United States or Egypt ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The reply of the enemy was unceasing and, for an hour and a half, the battle raged, the distance between the combatants being only forty yards. Then Colonel Willcocks gave the order to cease firing and, in a minute, a strange silence succeeded the terrible din. The Ashantis, too, stopped firing, in sheer surprise at the cessation of attack; but soon redoubled their fusillade.
Let the sacrifice proceed. Prempeh, King of all the Ashantis, has spoken." Next second a poor black wretch was dragged along in Omar's place and the sword fell heavily upon him, while we were both hurried away in charge of a caboocer to the residence of the man who was, according to Omar, one of his mother's bitterest foes.
Akimfoo was occupied without resistance, but the Ashantis fought hard in Ampene, but were driven out of the town into the bush, from which the British force was too small to drive them, and therefore returned to Elmina, having marched twenty-two miles, a prodigious journey in such a climate for heavily armed Europeans. The effect produced among the Ashantis by the day's fighting was immense.
The Ashantis then attacked and captured the villages in which the friendly natives and traders lived, and set fire to these and to the cantonment. The refugees, to the number of three thousand five hundred, with two hundred children, crowded round the fort, imploring the mission to allow them to enter. It was wholly beyond the capacity of the fort to accommodate a tenth of their number.
The people drew their supplies from various points on the coast, principally, however, through Elmina, a Dutch settlement, five miles to the west of Cape Coast. The Ashantis could not be called peaceable neighbors. They, like the Dahomans, delighted in human sacrifices upon a grand scale, and to carry these out captives must be taken.
This, however, can be accounted for by the fact that the power of the chiefs is limited, and that each Indian values his own life highly and does not care to throw it away on a desperate enterprise. Among the Ashantis, however, where the power of the chiefs is very great and where human life is held of little account, it is singular that such tactics should not have been adopted.
The castle itself was originally strong, and was still in sufficiently good repair to resist any attack that the enemy were likely to make upon it, but the town was entirely incapable of defence; and had the Ashantis pushed on after their victory, there can be little doubt that both Cape Coast and Elmina would have fallen into their hands.
Trade would soon follow, roads be made, and the whole country opened up. The engagement of our Government should be a limited one, for if once the gold-mines were at work there would be no further fear that the country would ever fell back into the hands of the Ashantis. The counsel is good, but we have done better.
For two or three days the bush round the town had swarmed with Ashantis, whose tomtoms could be heard by the garrison night and day. Frank accompanied Ammon Quatia, and was therefore in the front, and had an opportunity of seeing how the Ashantis commence an attack. The war drums gave the signal, and when they ceased, ten thousand voices raised the war song in measured cadence.
The Ashantis had some grounds for their belief that they could overcome any force that the English could send against them, for in the year 1824 an expedition, headed by the governor, Sir Charles Macarthy, had crossed the Prah against them, and had been surrounded and cut to pieces, only three men escaping.
Word Of The Day