as the expedition indebted for its success. He was nobly
seconded by Buckle, Bell, Mann, Cotton, Skinner, Bates and Jeykyll,
officers of his own corps, and by Hearle of the marines, and Hare of the
22d, attached to them. Long before daylight his men were off to their
work, long after nightfall they returned utterly exhausted to camp.

Upon the 1st of January, 1874, Sir Garnet Wolseley, with his staff,
among whom Frank was now reckoned, reached the Prah. During the eight
days which elapsed before the white troops came up Frank found much to
amuse him. The engineers were at work, aided by the sailors of the naval
brigade, which arrived two days after the general, in erecting a bridge
across the Prah. The sailors worked, stripped to the waist, in the muddy
water of the river, which was about seven feet deep in the middle. When
tired of watching these he would wander into the camp of the native
regiments, and chat with the men, whose astonishment at finding a young
Englishman able to converse in their language, for the Fanti and Ashanti
dialects differ but little, was unbounded. Sometimes he would be sent
for to headquarters to translate to Captain Buller, the head of the
intelligence department, the statements of prisoners brought in by the
scouts, who, under Lord Gifford, had penetrated many miles beyond the
Prah.

Everywhere these found dead bodies by the side of the road, showing
the state to which the Ashanti army was reduced in its retreat. The
prisoners brought in were unanimous in saying that great uneasiness had
been produced at Coomassie by the news of the advance of the British to
the Prah. The king had written to Ammon Quatia, severely blaming him for
his conduct of the campaign, and for the great loss of life among his
army.

All sorts of portents were happening at Coomassie, to the great
disturbance of the mind of the people. Some of those related singularly
resembled those said to have occurred before the capture of Rome by
the Goths. An aerolite had fallen in the marketplace of Coomassie, and,
still more strange, a child was born which was at once able to converse
fluently. This youthful prodigy was placed in a room by itself, with
guards around it to prevent anyone having converse with the supernatural
visitant. In the morning, however, it was gone, and in its place was
found a bundle of dead leaves. The fetish men having been consulted
declared that this signified that Coomassie itself would disappear,