222 
MISSIONARY LIFE IN ASHANTEE. 
cause of all their excitement was that a great chief had 
fallen, that two others had gone over to the Fantees, and 
a person of great consequence had been killed by accident. 
So urgent had our need of salt become, that I wrote to 
the king about it, and also told him of our serious loss of 
gold dust and dollars, which had been abstracted from our 
boxes in Fomana. Mr. Dawson translated the letter, and 
Bosommuru. Dwira affected great surprise, and pretended 
to enquire if Ashantees had stolen the money, which we 
knew was the case." " The king must be told of that," 
he said, but " the salt was a mere trifle, and could be had 
at any time." Happily, it did arrive very soon, with 
strict injunctions to be careful of it ; and we felt it too 
great a treasure to waste, for the price had become exor- 
bitant. 
We heard that the Ashantees were at Dunkwa, six 
miles from Cape Coast, but did not know what to believe, 
for even the king himself knew little that was reli- 
able, though he left no stone unturned to obtain 
correct intelligence. A man from Akra, who had 
escaped from the block, told the king he had been sent 
from Ata the king of Akem, to the governor, who ques- 
tioned him about the war, on which occasion his excel- 
lency had called the king of Ashantee a false man. The 
governor sent him back to Kjebi, from whence he escaped. 
When asked if the Fantees, Asens, Denkjeias, &c., 
and their families had really fled to the fort, he re- 
plied, " I will tell the truth, even if it costs me my life. 
All is quiet in Cape Coast, only Asens and Denkjeras 
have fought with the Ashantees, but no Fantees." The 
king was very angry at having been misled by false re- 
ports, neither could he understand why his messengers 
were detained so long at the Coast. 
His conduct before the next Adae, when as usual he 
was drinking publicly, was increasingly strange; he 
