"'Chop? they've only just finished two hours of chop.'
"'Yes--but the white chief works them so hard that they have big appetites.'
"'They--and you, their chief--will all be fined a day's pay.'
"'Yes, well, the white man is powerful. Still, we prefer that to not having our chop. Many thanks.'
"'Oh, but you'll have to work as well. See this little instrument? That's a hunting-crop. Come, I'll show you how it can be used. I'll begin on you, my friend!'
"No need to. They all fly to their work. Then you go round. Every company in turn is found sitting down, or eye-serving.
"'Down with that tree, my lad--you with the felling-axe! Not know how to use it?'
"For three days I felled trees myself, till I found that I could get the tree felled equally well by merely showing the cracker of the hunting-crop. The men had loved to see me work. The crop came to be called 'Volapük,' because it was understood by every tribe. But, though often shown, it was never used.
"The bush-clearing company are sitting down, not a yard of bush cut. 'Why?'
"'Oh, we are fishermen by occupation, and don't know anything about bush-cutting.'
"The bush soon comes down nevertheless, and, what is more wonderful, by sunset there is an open space of some seven or eight acres where this morning there was nothing but a sea of bush jungle. Large palm thatched sheds have sprung up in regular lines, and in the centre stands a nearly finished fort, with its earth rampart bound up by stockade and wattle. Within it are two huts, for hospital and storehouse. Trains of carriers are already arriving with hundreds of boxes of beef and biscuit to be checked, arranged, and stored. At sunset sounds the drum, the treasure box and ledger are opened, and the command comes up for pay.
"'But it has only got fifty-nine on its establishment!'
"'All here, sir, but some few men away sick--and two he never come'--and so on and so on. At last it is over, except that a despatch-runner comes in with a telegram, forwarded from the last telegraph station, to ask from Cape Coast Castle offices immediate reason why the men's pay-list has been sent in in manuscript, instead of on Army Form O 1729!"
From Prahsu the expedition, under the command of Sir Francis Scott, went on its way towards Kumassi. Its formation when it came near to that plague-spot of the earth was as follows:--First came Baden-Powell's crowd of red-fezzed natives, keeping a variable distance from the advanced guard, which consisted of two companies of the Gold Coast Houssas and a Maxim gun. A quarter of a mile after that came the main body, covering a distance of nine miles, and consisting of Special Service Corps, two guns, a Maxim gun, the Headquarters Staff, a half of the Bearer Company, six companies of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment, two guns and two rockets, the other half of the Bearer Company, the Ammunition Column, the Baggage Column, the Supply Column, the Field Hospital, and, as rearguard, two more companies of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment and the Lagos Houssas with a Maxim. Flanking the latter portion of the main column on the right, and distributed by half-sections, came one company of the 2nd West India Regiment. It is evident from his diary that Baden-Powell wanted some fighting--at Ordasu an embassy from King Prempeh offered that bloodthirsty savage's complete and unconditional surrender to Captain Stuart, Political Officer accompanying the column, and Baden-Powell remarks, characteristically enough, "Alas! this looks like a peaceful end of all our work," and a few days afterwards, recording the entrance into Kumassi, he dwells rather bitterly on the disappointment which the men felt in having no fighting. But the expedition was destined to be a peaceful one--the British troops and native levies marched into the city of death quietly enough. Baden-Powell and his assistant, Graham, with their scouts, were in first, and with them were the Political Officer and Major Piggott, who bore the Union Jack on a silver-mounted hog-spear. Then came the native levies, then Major Gordon's flank detachment, and finally the main body--and Prempeh and his chiefs sat by and watched. Baden-Powell's account of the scene is full of life and colour:--