The Land of Fetish

At 5 a.m. on February 9th the company paraded, and we marched off to Anamaboe, a distance of some twelve miles. We followed the Prah road as far as Inquabim market, that is for...

In the spring of 1880 I found myself at Lagos, a town which has been called the Liverpool of West Africa, and which, next to Freetown, Sierra Leone, is the largest and best buil...

On the morning of the 17th of April the Governor had a chair and a table taken out into the forest and had a private interview with Prince Buaki. At this private interview, afte...

To the south of the peninsula of Sierra Leone lies the tract of low-lying country called British Sherbro, which was acquired by treaty with the natives in 1862, though Sherbro I...

From Lagos I went on to the Oil Rivers, as the numerous outlets in the Niger delta are termed. The Nun mouth is now the recognised entrance of the Niger; its ten western opening...

At 2 p.m. on February 2nd the “Cameroon” dropped anchor off Cape Coast Castle, and the whole reinforcement was landed in safety through the surf by 4 p.m.

I was wandering one day with one of my hosts, up the main road that leads from Whydah to Kana, the second town of the kingdom, when we heard the tinkle of a bell in front of us,...

of the payment of that indemnity was allowed to drop, and has never since been revived. Thus in less than two years from the burning of Coomassie the Ashanti diplomacy had met w...

Towards the end of the year 1879 I visited Whydah, the seaport of Dahomey, on the Slave Coast. Between Whydah and the boundary of the Gold Coast Colony, now advanced to Flohow,...

My first visit to the Gambia took place in March 1877, from Sierra Leone. After two days’ steaming from the latter place we passed Cape Bald, with the two queer little Bijjals I...

Upon the same day as that upon which the Ashanti messengers had their interview with the traders of Cape Coast the hired-transport “Humber” arrived with the Second West India re...

Next morning I was awakened by a loud detonation, the echoes of which had scarcely died away when I heard a voice shout “His Excellency has arisen.” This important declaration w...

While at Lagos I heard that there was one of those fortified Mohammedan towns, peculiar to the interior of Western Africa, some eighteen miles to the north-east of the island. I...

On January 1st, 1881, I returned once more to Sierra Leone. I found the place and people very much improved, which improvement was, I believe, entirely due to the action of the...

Until I had visited British Combo I never could understand why it was that old officers always spoke of the withdrawal of troops from the Gambia with regret, and talked of that...

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...

From Bonny I went on to the Old Calabar river, called by the natives Kalaba and Oróne, which, though always included with the outfalls of the Niger under the general title of Oi...

While the “Cameroon” is on the way to Cape Coast Castle a short _résumé_ of Ashanti politics from the close of the war of 1874 may, perhaps, be considered not out of place.