Page:The land of fetish.pdf/279



A Trip to Prahsu—Mansu—A Fiendish Réveille—Bush Travelling—Prahsu—-The King of Adansi—Masquerading Costumes—The Camp—Strength of the Expedition.

On April 11th Colonel Justice, Lieutenant D. M. Allen (Acting Engineer), a Commissariat officer, and myself, started from Cape Coast about 5 a.m. in hammocks for Mansu, where we had heard the Governor was. Shortly after noon we reached Accroful, 13-3/4 miles from Cape Coast, where the road from Effutu joins the main road; and there we found Captain Lonsdale, the late Commandant of the Lonsdale's Horse of the Zulu war, holding a palaver with the king of Abrah, from Abracampa. His object was to obtain five hundred carriers to transport a frame-house from Elmina to Mansu for the accommodation of the Governor, and we inferred from this that the latter intended making a lengthened sojourn in the bush. We halted for an hour at the house of the local mission preacher, which was, as usual, the best in the village, and then pushed on to Dunquah, where we stayed for the night.

Next morning we were off again at daybreak, and,