es 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 w