Schools of industry and agriculture are wanted on this coast more than any thing else. As land can be got for nothing anywhere on the coast,--land capable of growing any thing,--a few hundred pounds expended on a farm of three hundred acres would be very profitably laid out. There are plenty of men who can read and write, begging for employment; and ten times their number, from the bush, such as might be deemed capable of learning, might be apprenticed to different kinds of trades for four or five years. It is worthy of remark, that on the whole coast, from Cape Palmas to Accra, there is not a single shoemaker, although no trade seems to be so much wanted. Even the natives in the interior complain much of the want of shoes. Nor is there a tailor, a cabinet-maker, a wheelwright, or a blacksmith who can weld a piece of iron with any neatness in the whole settlement. Such articles, if manufactured on the coast, would draw trade from the interior, and excite the natives to industry; and thus British manufactures would be soon in great demand in the interior also. This would greatly reduce the Slave trade, as the minds of the people would be directed to agriculture and manufactures, particularly as it is well known that even in the Ashantee country the population is not on the increase. The Ashantees have indeed, for the last two months, been at war with the tribes to the north of them, bordering on the Kong Mountains, and have lost a great number of men, as their enemies, who have no fire-arms, no doubt did also. The merchants of Cape Coast, Annamaboe, and Accra, experience great loss and inconvenience, in consequence of the trade being stopped between Ashantee and the coast. This was occasioned by the murder of an Ashantee woman by a Fantee, on her return from a trading journey to the coast. She had occasion to stop a little behind her companions, and was then robbed and murdered by this Fantee who overtook her. Her companions missing her, went back, and found her with her head nearly severed from her body. This took place in the Fantee country, between Cape Coast and Ashantee. The murderer, however, was seized and brought part of the way back to Cape Coast by a soldier from thence, on his way with the letter to the King of Ashantee, from Governor Hill, which I mentioned above. Mr. Chapman, who had resided as missionary at Coomassie, the capital of Ashantee, for the last twelve months, arrived at Annamaboe on the 26th of November, 1844, with the intelligence that all the King required was that the murderer should be punished according to the English law. The King at that time expressed a great desire to see me in Ashantee, and promised me complete protection in his country; but said nothing about allowing me to go further. FOOTNOTES: [2] _Fetish_ is corrupted from the Portuguese _feitiço_, witchcraft, conjuring. [3] His Majesty had served several years on board a British man-of-war, previously to attaining his sovereignty.