EMBASSY OF CRAWFORD AND FLANGE. 127 
CHAPTER XYII. 
THE EMBASSY OF MESSRS CRAWFORD AND PLANGE. 
On June oth, a murderer with his hands bound behind 
him, a knife through his cheek, and two forks piercing 
his back, was dragged by a rope past our rooms. Others 
bad been thus tortured already in various ways, the 
vital parts of the body not being wounded. Commencing 
at mid-day, the punishment increased in intensity till 
eight o'clock, when the poor wretch was gashed all over, 
his arms cut off, and himself compelled to dance for the 
amusement of the king before being taken to the place of 
execution. If he could not or would not dance, lighted 
torches were applied to his wounds; to escape this 
excessive torture he made the greatest efforts to move, 
until the drum was beaten and the head cut off. Some 
victims thus lost several of their limbs, or were pierced 
by an iron rod through the calves of both legs or other 
parts ; and yet murders were far more frequent here than 
in the British protectorate. 
We were taken by surprise on June 17th by a visit 
from Kokoo, the wife of R. Palm, one of the most dis- 
tinguished women of Anum. She had been in Coomassie 
ten days, having been captured by the Ashantees in J une 
1869. Being afterwards seperated from Palm, she had had 
no intelligence of him for months — and only knew from 
us that he was in Coomassie. The king asked her if we 
had ever supplied the Anums with guns and ammunition, 
whereupon she told him we had never sold weapons. 
Falling on her knees before us she entreated us to take 
