the same original source as those of their conquerors ; but nearly all are now also familiar with the Oji or Ga of their political masters. Physically, the two races differ little from one another, except that the aborigines are more robust, and practice peculiar social usages