164 MISSIOJS^ARY LIFE IN ASHANTEE. 
greatly ; I gained my object however, and was assured 
the youth had nothing further to fear. We kept this lad 
(Kwaku by name) with us, and he was only too glad to 
remain and work in our service. 
The old mission house was becoming increasingly 
decrepit. Not only was the roof unsound, but our dwell- 
ing-room required new flooring, if in the approaching 
rainy season we were to have one dry place for our little 
Rose. With Kwaku 's help we took these matters in 
hand as far as our scanty means permitted, but the king 
was building two new villages by our old Ebenezer, so 
that wages were especially high just then. 
Prince Ansa, who had commenced a plantation about a 
mile out of Coomassie, had obtained the royal consent to 
leave it in our charge, and M. Bonnat set to work diligently 
to uproot the bush and plant the gTound. We also culti- 
vated a small piece of land which had been given me by 
a chief in return for a little present. The twenty 
minutes' walk to this garden would have been a pleasant 
one, but for the fact that our way lay through a morass 
caused by the overflow of the river Suben. Whether 
we should ever reap the fruit of our labours was proble- 
matical, but M. Bonnat built himself a hut where he and 
Palm might sleep during the summer months in order to 
guard the ripening harvest. The plan promised a two- 
fold advantage, it would show the king we were not the 
grand people he supposed, and also that we were perhaps 
making arrangements for remaining. 
An incident of this period excited afresh our deepest 
sympathy. Vultures being regarded as sacred birds 
belonging to the royal family, fly over Coomassie by 
hundreds, all untouched. They pounce upon meat or 
fish carried in the hand, and still more on that conveyed 
in larger quantities. A poor woman on her way to 
market with a basket of provisions on her head, was 
