60 MISSIONARY LIFE IN ASUANTEE, 
which were sometimes given us. We soon became great- 
friends, and he brightened our dreary life with all sorts 
of clever inventions. One day he joyfully led into our 
presence a young man who had addressed him in English 
in the street — this was a Fantee from Coomassie, whose 
master, a prince Ansa, lived there. Whilst we were 
talking Opoku entered, and sharply asked what the 
stranger was doing here, whilst Ageana gave orders to 
have him placed in irons. Opoku now hurried off with 
a soldier to Coomassie, but returned rather crestfallen 
the next day, and the old man who seemed to think he 
had done a very fine thing, was ordered at once to set 
his prisoner free. 
On the 21st of October, brother K. met another man 
who spoke English, and who had come from Cape Coast, 
and had brought letters and some champagne for the 
king. From this, the first news which had reached us 
from that quarter, we concluded that some negotiations 
in which we might also be interested were in process 
between the king and the European officials. This idea 
received confirmation when on the next day a greeting 
reached us from his majesty, accompanied by the present 
of an ox. I should however add, that this ox had 
refused to approach any nearer than the next village, 
and was thus condemned to be slain there. 
It also appeared that this obstinate animal had not 
possessed several of the organs with which oxen are 
usually endowed, for the fore-quarters which reached us 
in a basket next morning, were painfully shorn of their 
natural proportions. Ageana appropriated one leg, gave 
another to M. B., and a third to us, while the fourth he 
put aside, remarking that he would buy salt with that, 
the rest was distributed between the wife of the chief, the 
Fetish priestess, and many other " friends " whose multi- 
plicity we had never guessed before. Our landlady 
