Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/298

 of the Mandingans on the other, an end should at last be put to such a frightful reign of carnage.

Before the war of 1873, which brought the English to Cumassi, the kingdom of Ashanti with all its vassal states occupied a space comprising in the north and north-east all the mountain slopes, while the plains of Dugomba for a distance of 240 miles paid it tribute. In the south the Ashantis had reduced the Dankiras, their former masters, and developing a crescent from the Assini to the Lower Volta, they were pressing the allies of the Europeans more and more towards the coast.

They had even reached the sea at the mouth of the Boosum-Prah, and elevated by former successes over the whites, as at the battle of Essemacu, in 1824, when they "devoured the courage of the English" by eating General MacCarthy's heart, they even attacked the fortresses on the coast, scaling the ramparts to the very canon's mouth.

But in the decisive campaign of 1873, said to have been foretold by the fall of the great fetish tree at Cumassi, they were fain to yield to British valour, the flight of the king immediately involving the whole empire in complete disorganisation. All the vassal provinces resumed their independence, and many Ashantis themselves were glad to settle in Dankira under British protection. The kingdom