B.-P.
and Captain Graham, D.S.O., taught these negroes, under a blazing sun,
the rudiments of soldiering. In one part of their drill a few simple
whistle-signals were substituted for the usual words of command, such
as "Halt" and "Rally," and a red fez was served out to the Levy (which
in the end amounted to 860 men) as a British uniform. The glory of
this "kit," however, was somewhat obscured by a commissariat load
which each warrior carried on his head; but there was no heart under
those shiny ebon skins which did not beat quicker for the possession
of the red fez. The Levy, of course, had its band--a few men who made
a tremendous din on elephant-hide drums, and a few more who produced
two heart-breaking notes on elephants' hollowed tusks garnished with
human jaw-bones. At the head of this force B.-P. and Captain Graham
set out on their journey from Cape Coast to Kumassi, a distance of
nearly 150 miles, on the 21st of December.

Soon after leaving the coast the little expedition plunged into the
bush, and then amid the giant ferns and palms began to appear "the
solemn, shady miles of forest giants, whose upper parts gleam far
above the dense undergrowth in white pillars against the grey-blue
sky." The Levy had now reached the regular forest, the beautiful,
awe-inspiring, but, alas, evil-smelling forest. Here it was found by
Baden-Powell that, in addition to scouting, his force would have to
play the arduous part of road-makers, and, therefore, whenever he came
upon a village such tools as felling-axes, hatchets, spades, and picks
were requisitioned. But it was no easy task teaching the negroes to
perform this labour. The man who was given a felling-axe immediately
set about scraping up weeds, while the grinning warrior armed with a
spade incontinently hacked at a hoary tree with Gladstonian ardour.
"The stupid inertness of the puzzled negro," says B.-P., "is duller
than that of an ox; a dog would grasp your meaning in one-half the
time." But B.-P. did not despair of his men, neither did he ill-treat
them. For three days he worked hard at tree-felling himself, and he
only desisted from this labour on the discovery that the sight of his
hunting-crop brought more trees to the ground than all his strokes
with the axe. This hunting-crop was called "Volapuek," because every
tribe understood its meaning, and during the march Baden-Powell found
it of inestimable value. "But, though often shown," he says, "it was
never used.