Page:The land of fetish.pdf/232

 These envoys had left Coomassie before the ambassadors with the golden axe had returned, having in fact met them one day's journey from the capital, and brought the following message:—

"The king has heard that Houssas and officers are at Prahsu, building a bridge. As all that is past is gone and done with, he wishes to know what this means, and why the Governor is going to fight?"

The messengers complained that the Adansis had illtreated them on their way through Adansi territory, and that they had seen them seize two Ashanti traders from the Kokofuah district, and plunder them of their goods and gunpowder. They further stated that the messengers with the golden axe had told them that at an Adansi village, named Ansah, a trader who had joined the retinue had been ill-treated and robbed of his gun. They applied to the Lieutenant-Governor for redress, and were evidently fully under the impression that Adansi was either included in the British protectorate or that we were bound by treaty to protect them from the Ashantis, and were consequently under the obligation of seeing that no Ashantis were maltreated by them.

In fact the Adansis appear to have laboured under the delusion that we were bound to support them, and so behaved in this manner. A renegade is always