76 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
Julj 2. A girl was beheaded for insolence to one of the King% 
sons, and a man for transgressing the law by picking up gold 
which he had dropped in the public market place, where all that 
falls is allowed to accumulate until the soil is washed on state 
emergencies. 
Srd. This morning one of the King's sons (about 10 years of 
age) shot himself : his funeral custom was celebrated in the after- 
noon, and a smart fire of musquetry was kept up until sun-set, 
amidst dancing, singing, and revelry ; two men and one girl were 
sacrificed, and their trunks and heads were left in the market 
place till dark. The mother of this child, a favourite wife of the 
King's, having added crime to a continued perversity of conduct, 
had been put to death ; the boy was banished the King's presence 
from that time. This morning he had stolen into the palace for 
the first time, and the King desiring him to be removed, observing 
that he had, doubtless, as bad a head towards him as his mother 
had shewn ; he rephed, that if he could not be allowed to come 
and look at his father, he had better die; half an hour afterwards 
he destroyed himself privately, by directing a blunderbuss into 
his mouth, and discharging it with his foot. The keeper of the 
royal cemetry was this day imprisoned. His wife was soon after 
charged by the council with making fetish to turn the King's 
head ; she replied that it meant no more than to make the King 
think better of her husband ; but they insisted that she invoked 
the Fetish to make the King mad, and she was executed. 
5th. A loud shout from our people announced the return of the 
messengers from Cape Coast Castle, after an absence of thirty- 
eight days. 
