further than a cannon-shot apart. Here and there one of them
had acquired a slight domination which the other respected; but in the case
of the Coromantees (or Fantyns) William Bosman, a Dutch company factor
about 1700, wrote that both companies had "equal power, that is none at
all. For when these people are inclined to it they shut up the passes so
close that not one merchant can come from the inland country to trade with
us; and sometimes, not content with this, they prevent the bringing of
provisions to us till we have made peace with them." The tribe was in fact
able to exact heavy tribute from both companies; and to stretch the treaty
engagements at will to its own advantage.[5] Further eastward, on the
densely populated Slave Coast, the factories were few and the trade
virtually open to all comers. Here, as was common throughout Upper Guinea,
the traits and the trading practices of adjacent tribes were likely to
be in sharp contrast. The Popo (or Paw Paw) people, for example, were so
notorious for cheating and thieving that few traders would go thither
unless prepared to carry things with a strong hand. The Portuguese alone
bore their grievances without retaliation, Bosman said, because their goods
were too poor to find markets elsewhere.[6]But Fidah (Whydah), next door,
was in Bosman's esteem the most agreeable of all places to trade in. The
people were honest and polite, and the red-tape requirements definite and
reasonable. A ship captain after paying for a license and buying the king's
private stock of slaves at somewhat above the market price would have the
news of his arrival spread afar, and at a given time the trade would be
opened with prices fixed in advance and all the available slaves herded
in an open field. There the captain or factor, with the aid of a surgeon,
would select the young and healthy, who if the purchaser were the Dutch
company were promptly branded to prevent their being confused in the crowd
before being carried on shipboard. The Whydahs were so industrious in the
trade, with such far reaching interior connections, that they could deliver
a thousand slaves each month.[7]

[Footnote 5: Bosman's _Guinea_ (London, 1705), reprinted in Pinkerton's
_Voyages_, XVI, 363.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., XVI, 474-476.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., XVI, 489-491.]

Of the operations on the Gambia an intimate view may be had from the
journal of Francis Moore, a factor of the Royal African Company from 1730
t