158 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



the natives live on ? " I satisfied his curiosity by telling 

 him that he was perfectly right about it being all forest, 

 but that huge snails lived on the leaves and the natives 

 lived on them. This is literally true to a great extent, 

 and I have seen snails brought to the market weighing 1| 

 lb. I never could bring myself to eat one of them, but 

 those who did so said they were very good, and that they 

 also made a capital white soup, similar to Potage a la 

 Beine. The natives dry them in the sun as well as eating 

 them fresh, and bring them to the market strung on a 

 stick like sweetmeats on a straw in a confectioner's shop. 

 When our few candles were exhausted I obtained a good- 

 sized snail shell — there were plenty to be got — and by filling 

 it with the grease skimmed off the pot when boiling salt 

 pork, with some cotton waste for a wick, produced quite 

 a useful light. A split bamboo made a capital lamp-stand, 

 not easily overturned when tixed into the ground. 



On 31st January the first great fight took place at 

 Egginassie, which ended in the capture of the town of 

 Amoaful. On entering the place, one of the first sights to 

 attract attention were two large piles of iron as big as 

 small haystacks. On examination these proved to be 

 entirely composed of leg shackles, for so certain were 

 the Ashantis of winning the day, they had brought these 

 in advance to take us all prisoners back to Coomassie. A 

 pleasant time we should probably have had there, as their 

 custom is to parade their victims up and down the chief 

 street with a skewer thrust behind each shoulder-blade, and 

 another through the cheeks ; and they do not decapitate 

 them until the sun sets. Fortunately for us our endur- 

 ance of torture had not to be put to the test. The fight 

 was a very severe one, and lasted from 8.30 a.m. till 12 



