xiv 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
possible, without breach of honour, withdraw entirely. 
It happened, as might have been foreseen. " The weak- 
ness and incapacity of the local government made every 
progress impossible," as Lord Grey truly stated. No 
attempt was made to train the natives to self-government, 
or to make them capable of defending themselves; the 
weak policy which only aimed at avoiding all dealings 
with Ashantee, and which, even when roused, persevered 
in inactivity, inevitably led to war with this proud 
people. 
The Basel Society had, in the winter of 1839-40, sent 
out their first missionary, Ries ; he had gone to Coomassie 
and attempted to carry forward his work in Ashantee. 
But later on circumstances arose which led the Basel 
Society to enlarge their field of operations on the Yolta, 
and this was done without an idea that it was possible to 
come into connection or collision with the eastern bound- 
ary of Ashantee. Thus in 1846, the missionary Klauss 
crossed the Yolta and began to found a settlement at 
about eight miles distance from the river, on high ground 
near Anum. A steep healthy hill, covered with grass, 
rose about 200 feet above the plain on the north of the 
town. Here, after much difficulty, a house was at last 
finished and a school commenced, while regular mission 
work was carried on amongst the people ; an agent in 
connection with the mission also bought up cotton, which 
was sent down the Volta to the coast town Ada. 
But from the beginning there were many political hin- 
drances to the prosperity of the new station. To the south 
of Anum, on the Volta, live the Akwems, who have long 
been on very bad terms with their neighbours. In the 
year 1867, their enmity took so active a form that Anum 
became almost cut off* from the rest of the missionary 
territory, and could only be reached by a long and 
circuitous route. 
In 1869, the Akwems and the Anglos, a tribe who Jive 
