ANTA, HANTE, or ANTEN, a kingdom or province on the gold coast of Africa, bounded on the north by Adorn, on the north-cast by Tabeu, on the cast by Guaffo, on the north-north-west by Mompa, on the north west by Igwira, and on tho west by the lesser Incassan. The territory of Anta, which extends about ten leagues from east to west, is mountainous, and covered with trees. Its extensive valleys are rich and well watered, and produce herbs, pine apples, oranges, lemons, rice, maize, sugar canes, yams, and potatoes. The rice and maize are of the best quality, and the potatoes are larger than on any other part of the coast, particularly on the banks of the river Botri, where nothing but better cul tivation is wanting to make the plantations as produc tive as those of America. The best kinds of oil are likewise made in Anta ; and the negroes make great quantities of wine from the palm tree, which they con vey in their canoes along the gold coast, and supply the country about twenty leagues around. The province is well stocked with animals, both wild and tame. Goats and poultry are abundant. The elephants are numerous, and the serpents of an enormous size. A yellow kind of wood grows in Anta, of which they make chairs and tables, and. which is well fitted for making helms, small masts, and other parts of vessels. Gold can scarcely be said to be an article of commerce in Anta, as the gold which they procure is brought from the kingdoms of Igwira and Mompa, with the permission only of the negroes of Adom. On this coast are found quantities
of large oysters, the shells of which arc converted into lime. In 1707, the Dutch erected a fort, with seven or eight cannon, and a garrison, to guard the oysters from the English. The inhabitants of Anta are said to make the best canoes in Guinea. Though formed only of the single trunk of a tree, they are sometimes thirty feet long, and seven or eight feet broad. They carry from ten to twelve ton of merchandise, and about twenty row ers. They are generally sold for forty or fifty livres worth of merchandise, to the Europeans who trade with the coasts of Juida and Ardra, for the purpose of disem barking their commodities. We are informed by Pos man, that Anta was formerly a powerful and populous nation, but that the country has been depopulated by frequent wars with the neighbouring kingdom, and has been reduced to only seven villages, viz. Botro, Poyera, or Boycra, Pando, Tacorari, or Anta, Soconda, Maque jaquc, and Sama. The king of Anten lives about four or five leagues from the coast, and manages all the villages of his kingdom by his captains or braffos. Sec Dapper's Description de l'affrigue, p. 227, 278. Peu chet's Diet. Commerf. Mud. Univers. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 401. (j)