GUINEA, a large tract of country lying along the west side of the continent of Africa. It is divided into the upper and lower, the latter of which is also called Congo. See CONGO.—These two together, reckoning from Cape Tigrin, near the mouth of the river Sierra Leoni in N. Lat. 9° 18', to Cape Negro
Guinea. gro in S. Lat. , extend about 2500 miles along the sea-coast, and many more, if we reckon all the turnings, windings, and bays. As for its inland extent, it is not easy to ascertain it.
As all this country lies between the tropics, the air is excessively hot, especially from the beginning of September to the end of March, which, with the coolness of the nights, the frequent thick, stinking, sulphureous mists, and the periodical rains, when the flat country is overflowed, makes it very unhealthy, especially to Europeans, to whom it is generally fatal. The winds on the coast of Guinea Proper set from west to east, directly contrary to the trade-winds, except in the rainy season, between the vernal and autumnal equinox, when they have violent storms of wind, with terrible thunder and lightning: and these winds blowing from the south, the shipping on the coast at this time are in great danger of being wrecked; and, even in the calmest weather, there is always such a surf beating upon the shore, that it is very difficult and dangerous landing. As to the face of the country, a variety of hills, valleys, woods, and plains, are seen all along the coast, intermixed with bogs and morasses.
The animals of Guinea are the same as those of Caffraria; but their grain is different. Here is no wheat; but plenty of Guinea grain, rice, maize, or Indian corn. There are no grapes here; but the palm-tree affords them wine, and their cocoa-nuts a pleasant drink. Here are also oranges and lemons, plantains, pomegranates, tamarinds, pine-apples, and other tropical fruits.
Of forest-trees they have a great variety, which grow to a prodigious height and bulk; some of them being excellent timber, and having a very beautiful grain.
Their metals are gold, copper, and iron. The gold is found by the natives in the sands of their rivulets in dust; sometimes they meet with large pieces, but there are no gold mines open, and possibly there may be no mines of that metal. As it is found washed down into the brooks and rivulets in every place our people bring it from, it seems probable that it lies pretty near the surface. There is plenty of salt on the Guinea coast; which they make by letting the salt-water into shallow pans in the dry seasons, and the sun exhaling the water, the salt is left at bottom.
Besides gold, ivory, and slaves, this country affords indigo, wax, gum-senega, gum-tragacanth, and a variety of other gums and drugs. These articles may be had in most parts of this extensive coast, but chiefly in Proper Guinea.
Of mountains in Guinea, the most remarkable are those of Sierra Leoni. The principal capes are those of Cape Blanco, Cape Verd, Cape Leon, Cape St. Ann's, Cape Palmas, and Cape Three-Points, Cape Formosa, Cape Monte, Cape St. John, Cape Lopas, Cape Lede, and Cape Negro. The chief bays are the Cyprian or Cintra Bay, and the Bite of Guinea. Of the rivers, the most considerable are those of Coanzo and Ambriú, the Zaara, the Lunde, the Cameron, the Formosa, the Volta, the Sierra Leon, and the Sherbro. All these run from east to west, (except the Volta, which runs from north to south),
and fall into the Atlantic.
The natives of Guinea, descended from the original inhabitants, are all negroes, well known by their flat noses, thick lips, and short woolly hair; though there are among them many camps or villages of Arabs, who are of a tawny complexion; and there is a mixed breed of Mulattoes, proceeding from the commerce of the Portuguese and natives, who are almost as dark as the negroes.
As to their habits, the common people have generally only a cloth about their middle; but people of condition have another over their shoulders, and are adorned with abundance of rings, and bracelets of gold, ivory, or copper: the arms, legs, and a great part of the bodies of the men are naked; but the women are veiled, when they go abroad.
The Europeans tell us, that the natives have generally more wit than honesty, frequently mixing their gold with base metal: but there is reason to suspect, that the little tricks and cheats they use in trade have been taught them by the Christians with whom they traffic; and if the women are lewd, they are not worse than those that accuse them, who first tempt them to incontinence, and then reproach them for it.
Every family almost in Guinea make their own tools and utensils: they are all smiths, carpenters, and masons; building their own houses or huts, which are, indeed, of very slight materials; and, till the Europeans brought them hammers, &c. one stone served them for an anvil, and another for a hammer. The women manage all the husbandry, as well as their domestic affairs: they dig, sow, plant, and bring in the harvest, while the husband looks on: so that the more wives a man has, the richer he is said to be in this country; and some negroes on the coast make money by letting out their wives; and, indeed, they make little difference between their wives and their slaves.
The small-pox is as fatal to the negroes as the plague, and worms are an epidemical distemper; not those in the stomach and bowels; but a species that are found between the skin and the flesh, and give the patient extreme pain, till they are drawn out: which is an operation that sometimes takes a month to perform; for, if they attempt to draw it out too hastily, the worm breaks, and rots in the flesh, or breaks out in another place. Some negroes have nine or ten of these worms in their skin at once, and the Europeans are not entirely free from them. A greedy ravenous appetite is also reckoned among the diseases of the Guinea negroes; and the venereal disease is often fatal to them, having no effectual methods of cure of their own: nor are the wounds they receive in the field of Mars less dangerous than the other, especially if the bones are shattered; for they can cure only ordinary flesh-wounds, which they do by applying poultices of herbs. The negroes are seldom long-lived, though they are generally healthful while they live.
The distempers the Europeans are subject to on this coast are fevers, fluxes, and colics, which are occasioned by indifferent water and bad air; their settlements lying near the coast, where the fogs and steams arising from the ooze and salt-marshes, and
Guinea. the stinking fish the natives dry on the beach, corrupt the air, and render it fatal to the foreigners. The most temperate men find it difficult to preserve their health; but a great many hasten their death by their intemperance, or negligence, exposing themselves to the cold air in the evening, after a very hot day. This sudden change, from one extreme to the other, has often very bad effects in hot climates.
As to religion, the natives generally acknowledge one Supreme Being, that created the universe; and yet pay him no manner of worship or adoration, never praying to him, or giving him thanks for any thing they enjoy. They believe he is too far exalted above poor mortals to take notice of them; and therefore pray to a multitude of inferior deities, of which there are some common to whole nations, and yet every man has a god of his own choosing besides.
In Guinea there are some sovereign princes, whose dominions are very extensive, rich, powerful, and themselves arbitrary, limited by no laws, or any other restraint; and there are many others, to whom the Dutch and other Europeans have given the name of kings, whose dominions do not exceed the bounds of an ordinary parish, and whose power and revenues are proportionably meas.
The country of Guinea-Proper extends from Cape Palmas to the river Volta, about an hundred and fifty leagues along the sea-coast, which bounds it to the south. The Europeans divide it into two parts, the Tooth and the Gold Coast; the former extending from Cape Palmas to the river Sueria da Casta, 18 miles west of the river Mancha, by some called Rio Cobre, and Aukeber; and the latter from thence to the river Volta.
The Tooth, Ivory, or Quaqua Coast, is so called from the great plenty of elephants teeth found there. According to Dapper, the inhabitants of this coast, though they seem the most barbarous and savage people of all Guinea, are really the most civilized and the most reasonable, and pass for such among their neighbours. When they come to trade with any ship, they take some water into their hands, and let a few drops of it fall into their eyes; which is a kind of oath, by which they intimate, that they would rather lose their eye-sight than cheat those they trade with. They are no less averse to drunkenness than to fraud; and though their country produces numbers of palm-trees, yet they drink no palm-wine, but only a certain liquor, called bordon, or tombo-wine, which they mix with water. Their chief manufactures and trade consist in cotton habits, which are called Quaqua govens, and are made of five or six breadths sewed together. One of the fundamental laws of this country is, that every one is obliged to continue all his life-time in the condition in which he was born; so that one whose father was a fisherman, for instance, can never become any thing else but a fisherman, and so of all other trades and professions.
The Gold-coast had its name given it by the Portuguese, from the immense quantity of that precious metal it produces: the same reason has made all the other nations of Europe retain the same appellation. According to the best charts, the situation of the Gold-coast is between 4° 30' and 8° north latitude, and 16° and 8° 4' of longitude, beginning at the river
Ankobar, and extending to the Rio Volta, that is, about 130 leagues from west to east. The beginning of the Gold-coast, however, is placed by many at Rio de Suero da Costa, near Inui; that being the first place where gold is found; and the end at Lay, in the country of Lampi, three or four leagues from Akra, because there the gold is procured but accidentally, from a people called Amabo, inhabiting the more distant interior country.
This coast contains a variety of different kingdoms and states, viz. Adomir, called likewise Saku, and A-vina: Axim, Ankobar, Adom, likewise called Little Inkassan, or Warshes; Jabi, or Jabs; Commendo, or Guaffo: Fetu, Sabo, Fantin, Ackron, Agonna, or Anguirra; Amra, or Aquambus, Lubbage, and Ningo, or Lampi. Each of the above divisions, provinces, or kingdoms, have one, two, or more towns or villages on the sea-coast, between or under the European forts and settlements. Eight of them are real monarchies, having their own proper kings, who, before the arrival of the Europeans, were called captains; the rest are republics, governed by magistrates, who are subject to the laws, and periodical changes. Upon the river Cobre or Ankobar, and in the country of that name, which is properly the first country of the Gold-coast, there are a number of towns, in the three provinces of Ankobar, Aborrel or Abocro, and Eguira. The first is a monarchy; the two latter republics. For a number of years the Dutch had a fort at Eguira; and their gold trade, besides what they drew from the neighbouring countries, was very considerable, this canton having its own proper mines; but lost all their footing in the country by a quarrel with the negroes.