168 MISSIONARY LIFE IN ASHANTEE. 
people (sent eight months before with presents to his 
majesty), leave Coomassie and return to him. The sur- 
rendering of Elmina occasioned much vexation in the palace, 
nor was this the only one. Ashantee had quarrelled with 
Asen about some debt, and the latter had struck a kra 
(" king's soul "), which was considered a deadly insult. 
We too were not without our grievances. I had 
worked very hard at our plantation, and more than eighty 
yam roots had been put in the ground, when one morning 
I discovered that thirty-five had been dug out again. We 
were prepared for robberies at harvest time, and had 
arranged to sleep out of doors, but we had not dreamt of 
such insolence as this. And how to guard against it we 
did not know. It would have been easy to get the 
king to announce with the gong that no one was to 
approach our plantation, but what if it occurred after all ? 
The king regarded the mangoes growing in the court of 
the mission-house as his property, and desired that they 
should be better watched ; but we could not even protect 
them from night robberies, and if a thief chose to run the 
risk, how could we give him up to be beheaded ? 
We had bought a steady man (Kwaku), belonging to a 
village near Ahudome, for twenty -two dollars : he could 
not speak Ashantee, and was beside himself with joy on en- 
tering our service. Poor fellow, how I longed to be able to 
take him back to his own country, though he was very 
useful to us. The other Kwaku was by the king's order 
compelled to leave us to his own and our sorrow, and 
though we had put ourselves to all sorts of inconvenience 
out of pure regard for him, hoping to be able to give his 
master what he considered his value. How could thiev- 
ing and lying decrease in a country where human goods 
were so revoltingly disposed of. 
The chief of Wusutra was ordered to have all his 
young men ready to fetch something for the king, and 
