Before Closing These Observations On Srahmandazi I Will Give The
Best Account Of That Land That I Am At Present Able To.
Some day
perhaps I may share the fate of the Oxford Professor in In the Wrong
Paradise and go there myself, but so far my information is second-
hand.
It is like this world. There are towns and villages, rivers,
mountains, bush, plantations, and markets. When the sun rises here
it sets in Srahmandazi. It has its pleasures and its pains, not
necessarily retributive or rewarding, but dim. All souls in it grow
forward or backward into the prime of life and remain there, some
informants say; others say that each inhabitant remains there at the
same age as he was when he quitted the world above. This latter
view is most like the South West one. The former is possibly only
an attempt to make Srahmandazi into a heaven in conformation with
Christian teaching, which it is not, any more than it is a hell.
I have much curious information regarding its flora and fauna. A
great deal of both is seemingly indigenous, and then there are the
souls of great human beings, the Asrahmanfw, and the souls of all
the human beings, animals, and things sent down with them. The
ghosts do not seem to leave off their interest in mundane affairs,
for they not only have local palavers, but try palavers left over
from their earthly existence; and when there is an outbreak of
sickness in a Fantee town or village, and several inhabitants die
off, the opinion is often held that there is a big palaver going on
down in Srahmandazi and that the spirits are sending up on earth for
witnesses, subpoenaing them as it were.
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