rains had made every stream of double the depth it had been when we passed before, and had converted the track in many places into a horrible swamp.` In one place, where we had gone almost dry-shod before, there was a reach of 500 yards of water knee-deep throughout, and in one place over which a bridge for the European troops had to be thrown, neck-deep. When we reached the Ordah, the bridge was standing, but the water was knee-deep over it. The river was still rising, and it was only by allowing the clothes of part of the Rifle Brigade and the whole of the 42nd to be carried over for them by coolies while the men waded or swam, that the force could be passed over that night at all. The bridge gradually gave way, so that the passage became slower and slower till five o'clock, when the more rapid process was, to the men's great delight, adopted. The Naval Brigade and headquarters came on here the same night. The 42nd and Rifle Brigade came in this morning. Our faces are towards home. We hope to sail for England in a fortnight.

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"I have given no description of Coomassie-a short one will suffice. It is a charnel-house, in no part of which is the odour of recent human slaughter unperceived. I do not use a term of my own, but one which is simply the term naturally employed by everybody here in speaking of it. It is a place into which it would not be worth the trouble of any one to go if it did not take so much trouble to get there. The streets are broad, with fine-some very fine-trees adorning them. The whole place is filthy. The houses for the most part of

ATTACKS ON THE POSTS.

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the ordinary Ashantee type, raised brick floors, an irregular kind of thatch above, open doorways, low roofs, only one floor. The palace is a huge, rambling, ugly, stucco kind of affair. Handsome wood-work chairs and curiosities of various kinds, native cloths, worked often with handsome embroidery, sometimes formed into umbrellas, sometimes not, were the articles of most interest within it.

"Much had been removed. Everything was packed up. A small quantity of things was selected by prize agents, and is being carried down to Cape Coast. Most was destroyed. The object of the expedition, however, was future peace and respect for the name of England throughout this part of the world, and it has been amply achieved.

"Of Captain Glover we have heard nothing since the 17th, the day of his successful engagement near the Prah. Captain Butler, after a successful advance as far as a point not far distant from Amoaful, was paralysed by a senseless panic among the Akims, and is, we believe, now awaiting our return along the main road. Captain Dalrymple is coming in also with some forces from the West. Several of our posts along the road have been unsuccessfully assailed by the Ashantees. Notably Fommanah was attacked whilst held by a very slender garrison on February 2nd. The place was large and rambling, the hospital was at one end of the town, and the most defensible part at another. Fortunately the Ashantees themselves set fire to it, and were not afraid to present themselves in the broad streets of the town. Colonel

Colley, the ubiquitous, arrived hot from the fight at Amoaful, and from driving the Ashantees back from Quaman, with a small escort. The Ashantees were shot down in the streets, the fire exposed them to our breechloaders as it cleared them out of the houses; the enemy was driven off. Then the place was cleared and made impregnable against any Ashantee force.

"Colonel Colley, with an extraordinary instinct for the spot where fighting is going on, arrived at midday on the 3rd, just as the fight was taking place on that day, and remained till the way into Coomassie was forced on the 4th, returning on the 5th to keep the way clear all along the line."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MARCH BACK-THE KING OF ASHANTEE SENDS AFTER US-CAPTAIN SARTORIUS's RIDE-THE BREAK UP OF THE ASHANTEE KINGDOM-THE PAYMENT OF THE INDEMNITY AT FOMMANAH-THE SALE OF LOOT AT CAPE COAST-THE WEALTH OF ASHANTEE DEVELOPED AND UNDEVELOPED.

THE following letters descriptive of the incidents which now occurred, and gaining much of their interest from the impressions of the moment, may be left as they were written. What were then "impressions" turned out, with the exceptions noted, to be facts, but otherwise no alteration is needed :

"DETCHIASU, February 9th. "A fresh envoy has arrived from the King. The facts appear to be as follows:

"The King has been thoroughly frightened by the destruction of his Palace. Captain Glover is still believed to be advancing.* The latest news respecting him arrived just after my last letter had gone off. He was then

* Captain Glover did not move from Odumassie till the 8th, so that this was an error.

about twenty miles from Coomassie, and wrote on the 28th of January, that he had had one trifling skirmish, in which two natives were wounded, but no serious force appears to have opposed his advance. Here a false report has reached us, via Cape Coast Castle, that he was at Juabin on the 10th of last month. The facts are as I have said.

"The King having no force with which to meet Captain Glover, and believing that we have only come back in order to move along another road, destroying as we go, and thinking, in all probability, that he is threatened with enemies to the north and all round him, has sent down this messenger to say that he is ready to do whatever Sir Garnet Wolseley wishes. At least it is presumed that is what he has come to say, for he must be aware now that he cannot save himself by any other

means.

"One great advantage gained by the present event is that means are afforded for communication with Captain Glover. The King is very anxious to get an order sent to him to halt. As his Majesty has no one now about him who can read to him it is the safest and quickest means of sending to Captain Glover to forward the letters by the King's messenger. What, under these circumstances, will be done has not yet been made generally known, but if some portion of the force delays its march to the coast till negotiations are over, it would appear natural, in any case it is pretty certain, that delay will not be allowed to the King; but if, after all, a treaty were drawn from him, it would make the work, at all