discipline.'
By these methods B.-P. won the confidence of his troops, and under him these rough tribesmen, half-devil and half-child, manfully fought their way through the jungle of forest, cheered by his encouragement, awed by 'Volapuk,' and gradually growing to respect the dauntless courage of the white man who managed them so nicely. A description of an average day's work will give you an idea of Baden-Powell's task, and the way in which his negroes worked.
Early in the morning, while the thick white mist is still hanging athwart the forest, a drummer is kicked out of bed by a white foot and bidden to sound 'Reveille.' Then there is a din of elephant-tusk horns and the clatter of the elephant-hide drums. The camp is astir, and it all seems as if the men are as smart and as disciplined as their brother warriors in Aldershot or Shorncliffe. But the negroes have only risen thus readily in order to light their fires and settle down to a lusty breakfast of plantains. After his tub, his quinine and tea, Baden-Powell sends for King Matikoli and demands to know why his three hundred Krobo are not on parade. His Majesty smiles and explains to the white chief that he is suffering from rheumatism in the shoulder, and therefore he, and consequently his tribe, cannot march that day. Baden-Powell, with his contradictory smile, solemnly produces a Cockle's pill (Colonel Burnaby's
On they march through the heavy forest, a long twisting line of men, until the halt is made at mid-day for two hours' chop and parade. Then tools are served out and every company is set to work. One clears the bush, another cuts stockade posts, a third cuts palm-leaf wattle, a fourth digs stockade holes, and a fifth is set to keep guard over the camp and prevent men from hiding in huts. By sunset some seven or eight acres are cleared of bush, large palm-thatched sheds are to be seen in long regular lines, while in the centre stands a fort with its earth rampart bound up by stockade and wattle, and having in its interior two huts, one for hospital and one for storehouse. Besides this the natives bridged innumerable streams and dug and drained roads wherever necessary.
This work can only be seen in its true perspective when the character of the country is borne in mind. For nearly all of its 150 miles the road from Cape Coast to Kumassi leads through heavy primeval forest. 'The thick foliage of the trees, interlaced high overhead, causes a deep, dank gloom, through which the sun seldom penetrates. The path winds among the tree stems and bush, now through mud and morass, now over steep ascent or deep ravine.' And, in addition to the difficulties of locomotion, there was the haunting menace of the heavy dews and mists which come at night laden with the poison of malaria.
But all these difficulties were met with cheerful courage, and though Captain Graham and two other officers subsequently attached to the covering force were incapacitated by fever, the Native Levy fought its way to Kumassi, and won the admiration of all military authorities. It was at Kumassi on 17th January, and though no actual fighting had taken place, the march may be reckoned an achievement of which all Englishmen can be proud.
One incident of the march will have a romantic attraction for those who have sons and brothers doing the Empire's work in distant lands. As the Native Levy with its two white officers journeyed through the bush they came now and then upon bridges over streams and causeways over swamps, all in course of construction at the hands of natives under the direction of a few ever-travelling, hard-worked white superintendents. 'Here we meet one gaunt and yellow. Surely we have seen that eye and brow before, although the beard and solar topee do much to disguise the man. His necktie of faded 'Old Carthusian' colours makes suspicion a certainty, and once again old school- fellows are flung together for an hour to talk in an African swamp of old times in English playing-fields.' For an hour in an African swamp! and then on again through the never-ending dark green aisles towards the savages smitten with the blood-lust in 'the death-place.'
The Ashantis did not show fight, and King Prempeh, sucking a huge nut, surrounded by court-criers and fly- catchers, with three dwarfs dancing in front of his throne, consented humbly and meekly to receive the soldiers of the Queen. After Sir Francis Scott had presented Prempeh with his ultimatum the meeting broke up for the night, but the 'Wolf that never Sleeps' was on the look-out with his Native Levy for a possible surprise, or for His Majesty's escape. You can imagine how 'Sherlock Holmes,' as Burnham the American scout calls our hero, enjoyed that work. In the quiet night, under the white stars, a council was being held in the savage king's palace, and B.-P. 'shadowed' that regal hut with eyes and ears alive. At three o'clock in the morning a white light streamed out of the palace doorway, and through the clinging mist went a string of white-robed figures, one of them the queen- mother. This little company passed within twenty yards of B.-P., and it was followed stealthily by him until the queen's residence, not hitherto known, was marked down. Then the watchers returned to their ambush outside the palace, and caught a councillor who was stealing away in the night. Almost immediately after this gentleman had been made prisoner two fast-footed men came upon the scene. They evidently suspected something, for they suddenly pulled up and stood listening intently. One of them was within arm's length of Baden-Powell. Quietly B.-P. stood up. The man did not move. A moment's pause, and then, quick as a flash of lightning, Baden-Powell had gripped him, and had, moreover, got hold of the gun he was carrying. Then the patrol came up, the Ashanti was pinned, and, as B.-P. concludes the narrative, 'a handsome knife in a leopard-skin scabbard was added to our spoil.'
After the palace had been searched and the whole of the fetish village had been burned to the ground, Prempeh, with B.-P. to look after him, set out for Cape Coast Castle. The bitterness to a soldier of that return journey, without a shot having been fired, can hardly be imagined by a civilian, and would certainly be strongly reprehended by those who regard the justest war with horror and aversion. The soldiers had set out on that dreadful march through swamp, and bush, and forest, to fight and bring to the dust a cruel bloodthirsty nation of savages, contemptuously described by Baden-Powell as 'the bully tribe' of the Gold Coast Hinterland. Instead of finding the bully as willing to fight as Cuff was willing to face dear old Dobbin, B.-P. found a cowering, cringing enemy, willing to lick the dust and abase himself in any manner the ingenious white man might suggest. So it was with no feelings of elation that the man who had received the pink flimsy ordering him on active service, who had raised and organised the Native Levy, who had cut a road through the bush and forest, draining roads and bridging streams,—turned his back on Kumassi, and marched King Prempeh to the Cape coast. This march of 150 miles was accomplished in seven days. Of this expedition B.-P. recalls 'ten minutes' genuine fun,'—that was when a doctor was cutting out from under his toe-nail the eggs of an insect called the jigger, rude enough to make a nest of B.-P.'s big toe. It is such incidents as these that live in the soldier's mind after a hard campaign.
During the whole of these tiresome operations B.-P. of course was hard at work sketching and keeping his diary. He added to his wonderful store of experiences, and had the rare delight of seeing the King of Bekwai 'oblige with a few steps'—specially in his honour. But the story of his work—and it is the same with all the quiet work done by servants of the Queen in every part of the Empire—attracted little public notice, and the man-in-the-street had no more idea of B.-P.'s service than the man-in-the-moon. At that time, indeed, few people outside official circles had ever heard of his name, and certainly no stationer would have been mad enough to stick B.-P.'s photograph in his window. Whether Baden-Powell, when he awakes to it, will prefer his present fame to the happy obscurity of
