It is only fair to the Kru to say that this unflattering picture of them stands alone. "There is but one man of all of us who have visited West Africa who has not paid a tribute to the Kruboy's sterling qualities," says Miss Kingsley. Her opinion coincides with that of the old coasters based on life-long experience, and she waxes indignant at the ingratitude with which Kruboy loyalty is rewarded. "They have devoted themselves to us English, and they have suffered, laboured, fought, been massacred and so on with us generation after generation.... Kruboys are, indeed, the backbone of white effort in West Africa[158]." But the very worst "sweepings of the Sudanese plateau" seem to have gathered along the Upper Guinea Coast, occupied by the already mentioned _Tshi_, _Ewe_, and _Yoruba_ groups[159]. They constitute three branches of one linguistic, and probably also of one ethnical family, of which, owing to their historic and ethnical importance, the reader may be glad to have here subjoined a somewhat complete tabulated scheme. The _Ga_ of the Volta delta are here bracketed with the Tshi because A. B. Ellis, our great authority on the Guinea peoples[160], considers the two languages to be distantly connected. He also thinks there is a foundation of fact in the native traditions, which bring the dominant tribes--Ashanti, Fanti, Dahomi, Yoruba, Bini--from the interior to the coast districts at no very remote period. Thus it is recorded of the Ashanti and Fanti, now hereditary foes, that ages ago they formed one people who were reduced to the utmost distress during a long war with some inland power, perhaps the conquering Muhammadans of the Ghana or Mali empire. They were saved, however, some by eating of the _shan_, others of the _fan_ plant, and of these words, with the verb _di_, "to eat," were made the tribal names _Shan-di_, _Fan-di_, now _Ashanti_, _Fanti_. The _seppiriba_ plant, said to have been eaten by the Fanti, is still called _fan_ when cooked. TRIBES OF TSHI TRIBES OF EWE TRIBES OF YORUBA AND GA SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH _Gold Coast_ _Slave Coast West_ _Slave Coast East_ _and Niger Delta_