What applies to one of the negro populations of the western coast, applies, more or less, to all. There are, of course, differences, nevertheless the general character of the social and political institutions, of their habits and superstitions, is alike; so that the description of one tribe is the description of several others besides; the chief distinctions consist in the creeds. I do not mean by this that the particular form of the native and indigenous superstition is of much importance. They are all low and debasing, and even when an African form of faith aspires to the character of a mythology, it is a mythology of an unpoetical, unimaginative, and poverty-stricken character, never indicating much play of feeling, never any vigour or activity of imagination, never inspiring either art or poetry. Of such things we must not think here.
The difference I allude to, and which is one of practical and of ever increasing importance, is that between the Pagan and the Mahometan population, between those which hold to their original Fetishism, to their snake-worship and the like, and those who, having adopted the creed of Islam, are (whatever else they may be) at least, Monotheists.
The Mahometans of the African states must always be separated from the Pagans.
The negro districts of the western coast begin with the country of the Wolofs or Jolofs, as far north as the southern border of the Desert, and the lower course of the river Senegal. There are no better-shaped negroes than these same Wolofs, for they are tall, well-made, active, and intelligent men; Pagans, however, according to their original creed, rather than Mahometans.
The Sereres of Cape Verde, and the Scrawoolli in the interior, are in the same predicament.
The Mandingoes, like the Wolofs, are negroes but not Pagans. They are amongst the first and foremost of the Mahometan negroes: but this applies only to the Mandingoes in the limited sense of the term—the Mandingoes of the Gambia. In the wider sense of the word, the great Mandingo class comprises more than twenty different populations, some of which are as Pagan as the most grovelling snake-worshippers of Dahomey.
Then come the tribes of the islands between the Gambia and Sierra Leone; as also of the lower part of the rivers Grande, Nuñez, Casamanca, &c. Under the names of Felups, Papels, Nalus, Sapis, &c., and we have some of the rudest, but at the same time, the least known of the western negroes.
Between Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas, along with several populations more or less akin to the Mandingo, lie the Krumen, whom a writer already quoted, calls the Scotchmen of Africa. The Kruman leaves without hesitation or reluctance his own country to push his fortune wherever he can find a wider field. He is ready for any employment which may enable him to increase his means, and ensure a return home in a state of improved prosperity. There the Kruman’s ambition is to purchase one or two head of cattle, and one or two head of wives, and to enjoy the luxuries of rum and tobacco. Half the Africans that we see in Liverpool and London are Krumen, who have left their own country when young, and taken employment on board a ship, where they exhibit a natural aptitude for the sea. Without being nice as to the destination of the vessel in which they engage, they return home as soon as they can; and rarely or never contract matrimony before their return. In Cape Coast Town, as well as in Sierra Leone, they form a bachelor community quiet and orderly; and in that respect stand in strong contrast to the other tribes, around them. Besides which, with all their blackness, and all their typical negro character, they are distinguishable from most other western Africans; having the advantage of them in make, features, and industry. Hence, a Kruman is preëminently the free labourer of Africa; quick of perception and amenable to instruction. His language is the Grebo tongue, and it has been reduced to writing by the American missionaries of Cape Palmas.
The Gold Coast gives as the chief populations the Fantis, and the Ashantis, pagan and negro; the latter remarkable for the consolidation of one of the more powerful kingdoms of Africa.
In Dahomey we reach the nadir of Negro rudeness; in Dahomey, where the wars are the cruelest, the slave trade the most rife, and the heathenism, at one and the same time eminently debasing in itself, and eminently unmodified by Mahometanism.