2. To the east of the Grebo, between San Pedro and Apollonia, live people speaking different dialects of the Agni language. These are the Assinians or Okin (stature, 1 m. 75), the Agni of Krinjabo or Sanwy (Fig. [9]), the Apollonians or Zemma, the handsomest of the Negroes, who formerly furnished to Brazil its thousands of slaves; finally, the Pai-pi-bri, between San Pedro and Lahu, whom Admiral Fleuriot de Langle took for a white race. These Negroes are really of a bronzed tint, much fairer than, for example, the Okin. Other somatic traits (projecting nose, lips not thrust out, etc.), as well as ethnic traits (bark clothing, etc.), together with the recent arrival in the country of the Pai-pi-bri, have led it to be thought that they have a kinship with the Zandeh peoples.[522] Their neighbours to the east, the Jack-Jack or Jacks, live opposite Dabu, on a narrow tongue of land separating the lagoon from the sea; they call themselves Awekwom, and speak, like their Ebrié and Attié neighbours, a dialect of the Tshi language. They are excellent traders, nearly all knowing English.
3. But the Awekwom and their congeners form only a linguistic parish in the Agni country. The true domain of the populations speaking the languages of the Tshi or Ochi family begins only on the east of Apollonia. In the interior are encountered the Ashanti and Ton shepherds and tillers—that is to say in the ancient kingdom of Ashanti (now an English possession),—and the Fanti traders on the coast, in the region of Elmina.[523]
The Accredians of the coast, between the town of Accra and the mouth of the Volta, formed a mixed population whose language is not yet classed.
4. The Volta provides the approximate limit between the Tshi tongues and the Evé or Ewe dialects. The bulk of the people speaking Ewe occupy the German colony of Togo and the west of the French colony of Dahomey. In this group are distinguished six dialectic families: The Anlo or Anglo of the coast between the Volta and Togo, whose dialect is the best known; the Krépis, mountaineers of the Akposso, to the north of the preceding, who speak the Anfueh language; the Ana, of Atakpamé; the Fon or Fawins, better known as Dahomese, to the east of the Anlo and Krépis, who speak the Jeji or Jege dialect; the Ewe properly so called, or Henhué, to the north of the preceding, especially around the town of Wida (Glé-ewé, “land of the Ewes”); lastly, the Mahi or Maki, entirely to the north, speaking the purest Ewe dialect, and coming, as they say, from the banks of the Niger.[524]
e. The River Wami separates in the east the Ewes from the peoples speaking the Yoruba tongues, and who are, from west to east: the Egba or Ikba of the Abeokuta country, the Nago of Porto Novo, the Ikelu and the Jebu of Lagos. The Yoruba originally occupied all the region comprised between the Slave Coast and to about the ninth latitude N.; but they have been driven back towards the coast and into the east by the Ewe peoples, who, towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, invaded the present country of the Dahomese, and later (in 1772), the Togo and the ancient kingdoms of Porto Novo and Wida (formerly Juida). In this last the Jege or Fon (of Ewe stock) have imposed their dominion on the Nagos (of Yoruba stock). Most of the Nagos have been reduced to slavery; they, together with the Mina, emigrants from Ashanti, formed, while the slave-trade flourished, the bulk of the black cargoes consigned to Brazil.[525]
The Ewes and the Yorubas are shorter in stature (1 m. 64 and 1 m. 65) than Nigritians in general, and are often brachycephalic or mesocephalic. These two characters, combined with the comparatively fair colour of the skin, observed by all travellers, and the great development of the pilous system, are, I consider, sufficiently indicative of the presence in these people of Negrillo elements, of which I shall presently speak.[526]
The Protectorate of the Niger coast and the delta of this river are occupied by populations related to the Yorubas, but much intermixed. The Benin, in the interior, whose kingdom, where human sacrifices were much in vogue, has lately been destroyed by the English; then on the coast the active-trading Jakris tribe, the Bonky and the Calabaris, who formerly furnished so many slaves; finally, the Idzo or Ijos, of the delta of the Niger, divided into several tribes—Brass, Patani, etc., good ship-builders, but very turbulent,—who have attacked time after time the settlements of the Niger Company.[527] In the interior of the territory of this Company are found the Igbera, mountaineers, forming several independent little states (about a million and a half individuals) between Adimpa on the lower Niger and Sakun on the middle Niger, as well as on the Benue, and sub-divided into “Sima” of the towns and “Panda” of the forests. Their neighbours the Igara, speaking Yoruba, occupy the left bank of the Niger and lower Benue, where they are more or less subdued, while in the interior they remain wild hunters. In the Cameroons, the Bantu, like the Dualas and the Bakokos, have driven into hinterland the Bobondi, Buyala, and other Nigritian tribes.