MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
123 
being inexplicable, it was pronounced fetish. A captain had told 
the King, that with the telescope we saw, when at Doompassie, all 
that he was doing at Coomassie : and happening, in a sudden and 
heavy rain, to gallop from Asafoo to our house, with Mr. Tedhe on 
the horse behind me, holding the umbrella, it was immediately 
reported to the King as our plan of travelhng to Cape Coast. 
Our Accra hnguist pointed out a man to me named Tando, 
whom he recollected to have visited the Coast some years, in great 
pomp, never going the shortest distance, but in his taffeta hammock, 
covered with a gorgeous umbrella, and surrounded by flatterers, 
who even wiped the ground before he trod on it. This man had 
now scarcely a cloth to cover him. He had been retired from his 
embassy to Akim, in consequence of a dispute with Attah, then 
the king of that country ; for though Attah was adjudged to be in 
fault, after the palaver was talked at Coomassie, the Ashantee 
government thought it politic to displace Tando, though he had 
become disagreeable to the other, only for his vigilance and fidelity. 
After a long interval of the most luxurious life the capital could 
afford, he was instructed to proceed to Elmina, to talk a palaver 
for the King ; but thinking it would be a coup d'eclat much more 
important and agreeable, if he could settle the Warsaw palaver as 
well, he visited the country on his return, and persuaded them to 
conciliate the King, and avert their ruin, by carrying a consider- 
able sum of gold to Coomassie, and agreeing to pay twenty-four 
slaves for every Ashantee subject killed or injured by one of 
Warsaw. Deputies returned with this man for this purpose; but 
the King dismissed them contemptuously ; and to the disappoint- 
ment and surprise of Tando, declared that no man must dare to do 
good out of his own head, or perhaps he would find he did bad, as 
Tando had done, in spoiling a palaver which he and his great men 
meant to sleep a long time. Tando was immediately stripped of 
