The native laws are not severe. Theft is punished by fine, imprisonment, or flogging, according to the magnitude of the offence. Adultery is punished by compelling the adulterer to pay the original price for which the adulteress was purchased by her husband, and the culprit then takes the woman to himself. But female virtue is held in so little esteem, that opportunities of infidelity are often afforded by husbands to some of his less favourite wives for the purpose of extorting money and getting rid of her. The common price of a wife here and at Cape Coast is sixteen dollars. A wife is very seldom purchased when more than twenty years old; but generally when five or six years younger, so that very old men have frequently ten or a dozen wives much younger than their own daughters. Not even the appearance of affection exists between husband and wife, or between parents and children. So little do they care for their offspring, that many offered to sell me any of their sons or daughters as slaves. They are, to speak the truth, in point of parental affection inferior to brutes. The caboceer is judge and chief magistrate at Winnebah, his captains forming his council or jury; but a white man who has been robbed seldom obtains any redress, since the natives consider him as fair game, and the caboceer, doubtless, receives part of the plunder. Whenever, therefore, I detected the offenders, I gave the thieves a good sound flogging myself. There are here, as all along the coast, fetish-houses in many different parts of the town; and the image worshipped by them is a rude figure made of clay, in a sitting posture, and as nearly like a human being as the artist can make it. On certain days they prostrate themselves and kiss the ground, when they come near any of their sacred places. Nothing offends them more than showing contempt for their fetish. This is resented more especially by their fetish-men, or priests; there are also many fetish-women on this part of the coast. The natives vary much in colour, owing to the mixture of the different tribes; those of the purest race have what is called a good black hue, woolly hair, high forehead, with the upper part narrow and round. The average height of the men is five feet nine inches; of the women, about five feet six inches: they are well made. They usually wear only a cloth round their loins, but the younger of both sexes generally go entirely naked. They most commonly wash themselves once in twenty-four hours, but lie on the ground huddled together like pigs. Their food is chiefly yams, plantains, kankie, fish, and palm-oil. The caboceer and his captains generally get drunk with palm-wine, peto, and rum, twice in the twenty-four hours.