satisfied until I had sat me down six yards distant, and received his return call in all solemnity. As many as liked of his followers wrung my hand held out in feverish despair, and then, dragging my steps to the Traveller's hut, I sank upon a hard, chilly bench to revel for the night in wild, sleepless dreams. These trivialities are mentioned, not by way of illustrating hardships, but simply to show what is entailed upon travel in this country.

The next day happened to be Yam Customs a harvest festival to celebrate the maturity of young fruits. Fomannah was en fête from dawn to midnight, nor did the young bloods lose an opportunity of letting the stranger know that there was an abundance of tomtoms and lusty arms to beat them. In quiet nooks on the outskirts lay consecrated calibashes of palm oil, mashed yams, and plantains deposited upon altars to propitiate the fetisches, whose appetites must certainly have failed, to judge from the length of time the food remained untouched. In time it disappeared, probably through the medium of birds and wild animals, for I do not believe the most famished native-a believer in the woodland sprites-would touch one morsel dedicated to the Deities.

The festival is a signal for all work to be laid aside in substitution for the following entertainments :-furious beating of drums, tin pots, and oil cans, bell ringing, singing, dancing, and drinking for so long a time as the liquor lasts.

The king regales his chiefs and headmen with rum or gin, and each chief supplies his adherents so far as lies in his power, the women and even children taking their nip as opportunity offers. The drums are quaint and effective, varying as much in size as they do in sound; they are generally made of buckskin strained across elongated wooden or knitted bark tubes, and are played with a stick cut in the form of the letter L. The band is superintended by one fetischeman, whose particular province it is to ensure that no drum shall burst on Customs day; he also has charge of the orchestral refreshment, which he turns to good account on his own behalf.

During the evening His Majesty sat umbrella'd under a large reception tree, surrounded by his retainers and a body-guard of twenty soldiers, armed with somewhat obsolete muskets; his grateful people then presented him with palm wine, after spilling some on the ground as libations to the fetisches; they then danced out the evening, the queen (Victoria, as my interpreter expressed it) leading off with a walk round, remarkable alike for contortions of body and face, which her dutiful subjects most successfully emulated. On retirement of the Royal party the people formed into knots and broke out into boisterous mirth, suspended only when some popular chorus was struck, and they united in one strong voice to fill the forest with strange mysterious chants-weird in sound and rhythm-harmonious though they contrived it not.

As night wore on, a fierce tornado broke over the great Adansi hill;

peals of crackling thunder followed quick on the bright tropical lightning, which lingered amongst the trees like a fixed illumination whence imaginary glades and avenues were revealed, lacking only the remnant of a grey ruin cresting the eminence to complete a thrilling picture.

Fomannah is damp to a degree in consequence of deep prevailing swamps, caused by the accumulation of rain water from the surrounding hills. It is quite a large town in its way, long and straggling in appearance, with fair buildings of the usual bamboo and mud. The king is kind and his people are happy; Quatucoe-the Prime Minister-is a most hearty old gentleman, beaming with smiles and good nature, to whom I was indebted for good advice and useful information, as well as for a duck and some yams, with which he supplemented the king's presents to me.

From Fomannah north the path is intersected by many small streams, which overflow after heavy rains, and convert the country into a morass-at times almost impassable. Captain Barrow and Mr. Kirby, who were unfortunate enough to be travelling there in the rainy season, experienced throughout their journey frightful difficulties, and were often delayed days together until some river had fallen or the morasses hardened. It is useless to calculate upon bridges, though many there are, constructed neatly out of bamboo poles transversely crossed upon joists planted in the river beds, and oftentimes bound together by old telegraph wire, left behind by the Royal Engineers after the war. When a heavy flood comes down, away goes everything, even the stone culverts constructed south of the Prah by practical surveyors. In these floods great fallen trees are even forced along until they become tightly wedged or blocked by some immovable objects. The height of these floods may be traced months. afterwards by observing the deposit of water refuse upon the branches of trees, and a most unaccountable height it is sometimes.

Many uprooted trees lie across the path to Amoaful, a clear open village selected by the Ashantees for their most determined stand against our army. The neighbouring villages show a great falling off in style and finish, the paths leading to them being overgrown and neglected, rendering passage a matter of labour and difficulty.

The chief of Amoaful is a fine handsome young man about 6 feet 3 inches in height. In puris naturalibus he was as fine a specimen as one could wish to see, and a sound sportsman in the bargain, though sadly incommoded by that curse of the country, guinea-worm. This is an insect supposed by some people to be acquired by contact with impure water, as it is not infrequently found in the shoulders, where water carried on the head in bowls has been allowed to drip. It is generally to be found, however, established by burrowing in the feet and legs, which contract so soon as the painful inflammation sets in; the skin then gets tense and shiny, and when an abscess-like head is revealed the native doctors make a rough VOL. XV.-No. 84.

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crucial incision with an ordinary chop' knife, sharpened upon the nearest stone, through which one end of the worm is drawn, fastened to a stick and wound up till completely extracted. The young chief informed me with a grave face that the fetische had sent him the worm. On my asking, Why? he replied, 'I tink fetische no live for like me, so he send me guinea-worm to harm. What I can do? I no can make palaver with fetische. I" dash" him chop, but he no like, so I must pain.'

One cannot help being struck, too, at the sight of so many toeless people, suffering from the ravages of jiggers, also burrowing insects, which generally insinuate themselves through the thickened epidermis at the sides of the nails or on the sole of the foot. Their presence is detected by the feeling as of a thorn; if the part affected is not at once pricked and thoroughly squeezed, there follows a deposit of ova, which, upon maturity, cause the infected limb to wither and drop off.

The popular food in Ashanteeland is the plantain, on which they can not only subsist but thrive and work hard; native carriers, for instance, fed upon them can easily cover from twenty to thirty miles. a day, carrying loads of fifty pounds weight. It can be baked, boiled, stewed, or eaten raw, the skins serving as food for sheep, the leaves as thatch, and an essential oil obtained from the stem is not only marketable, but valuable to the ladies as a shiny cosmetic for physiognomy and coiffure. The latter is made quite a scientific study; groups of girls may often be seen of an afternoon squatting on a village green having their wool trimmed and trained in all the fantastic devices of bunch, tuft, knobs and horns, to each of which lead a maze of white partings like the arcs of a circle.

Besides plantains the country produces in various parts bananas, paw-paws, limes, oranges, water-melons, grenadillas, maize, sweet potatoes, cocoa-nuts, cocoa plant, cola nuts, yams, cassava, beans, pepper, okero, ground-nut, palm kernels wine and oil, croton and castor oil. When industrious enough the people trade in monkey and other skins, sandals, mats, indigo blue, ochre, and cloths made from cotton of the country. The latter are manufactured by the men with remarkable looms of their own invention; they are dyed all manner of colours, and when completed are excellent specimens of workmanship.

A day's march from Amoaful, situate on a rise between two small valleys, is the cosy little village of Adwabim, of which my interpreter innocently informed me the headman was a woman.

The little queen, as they called her, was of prepossessing appearance, and claimed to be a near relative of the royal family, her husband being a nonentity. She and her people were in a most rueful condition in consequence of raids by the Coomassie chiefs, who were said to have robbed, slain, and devastated in the hamlet. Therefore,' said the chiefess, with tears in her eyes, 'I want to come for English Government. Coomassie people too much spoil me; my

young men, they all kill! my old men, they all kill! What I must do? I live for vex.'

I could only tell her what I had already told many others who had appealed to me in distress, that my mission was not a political

one.

In her poverty she brought me a fowl and some yams, in return for which she received a handsome piece of cloth intended for some exalted potentate. My admiration for the brave little woman was increased from the fact that she had just personally stopped a handto-hand fight between two of her men subjects, and had ordered an arbitration of the quarrel, at which she invited me to preside. I declined. Curiosity, however, tempted me to watch the proceedings, which were carried out in the most orderly manner until announcement of the decision, whereupon the friends of both parties fell to cudgelling each other vigorously, in which the arbitrator freely joined.

Shortly after leaving Adwabim we were met by gold cane-bearers, whom the king had despatched from Coomassie with a message of welcome, in reply to mine apprising him of the visit. The king's message ran: The Englishman must come one time (at once) in charge of guides waiting at Akassie.' On reaching Akassie the guides presented themselves, and we started at 3 P.M. for the great city. An hour later the path bifurcated, one fork looking cleared, the other uncleared, our steps being directed to the latter by the guides, who, in spite of all remonstrances, signified their inability to take the direct and open course. Their action was governed by various considerations: First, orders from the king; second, the rule never to introduce strangers by the direct route; third, the medicine men had made fetische along the road I was to travel, evidence of which was visible from time to time in the deposit of certain phylacteries calculated to ensure the discomfiture of any evil spirit.

We were therefore led through a perfect maze, requiring in many cases to be cut through, and eventually reached the south-eastern corner of the town just as the sun was sinking in all its tropical glory through the forest on the far side. For a few moments, whilst news of our arrival was travelling to the palace, I had leisure to scan the aspect from this point of view, and a most disappointing one it was Instead of a great city of streets, containing the palatial residences of the great Ashantee nobility, it appeared little more than an ordinary native town-a conglomeration of insignificant bamboo huts; not one striking object was apparent, except it were a certain darklooking cluster of trees hovered over by a cloud of vultures, that may have been routed from their foul mortuary or were airing themselves after being satiated with carrion.

In half an hour messengers returned with the king's permission to move on, guns were fired, drums beat, horns blown, and a number of people lined the so-called streets leading to the one where a hut

set apart for my use was situated. Chief Bussumburu, the owner, a genial and kind old man, was deputed to be my guardian, and received me with all the dignified urbanity characteristic of a true Ashantee noble. Though no warm bath or cup of tea awaited me, there was the old man's warm welcome and a refreshing smile upon his face as he said, 'Thank you, thank you' (How are you?). Furthermore, the clay floor was clean stained, a new straw mat lay on the threshold, and hanging on the walls were the remains of a looking-glass streaked through by some wondering 'Alice' curious to know what mystery lay behind the mercury. This, with the addition of an illustrated advertisement page of the Field newspaper, and a half-used bottle of Pain-killer, constituted the furniture.

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Almost before there was time to change my torn and stained accoutrements, intelligence arrived that the king was ready to receive.' It was then dark, but torches had been provided, and, preceded by a file of the guard, we started for the royal trystingplace, with Bussumburu as chief of the staff.

On emerging from the so-called street into an open plot a blaze of torchlight was revealed upon an eminence hard by the centre of the town, to which we were guided with slow and cautious steps, in order to avoid stumbling into the ruts and ravines-ravages of raingrown to an alarming extent since the senators of Coomassie have neglected their city and centred all their energies in civil strife.

Upon the illumined eminence, under a canopy of huge umbrellas, begirt by his retainers, sat His Majesty Quacoe Duah, a fledgling king, who but a few days before had been invested with the sceptre 2 of Ashantee, vice his deposed uncle, Osai Mensah. His hands were loaded with rings, his feet cased in gold-decked sandals, and a rich green and gold-spangled toga enveloped his body. Of medium height, well built, with a large head, open forehead, close beard, and placid, meaningless countenance, he bore an almost striking resemblance in face to the present Tewfik Pasha, quasi-Khedive of Egypt. Around him in tiers sat his nobles and chiefs, each invested in his own state, and a vast concourse of people whom curiosity had beguiled to come and see the White Man. Preceded by Bussumburu, I walked around the amphitheatre, shaking hands with the king and others whom he indicated, and was greeted throughout by the same simple expression, Thank you.' This ended the reception. We then retired to an apposite eminence at some distance, and there awaited the return visit, in conformity with Ashantee etiquette. In the course of some minutes a dozen elephant-horns heralded forth that the royal party were in motion, just as the moon dallied upwards in silver streaks through the trees, whose lower leafless branches stood out in bold relief like demons with outstretched arms. Amidst all the revelry of all their barbarous music, the waving of torches and umbrellas (a curious custom), came the king in full pageant, 2 The emblem of kingship in Ashantee is the Golden Stool.