very quarter to pay his devotions to the shades of his ancestors at
Bantama, and this demanded the deaths of twenty men over the great
bowl on each occasion. On the death of any great personage, two of the
household slaves were at once killed on the threshold of the door, in
order to attend their master immediately in his new life, and his
grave was afterwards lined with the bodies of more slaves, who were to
form his retinue in the next world. It was thought better if, during
the burial, one of the attendant mourners could be stunned by a club
and dropped, still breathing, into the grave before it was filled
in.... Indeed, if the king desired an execution at any time, he did
not look far for an excuse. It is even said that on one occasion he
preferred a richer colour in the red stucco on the walls of the
palace, and that for this purpose the blood of four hundred virgins
was used."

The expedition to bring Mr. Prempeh to his senses was under the
command of Sir Francis Scott, and Baden-Powell received the pink
flimsy bearing the magic words, "You are selected to proceed on active
service," with a gush of elation, which, he tells us, a flimsy of
another kind and of a more tangible value would fail to evoke. Of
course he was keen to go. The expedition suggested romance, and it
assured experience. To plunge into the Gold Coast Hinterland is to
find oneself in a world different from anything the imagination can
conceive; civilisation is left an infinite number of miles behind, and
the Londoner is brought face to face with what Thoreau calls the wild
unhandselled globe. The message was received by Baden-Powell on the
14th of November 1895, and on the 13th of December he was walking
through the streets of Cape Coast Castle, and had noted how well
trodden was the grave of the writer L.E.L., who lies buried in the
courtyard of the castle.

It was the business of B.-P. to raise a force of natives, and to
proceed with this little army as soon as possible in front of the
expedition, acting as a covering force. That is to say, the work of
these undrilled, stupid, and not over-brave natives was scouting, a
duty which while it is the most fascinating part of a soldier's life
is also one of the most difficult. This then was an undertaking of
which many a man might have felt shy, but Baden-Powell (the army is
full of Baden-Powells) went at it cheerfully enough. On the arid
desert outside the castle, which is called the parade ground,