THE ASHANTEE CHIEF.

To compare the manners and customs of different nations, the countries which they inhabit, their climates and productions, is always interesting; and we have here as great a contrast as could well be imagined, to the fur-clad dwellers among the snow-plains and icebergs of Boothia Felix, in the fiery Ashantee, from the burning coast of Africa.

The land of Ashantee forms the northern shore of the Gulf of Guinea, into which its numerous rivers "roll down the golden sand." The deep shade of huge forests overhangs their banks, beneath which lurks many a monster of the deep:-the huge hippopotamus, the cruel and crafty alligator, and, deadlier still than any living foe, the fatal African fever.

There, as the night, chilly with heavy dews, gives way to morning, a stifling and sulphureous mist rises from the river's slime, and from the immense accumulation of the quickly-decaying vegetation; it creeps along the valleys and the courses of the streams, until drawn upward by

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the increasing heat; and then the fierce sun of the tropics beats upon the fevered head of the fated traveller. Day fades at once into darkness, without the gradual twilight of our temperate zone, and, with night, again returns the cold and aguish dew. Oh, it is indeed a horrible climate for Europeans, and well has the coast of Central Africa merited the name of "The White Man's Grave !" And we are apt to wonder how it is possible that man can inhabit such a land, and that he does not abandon it to the wild beasts which prowl and roar around his villages at night, and lie hid in the depths of gloomy woods by day. Not so, however, does the Ashantee chief think of his country; for He whose command, in the early days of man's creation, was "to replenish the earth and subdue. it," has implanted in the human breast an instinctive attachment to the country of our birth; and having spread abroad the sons of men over all quarters of the globe, has given them a capacity for happiness under all climes, which perpetuates and ensures the fulfilment of His original command.

"But where to find that happiest spot below?

Who can direct when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims the happiest spot his own;

Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease.
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine;
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home."

But we must not leave the Ashantee chief without a little more information about him and his father-land. The interior is not nearly so unhealthy as the coasts, although even there immense forests cover the face of the country, which becomes mountainous as we proceed inland. The trees are of stupendous growth, and of endless variety: the gigantic boabab-the mangrove and the palm, mingled with a wild entanglement of thorny underwood, skirt the margins of the rivers: the elegant tuliptree, aloes, and citrons, of various kinds, and whole forests of trees, elsewhere unknown, diversify the interior. The sugar-cane grows wild, fruits without end abound, and "flowers worthy of paradise," of a splendor and magnificence unknown in our conservatories, and surpassed by the productions of no country in the world, are scattered in wild profusion.