ADU BUFO'S ENTRY. 
143 
lege of interceding for the lives of those who fled to 
them, so we begged Bosommuru to ask the king to pardon 
this man. The courtier was astonished, but willing to 
fulfil our request, only remarking that the Ashantee out 
of whose house the prisoner had come, would have to 
pay a heavy penalty. In the evening the king replied 
that " we must not let the man go at present." It was, 
perhaps, difficult for him to grant an immediate pardon, 
;€is many sacrifices had to be offered the following Satur- 
day, when he was going to Kokofu to the funeral of his 
uncle, which was to be celebrated with great splendour. 
However quiet this plan had been kept, the poor creature 
must have heard of it. 
He was a singular man. As he lived the whole day 
in the yard, we proposed to him to help to pound the 
fufu, not that we needed his assistance, but simply that 
he might not be idle. To this he replied, " I am an 
Ashantee, one of the king's slaves. I have never done 
such a thing." My wife then proposed to give him soap 
to wash his clothes, but this also he considered unbecom- 
ing his dignity. He would not join in our devotions, 
though he sat a few times with us under protest, and at 
length he escaped to the house of Palm's master, giving 
^s his reason that he could not understand when we 
invoked our God. We again pleaded for his pardon, 
and he was allowed to return to his own people. 
By degrees it became apparent that the king's mini- 
sters were getting anxious about the results of their 
equivocating behaviour. They pretended to wish for 
peace, and yet could not rest without fighting. A vassal 
of Ashantee, a prince of Safwi, had sent some troops to a 
certain chief of Apolonia, named Amontiful, who had 
•sought the protection of the king of Kwantiabo. These 
troops came to the coast, and were beaten by the English 
allies of Apolonia, and as a chief fell in these operations. 
