We no longer pay tribute for the ground on which Cape Coast Castle is built. There is a well-conducted school established in the fort, where I saw upwards of a hundred native boys. I was struck with the appearance of a smart-looking half-caste boy, about eight years old, who, on my asking his name, said: “Ma name, George, sar: son of Captain George C----, Royal Navy, sar.” This is the first attempt of education, and when knowledge becomes diffused, the natives (Fantees), who are at present idle and superstitious, may soon see the advantages of commerce and industry. They are daily leaving off many of their fetish practices. Their religion appears to consist chiefly in doing homage or making presents to anything their priests choose to call or make fetish--a stone, a tree, a wild beast--in short, anything. In passing by the edge of a jungle, I observed a path neatly cut through the thickest part of it, and was told that in all probability I should see something “fetish.” I went in. The path terminated at a large stone, round which were some old shells and two or three bottles containing rum. These were offerings to induce this stone to keep harm away from the donors. They consider white men as superior in power to their fetish, and any of them would have removed a bottle of rum from the stone had he been told to do so by the Resident or any white man whom they had been in the habit of looking up to, although they dared not have touched it of their own accord. They follow their own religion, for want of a better. The soil is capable of producing anything, and a second India, on a small scale, may one day rise out of these settlements--that is, if they continue in the hands of such an enterprising, liberal little company of merchants as now have the management. The merchants appeared to vie with one another in doing everything to make our stay at Cape Coast agreeable, in which they fully succeeded. Mr. Swansen, brother of my old friend, the Governor at Dixcove, prepared a visit to a plantation he was making a few miles in the country. It is a remarkable fact that the cattle, which formerly used to sleep in the woods outside the town, have, ever since the Ashantis attacked Cape Coast, come in, and sleep under the protection of the guns. The dispensary is well arranged in the fort, near which I saw what is only seen in tropical climates--a man whose leg had just been amputated by a shark. I visited Mr. Swansen’s enterprising undertaking, the first attempt at anything like a plantation that had been made. He had been here for two years, and was expending a considerable sum in clearing away the jungle, so that it must be some time before he can get income from it. Napoleon Plantation is about six miles from Cape Coast.