By Sheer Pluck

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"There is more in it than you think," the doctor joined in; "although
it is not spells, but poison, which they use against each other.
The use of poison is carried to an incredible extent here. I have
not been much on shore; but the medical men, both civilian and
military, who have been here any time are convinced that a vast
number of the deaths that take place are due to poison. The fetish
men and women who are the vendors of these drugs keep as a profound
secret their origin and nature, but it is certain that many of them
are in point of secrecy and celerity equal to those of the middle
ages."

"I wonder that the doctors have never discovered what plants they
get them from," Frank said.

"Some of them have tried to do so," the doctor replied; "but have
invariably died shortly after commencing their experiments; it
is believed they have been poisoned by the fetish men in order to
prevent their secrets being discovered."

The hours passed pleasurably. The beautiful neatness and order
prevailing on board a man of war were specially delightful to
Frank after the rough life he had so long led, and the silence and
discipline of the men presented an equally strong contrast to the
incessant chattering and noise kept up by the niggers.

The next morning the ship was off Accra. Here the scenery had
entirely changed. The hills had receded, and a wide and slightly
undulating plain extended to their feet, some twelve miles back.
The captain was going to land, as he had some despatches for the
colony, and he invited Frank to accompany him. They did not, as
Frank expected, land in a man of war's boat, but in a surf boat,
which, upon their hoisting a signal, came out to them. These surf
boats are large and very wide and flat. They are paddled by ten or
twelve negroes, who sit upon the gunwale. These men work vigorously,
and the boats travel at a considerable pace. Each boat has a stroke
peculiar to itself. Some paddle hard for six strokes and then easy
for an equal number. Some will take two or three hard and then one
easy. The steersman stands in the stern and steers with an oar. He
or one of the crew keeps up a monotonous song, to which the crew
reply in chorus, always in time with their paddling.

The surf is heavy at Accra and Frank held his breath, as, after
waiting for a favorable moment, the steersman gave the sign and
the boat darted in at lightning speed on the top of a great wave,
and ran up on the beach in the midst of a whirl of white foam.

While the captain went up to Government House, Frank, accompanied by
one of the young officers who had also come ashore, took a stroll
through the town. The first thing that struck him was the extraordinary
number of pigs. These animals pervaded the whole place. They fed in
threes and fours in the middle of the streets. They lay everywhere
in the road, across the doors, and against the walls. They quarreled
energetically inside lanes and courtyards, and when worsted in their
disputes galloped away grunting, careless whom they might upset.
The principal street of Accra was an amusing sight. Some effort had
been made to keep it free of the filth and rubbish which everywhere
else abounded. Both sides were lined by salesmen and women sitting
on little mats upon the low wooden stools used as seats in Africa.
The goods were contained in wooden trays. Here were dozens of women
offering beads for sale of an unlimited variety of form and hue.
They varied from the tiny opaque beads of all colors used by English
children for their dolls, to great cylindrical beads of variegated
hues as long and as thick as the joint of a finger. The love of
the Africans for beads is surprising. The women wear them round
the wrists, the neck, and the ankles. The occupation of threading
the little beads is one of their greatest pleasures. The threads
used are narrow fibers of palm leaves, which are very strong. The
beads, however, are of unequal sizes, and no African girl who has
any respect for her personal appearance will put on a string of
beads until she has, with great pains and a good deal of skill,
rubbed them with sand and water until all the projecting beads are
ground down, and the whole are perfectly smooth and even.

Next in number to the dealers in beads were those who sold calico,
or, as it is called in Africa, cloth, and gaudily colored kerchiefs
for the head. These three articles--beads, cotton cloth, and
colored handkerchiefs--complete the list of articles required for
the attire and adornment of males and females in Africa. Besides
these goods, tobacco, in dried leaves, short clay pipes, knives,
small looking glasses, and matches were offered for sale. The majority
of the saleswomen, however, were dealers in eatables, dried fish,
smoked fish, canki--which is a preparation of ground corn wrapped up
in palm leaves in the shape of paste--eggs, fowls, kids, cooked
meats in various forms, stews, boiled pork, fried knobs of meat,
and other native delicacies, besides an abundance of seeds, nuts,
and other vegetable productions.

After walking for some time through the streets Frank and his
companions returned to the boat, where, half an hour later, the
captain joined them, and, putting off to the Decoy, they continued
the voyage down the coast.

The next morning they weighed anchor off Addah, a village at
the mouth of the Volta. They whistled for a surf boat, but it was
some time before one put out. When she was launched it was doubtful
whether she would be able to make her way through the breaking
water. The surf was much heavier here than it had been at Accra,
and each wave threw the boat almost perpendicularly into the air,
so that only a few feet of the end of the keel touched the water.
Still she struggled on, although so long was she in getting through
the surf that those on board the ship thought several times that
she must give it up as impracticable. At last, however, she got
through; the paddlers waited for a minute to recover from their
exertions, and then made out to the Decoy. None of the officers had
ever landed here, and several of them obtained leave to accompany
the captain on shore. Frank was one of the party. After what they
had seen of the difficulty which the boat had in getting out, all
looked somewhat anxiously at the surf as they approached the line
where the great smooth waves rolled over and broke into boiling
foam. The steersman stood upon the seat in the stern, in one hand
holding his oar, in the other his cap. For some time he stood half
turned round, looking attentively seaward, while the boat lay at
rest just outside the line of breakers. Suddenly he waved his cap
and gave a shout. It was answered by the crew. Every man dashed
his paddle into the water. Desperately they rowed, the steersman
encouraging them by wild yells. A gigantic wave rolled in behind
the boat, and looked for a moment as if she would break into it,
but she rose on it just as it turned over, and for an instant was
swept along amidst a cataract of white foam, with the speed of an
arrow. The next wave was a small one, and ere a third reached it the
boat grounded on the sand. A dozen men rushed out into the water.
The passengers threw themselves anyhow on to their backs, and in
a minute were standing perfectly dry upon the beach.

They learned that Captain Glover's camp was half a mile distant,
and at once set out for it. Upon the way up to the camp they passed
hundreds of negroes, who had arrived in the last day or two, and
had just received their arms. Some were squatted on the ground
cooking and resting themselves. Others were examining their new
weapons, oiling and removing every spot of rust, and occasionally
loading and firing them off. The balls whizzed through the air in
all directions. The most stringent orders had been given forbidding
this dangerous nuisance; but nothing can repress the love of negroes
for firing off guns. There were large numbers of women among them;
these had acted as carriers on their journey to the camp; for among
the coast tribes, as among the Ashantis, it is the proper thing
when the warriors go out on the warpath, that the women should not
permit them to carry anything except their guns until they approach
the neighborhood of the enemy.

The party soon arrived at the camp, which consisted of some bell
tents and the little huts of a few hundred natives. This, indeed,
was only the place where the latter were first received and armed,
and they were then sent up the river in the steamboat belonging to
the expedition, to the great camp some thirty miles higher.

The expedition consisted only of some seven or eight English
officers. Captain Glover of the royal navy was in command, with
Mr. Goldsworthy and Captain Sartorius as his assistants. There were
four other officers, two doctors, and an officer of commissariat.
This little body had the whole work of drilling and keeping in
order some eight or ten thousand men. They were generals, colonels,
sergeants, quartermasters, storekeepers, and diplomatists, all at
once, and from daybreak until late at night were incessantly at work.
There were at least a dozen petty kings in camp, all of whom had
to be kept in a good temper, and this was by no means the smallest
of Captain Glover's difficulties, as upon the slightest ground for
discontent each of these was ready at once to march away with his
followers. The most reliable portion of Captain Glover's force were
some 250 Houssas, and as many Yorabas. In addition to all their
work with the native allies, the officers of the expedition had
succeeded in drilling both these bodies until they had obtained a
very fair amount of discipline.

After strolling through the camp the visitors went to look on at
the distribution of arms and accouterments to a hundred freshly
arrived natives. They were served out with blue smocks, made of
serge, and blue nightcaps, which had the result of transforming
a fine looking body of natives, upright in carriage, and graceful
in their toga-like attire, into a set of awkward looking, clumsy
negroes. A haversack, water bottle, belts, cap pouch, and ammunition
pouch, were also handed to each to their utter bewilderment, and
it was easy to foresee that at the end of the first day's march the
whole of these, to them utterly useless articles, would be thrown
aside. They brightened up, however, when the guns were delivered to
them. The first impulse of each was to examine his piece carefully,
to try its balance by taking aim at distant objects, then to
carefully rub off any little spot of rust that could be detected,
lastly to take out the ramrod and let it fall into the barrel, to
judge by the ring whether it was clean inside.

Thence the visitors strolled away to watch a number of Houssas in
hot pursuit of some bullocks, which were to be put on board the
steamers and taken up the river to the great camp. These had broken
loose in the night, and the chase was an exciting one. Although
some fifty or sixty men were engaged in the hunt it took no less
than four hours to capture the requisite number, and seven Houssas
were more or less injured by the charges of the desperate little
animals, which possessed wonderful strength and endurance, although
no larger than moderate sized donkeys. They were only captured at
last by hoops being thrown over their horns, and even when thrown
down required the efforts of five or six men to tie them. They were
finally got to the wharf by two men each: one went ahead with the
rope attached to the animal's horn, the other kept behind, holding
a rope fastened to one of the hind legs. Every bull made the most
determined efforts to get at the man in front, who kept on at a run,
the animal being checked when it got too close by the man behind
pulling at its hind leg. When it turned to attack him the man in
front again pulled at his rope. So most of them were brought down
to the landing place, and there with great difficulty again thrown
down, tied, and carried bodily on board. Some of them were so
unmanageable that they had to be carried all the way down to the
landing place. If English cattle possessed the strength and obstinate
fury of these little animals, Copenhagen Fields would have to be
removed farther from London, or the entrance swept by machine guns,
for a charge of the cattle would clear the streets of London.

After spending an amusing day on shore, the party returned on board
ship. Captain Glover's expedition, although composed of only seven
or eight English officers and costing the country comparatively
nothing, accomplished great things, but its doings were almost
ignored by England. Crossing the river they completely defeated
the native tribes there, who were in alliance with the Ashantis,
after some hard fighting, and thus prevented an invasion of our
territory on that side. In addition to this they pushed forward
into the interior and absolutely arrived at Coomassie two days
after Sir Garnet Wolseley.

It is true that the attention of the Ashantis was so much occupied
by the advance of the white force that they paid but little attention
to that advancing from the Volta; but none the less is the credit
due to the indomitable perseverance and the immensity of the work
accomplished by Captain Glover and his officers. Alone and single
handed, they overcame all the enormous difficulties raised by
the apathy, indolence, and self importance of the numerous petty
chiefs whose followers constituted the army, infused something of
their own spirit among their followers, and persuaded them to march
without white allies against the hitherto invincible army of the
Ashantis. Not a tithe of the credit due to them has been given to
the officers of this little force.

Captain Glover invited his visitors to pass the night on shore,
offering to place a tent at their disposal; but the mosquitoes are
so numerous and troublesome along the swampy shore of the Volta
that the invitations were declined, and the whole party returned
on board the Decoy. Next day the anchor was hove and the ship's
head turned to the west; and two days later, after a pleasant and
uneventful voyage, she was again off Cape Coast, and Frank, taking
leave of his kind entertainers, returned on shore and reported
himself as ready to perform any duty that might be assigned to him.

Until the force advanced, he had nothing to do, and spent a good
deal of his time watching the carriers starting with provisions
for the Prah, and the doings of the negroes.

The order had now been passed by the chiefs at a meeting called by
Sir Garnet, that every able bodied man should work as a carrier,
and while parties of men were sent to the villages round to fetch
in people thence, hunts took place in Cape Coast itself. Every
negro found in the streets was seized by the police; protestation,
indignation, and resistance, were equally in vain. An arm or
the loin cloth was firmly griped, and the victim was run into the
castle yard, amid the laughter of the lookers on, who consisted,
after the first quarter of an hour, of women only. Then the search
began in the houses, the chiefs indicating the localities in which
men were likely to be found. Some police were set to watch outside
while others went in to search. The women would at once deny that
anyone was there, but a door was pretty sure to be found locked,
and upon this being broken open the fugitive would be found hiding
under a pile of clothes or mats. Sometimes he would leap through
the windows, sometimes take to the flat roof, and as the houses
join together in the most confused way the roofs offered immense
facilities for escape, and most lively chases took place.

No excuses or pretences availed. A man seen limping painfully along
the street would, after a brief examination of his leg to see if
there was any external mark which would account for the lameness,
be sent at a round trot down the road, amid peals of laughter from
the women and girls looking on.

The indignation of some of the men thus seized, loaded and sent up
country under a strong escort, was very funny, and their astonishment
in some cases altogether unfeigned. Small shopkeepers who had never
supposed that they would be called upon to labor for the defense of
their freedom and country, found themselves with a barrel of pork
upon their heads and a policeman with a loaded musket by their side
proceeding up country for an indefinite period. A school teacher was
missing, and was found to have gone up with a case of ammunition.
Casual visitors from down the coast had their stay prolonged.

Lazy Sierra Leone men, discharged by their masters for incurable
idleness, and living doing nothing, earning nothing, kept by the
kindness of friends and the aid of an occasional petty theft, found
themselves, in spite of the European cut of their clothes, groaning
under the weight of cases of preserved provisions.

Everywhere the town was busy and animated, but it was in the castle
courtyard Frank found most amusement. Here of a morning a thousand
negroes would be gathered, most of them men sent down from Dunquah,
forming part of our native allied army. Their costumes were various
but scant, their colors all shades of brown up to the deepest black.
Their faces were all in a grin of amusement. The noise of talking
and laughing was immense. All were squatted upon the ground, in
front of each was a large keg labelled "pork." Among them moved
two or three commissariat officers in gray uniforms. At the order,
"Now then, off with you," the negroes would rise, take off their
cloths, wrap them into pads, lift the barrels on to their heads,
and go off at a brisk pace; the officer perhaps smartening up the
last to leave with a cut with his stick, which would call forth a
scream of laughter from all the others.

When all the men had gone, the turn of the women came, and of these
two or three hundred, who had been seated chattering and laughing
against the walls, would now come forward and stoop to pick up
the bags of biscuit laid out for them. Their appearance was most
comical when they stooped to their work, their prodigious bustles
forming an apex. At least two out of every three had babies seated on
these bustles, kept firm against their backs by the cloth tightly
wrapped round the mother's body. But from the attitudes of
the mothers the position was now reversed, the little black heads
hanging downwards upon the dark brown backs of the women. These
were always in the highest state of good temper, often indulging
when not at work in a general dance, and continually singing, and
clapping their hands.

After the women had been got off three or four hundred boys and girls,
of from eleven to fourteen years old, would start with small kegs
of rice or meat weighing from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds.
These small kegs had upon their first arrival been a cause of great
bewilderment and annoyance to the commissariat officers, for no man
or woman, unless by profession a juggler, could balance two long
narrow barrels on the head. At last the happy idea struck an officer
of the department that the children of the place might be utilized
for the purpose. No sooner was it known that boys and girls could
get half men's wages for carrying up light loads, than there was
a perfect rush of the juvenile population. Three hundred applied
the first morning, four hundred the next. The glee of the youngsters
was quite exuberant. All were accustomed to carry weights, such
as great jars of water and baskets of yams, far heavier than those
they were now called to take up the country; and the novel pleasure
of earning money and of enjoying an expedition up the country
delighted them immensely.

Bullocks were now arriving from other parts of the coast, and although
these would not live for any time at Cape Coast, it was thought
they would do so long enough to afford the expedition a certain
quantity of fresh meat; Australian meat, and salt pork, though
valuable in their way, being poor food to men whose appetites are
enfeebled by heat and exhaustion.

It was not till upwards of six weeks after the fight at Abra Crampa
that the last of the Ashanti army crossed the Prah. When arriving
within a short distance of that river they had been met by seven
thousand fresh troops, who had been sent by the king with orders
that they were not to return until they had driven the English
into the sea. Ammon Quatia's army, however, although still, from
the many reinforcements it had received, nearly twenty thousand
strong, positively refused to do any more fighting until they had
been home and rested, and their tales of the prowess of the white
troops so checked the enthusiasm of the newcomers, that these
decided to return with the rest.

CHAPTER XXI: THE ADVANCE TO THE PRAH

A large body of natives were now kept at work on the road up to the
Prah. The swamps were made passable by bundles of brushwood thrown
into them, the streams were bridged and huts erected for the reception
of the white troops. These huts were constructed of bamboo, the
beds being made of lattice work of the same material, and were
light and cool.

On the 9th of December the Himalaya and Tamar arrived, having on
board the 23d Regiment, a battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a battery
of artillery, and a company of engineers. On the 18th, the Surmatian
arrived with the 42d. All these ships were sent off for a cruise,
with orders to return on the 1st of January, when the troops were
to be landed. A large number of officers arrived a few days later
to assist in the organization of the transport corps.

Colonel Wood and Major Russell were by this time on the Prah with
their native regiments. These were formed principally of Houssas,
Cossoos, and men of other fighting Mahomedan tribes who had been
brought down the coast, together with companies from Bonny and some
of the best of the Fantis. The rest of the Fanti forces had been
disbanded, as being utterly useless for fighting purposes, and had
been turned into carriers.

On the 26th of December Frank started with the General's staff for
the front. The journey to the Prah was a pleasant one. The stations
had been arranged at easy marches from each other. At each of these,
six huts for the troops, each capable of holding seventy men, had
been built, together with some smaller huts for officers. Great
filters formed of iron tanks with sand and charcoal at the bottom,
the invention of Captain Crease, R.M.A., stood before the huts,
with tubs at which the native bearers could quench their thirst.
Along by the side of the road a single telegraph wire was supported
on bamboos fifteen feet long.

Passing through Assaiboo they entered the thick bush. The giant
cotton trees had now shed their light feathery foliage, resembling
that of an acacia, and the straight, round, even trunks looked like
the skeletons of some giant or primeval vegetation rising above
the sea of foliage below. White lilies, pink flowers of a bulbous
plant, clusters of yellow acacia blossoms, occasionally brightened
the roadside, and some of the old village clearings were covered
with a low bush bearing a yellow blossom, and convolvuli white,
buff, and pink. The second night the party slept at Accroful, and the
next day marched through Dunquah. This was a great store station,
but the white troops were not to halt there. It had been a large
town, but the Ashantis had entirely destroyed it, as well as every
other village between the Prah and the coast. Every fruit tree in
the clearing had also been destroyed, and at Dunquah they had even
cut down a great cotton tree which was looked upon as a fetish by
the Fantis. It had taken them seven days' incessant work to overthrow
this giant of the forest.

The next halting place was Yancoomassie. When approaching Mansue
the character of the forest changed. The undergrowth disappeared and
the high trees grew thick and close. The plantain, which furnishes
an abundant supply of fruit to the natives and had sustained the
Ashanti army during its stay south of the Prah, before abundant,
extended no further. Mansue stood, like other native villages, on
rising ground, but the heavy rains which still fell every day and
the deep swamps around rendered it a most unhealthy station.

Beyond Mansue the forest was thick and gloomy. There was little
undergrowth, but a perfect wilderness of climbers clustered round
the trees, twisting in a thousand fantastic windings, and finally
running down to the ground, where they took fresh root and formed
props to the dead tree their embrace had killed. Not a flower was
to be seen, but ferns grew by the roadside in luxuriance. Butterflies
were scarce, but dragonflies darted along like sparks of fire. The
road had the advantage of being shady and cool, but the heavy rain
and traffic had made it everywhere slippery, and in many places
inches deep in mud, while all the efforts of the engineers and
working parties had failed to overcome the swamps.

It was a relief to the party when they emerged from the forests
into the little clearings where villages had once stood, for the
gloom and quiet of the great forest weighed upon the spirits. The
monotonous too too of the doves--not a slow dreamy cooing like that
of the English variety, but a sharp quick note repeated in endless
succession--alone broke the hush. The silence, the apparently
never ending forest, the monotony of rank vegetation, the absence
of a breath of wind to rustle a leaf, were most oppressive, and
the feeling was not lessened by the dampness and heaviness of the
air, and the malarious exhalation and smell of decaying vegetation
arising from the swamps.

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