Page:The land of fetish.pdf/323

 remaining at Elmina as a hostage for the payment; and the whole sum is now in the hands of the Government. On July 16th Awoosoo, the Gaman refugee, committed suicide by leaping from the walls of Elmina Castle, for which act the Ashantis are no doubt much obliged to him; and, had they known that he was going to make away with himself so conveniently, they probably would not have troubled to send the embassy with the golden axe to demand his surrender.

The Ashanti question of 1881 is now at an end, but war with Ashanti has, however, only been postponed, and is, sooner or later, inevitable, unless we make a new departure in our Gold Coast policy, and, instead of regarding the Ashantis with suspicion as probable foes, enter into close and friendly relations with them. By establishing a British resident at Coomassie we should place matters on quite a different footing; and if we were to appoint a port to which the Ashantis might resort for trade, without having to employ the despised Fantis as middlemen, there would be no further friction. One of the members of the Buaki embassy said to me, on this subject:—

"Give us a town on the coast, say Moree.[A] Let it be ours; let us have a road of our own to it. If you say it is to be half-a-mile broad we will make it so.