Curious it is when one thinks of its history to see the white painted sign-posts on which are recorded the names of the streets. There is “Kingsway” for one, and “Stewart-avenue,” after the man who deeply loved the country, for another, and there are at least two great roads that lead away to the fruitful country in the north, roads that push their way through the dense forest and must even compel the admiration of our friends the Germans, those champion road-makers. And down those roads comes all the wonderful trade of Kumasi, not as the trade of London, of course, but as the trade of London was, perhaps, when Augustus ruled at Rome. The trade of the world comes to London nowadays, the trade of the back-country came to London then, and so does the trade of all the country round come to the Ashanti capital. Its streets are thronged with all manner of peoples, dark, of course, for the ruling whites are but an inconsiderable handful, and only the Chief Commissioner and one missionary have been daring enough to bring their wives.
Ashanti is a conquered country, and it seems to me it has got just the right sort of Government, a Government most exactly suited to the requirements of the negro in his present state of advancement. What a negro community requires is a benevolent despotism, but as a rule the British Government, with its feeling for the rights of the individual, does not see its way to give it such a Government. But Ashanti was conquered at great cost, wherefore as yet England has still to think of the rights of the white men who dwell there as against the rights of the black man, and the result to me, an onlooker, appears to be most satisfactory for both white and black. Of course, such a Government requires to administrate not only excellent men, not only honest and trustworthy men, but men who have the interests of the country at heart, and who devote themselves to it, and such men she has got in the Chief Commissioner, Mr Fuller, and the subordinates chosen by him. Only an onlooker am I, a woman, a passer-by, but as a passer-by I could not but be struck by the difference between the feeling in the Gold Coast Colony and the feeling in Ashanti. The whole tone of thought was different. Everywhere on the Gold Coast men met me with the question, “What did I think of this poisonous country? Wasn't it a rotten place?” and they seemed bitterly disappointed if I did not confirm their worst blame.