I The Ashanti Expedition, 1895-6
Amongst the vast collection of relics, trophies, and curiosities which Baden-Powell has housed at his mother’s residence in London there is one object at sight of which those who know its history may be forgiven for feeling some slight qualms. It is a large brass basin, about five feet in diameter, ornamented with four lions and with a number of round knobs all round its rim. If the spirits of blood-lust, of unholiness, and cruelty abide anywhere on earth, they ought to be found in this bowl, which Baden-Powell found at Bantama when he went out with the Ashanti Expedition of 1895-6, and which in its time had received the blood of countless victims to the inordinate love of human sacrifice which has distinguished the kings of the Ashanti empire for centuries. It looks, that bowl, as innocent as an ordinary kitchen utensil as it hangs in its place on the wall, surrounded by trophies of a more fearsome nature, but not even the guillotine of the Reign of Terror had seen and smelt more blood than had run over its rim to putrefy in its depths and to be eventually turned, mixed with certain herbs, into fetish medicines. To Baden-Powell, whenever he sees it—he has had small chance of seeing it since he brought it back to England, though!—it must needs recall many things in connection with that foul corner of the earth into which he journeyed some five years ago in order to assist in bringing a reign of bloodshed and violence to an end.
Sketch Map of the March to Kumassi showing the Camping Places
We are often told that we, as a nation, are much too ready to interfere with the affairs of other folk, and there are candid people amongst us who are not afraid of hinting that our interference is usually with nations not quite so big and powerful as ourselves—that we are, in short, something like the schoolboy bully who wants to fight, but only with a boy several sizes smaller than himself. There were whisperings and hintings of this sort when we sent out our Ashanti Expedition of 1895-6—but no nation, surely, ever had better reasons for undertaking such an expedition. There were more reasons than one why it should be undertaken, and every reason was a most potent one, but one towered above all in its strength and urgency. Human life was being sacrificed in Ashanti to an extent which civilized folk can scarcely comprehend. The following extract from Baden-Powell’s work on the Ashanti Expedition of 1895-6 gives one some notion of what was going on in and around Kumassi before the British Government stepped in:—
“Any great public function was seized on as an excuse for human sacrifices. There was the annual ‘yam custom,’ or harvest festival, at which large numbers of victims were often offered to the gods. Then the king went every quarter to pay his devotions to the shades of his ancestors at Bantama, and this demanded the deaths of twenty men over the great bowl on each occasion. On the death of any great personage, two of the household slaves were at once killed on the threshold of the door, in order to attend their master immediately in his new life, and his grave was afterwards lined with the bodies of more slaves who were to form his retinue in the spirit world. It was thought all the better if, during the burial, one of the attendant mourners could be stunned by a club, and dropped, still breathing, into the grave before it was filled in. In the case of a great lady dying, slave-girls were the victims. This custom of sacrifice at funerals was called ‘washing the grave.’ On the death of a king the custom of washing the grave involved enormous sacrifices. Then sacrifices were also made to propitiate the gods when war was about to be entered upon, or other trouble was impending. Victims were also killed to deter an enemy from approaching the capital: sometimes they were impaled and set up on the path, with their hand pointing to the enemy and bidding him to retire. At other times the victim was beheaded and the head replaced looking in the wrong direction; or he was buried alive in the pathway, standing upright, with only his head above ground, to remain thus until starvation, or—what was infinitely worse—the ants made an end of him. Then there was a death penalty for the infraction of various laws. For instance, anybody who found a nugget of gold and who did not send it at once to the king was liable to decapitation; so also was anybody who picked up anything of value lying on the parade-ground, or who sat down in the shade of the fetish tree at Bantama. Indeed, if the king desired an execution at any time, he did not look far for an excuse. It is even said that on one occasion he preferred a richer colour in the red stucco on the walls of the palace, and that for this purpose the blood of four hundred virgins was used. I have purposely refrained elsewhere from giving numbers, because, although our informants supplied them, West African natives are notoriously inexact in this respect. The victims of sacrifices were almost always slaves or prisoners of war. Slaves were often sent in to the king in lieu of tribute from his kinglets and chiefs, or as a fine for minor delinquencies. Travelling traders of other tribes, too, were frequently called upon to pay customs dues with a slave or two, and sometimes their own lives were forfeited.
“When once a man had been selected and seized for execution, there were only two ways by which he could evade it. One was to repeat the ’king’s oath’—a certain formula of words—before they could gag him; the other was to break loose from his captors and run as far as the Bantama-Kumassi cross road; if he could reach this point before being overtaken, he was allowed to go free. In order to ensure against their prisoners getting off by either of these methods, the executioners used to spring on the intended victim from behind, and while one bound his hands behind his back, another drove a knife through both his cheeks, which effectually prevented him from opening his mouth to speak, and in this horrible condition he had to await his turn for execution. When the time came, the executioners, mad with blood, would make a rush for him and force him on to the bowl or stool, whichever served as the block. Then one of them, using a large kind of butcher’s knife, would cut into the spine, and so carve the head off. As a rule, the victims were killed without extra torture, but if the order was given for an addition of this kind, the executioners vied with each other in devising original and fiendish forms of suffering. At great executions torture was apparently resorted to in order to please the spectators. It certainly seems that the people had by frequent indulgence become imbued with a kind of blood-lust, and that to them an execution was as attractive an entertainment as is a bull-fight to a Spaniard or a football match to an Englishman.”
On November 14th, 1895, Baden-Powell received orders to proceed on active service, and a month later he was at Cape Coast Castle, charged with the onerous duties of getting the punitive force through from that point to Kumassi. What a task it was that lay before him few people can imagine. Between Cape Coast Castle and Kumassi the road was nothing but a narrow pathway, leading for the greater part of its 150 miles through primeval forest, dark, pestilential, and infested by the tsetse fly. To plunge an army of white troops into such a district was to court immediate trouble in the way of sickness, if not of death; accordingly it was necessary that many things should be thought of, and thought of with a thoroughness and care which the stay-at-home man can scarcely conceive. The details relating to transport, commissariat, reserve stores, engineering and telegraphic work, hospital provision, equipment for making roads and building bridges, had all to be considered and debated. Before he reached Cape Coast Castle, Baden-Powell had considered them all, and had put his ideas about them on paper. When he landed there innumerable difficulties lay before him, such difficulties that, as he says, “One could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing,” but going on the old West Coast proverb, “Softly, softly, catchee monkey,” he gradually reduced chaos into order, and at last found himself in command of “a jabbering, laughing mob,” whose only uniform was—a red fez! All the way to Prahsu, seventy miles off, did Baden-Powell and his assistant, Captain Graham, lead and drive this motley assemblage. There they handed over to the Commissariat Department the loads they had brought up, and then set to work with their levies at clearing the bush, making roads, and doing general pioneer work. What sort of life he and Graham spent at that time is shown in a characteristic passage of Baden-Powell’s diary:—
“At early dawn, while the hush of the thick white mist yet hangs above the forest, a pyjama-clad figure creeps from its camp-bed in the palm-leaf hut, and kicks up a sleeping drummer to sound ‘Reveillé.’ Then the tall, dark forest wall around the clearing echoes with the boom of the elephant-tusk horns, whose sound is all the more weird since it comes from between the human jaws with which the horns are decorated. The war-drums rumble out a kind of Morse rattle that is quite understandable to its hearers. The men get up readily enough, but it is merely in order to light their fires and to settle down to eat plaintains, while the white chiefs take their tubs, quinine, and tea. A further rattling of the drum for parade produces no result. The king is called for. ‘Why are your men not on parade?’ With a deprecatory smile the king explains that he is suffering from rheumatism in the shoulder, and therefore he, and consequently his tribe, cannot march to-day. He is given a Cockle’s pill, and is warned that if he is not ready to march in five minutes, he will be fined a shilling. (The luxury of fining a real, live king to the extent of one shilling!) In five minutes he returns and says that if the white officer will give his men some salt to eat with their ‘chop’ (food), he thinks they will be willing to march.
“The white officer grimly says he will get a little salt for them, and proceeds to cut a specimen of a particularly lithe and whippy cane. A hundred pair of eyes are watching him. They read his intention in a moment, and at once there is a stir. A moment later, and that portion of the army are off in a long string upon the forward road, with their goods and chattels and chop tied up in bundles on their heads.
“But the whole levy is as yet by no means under way. Here a whole company of another tribe is still squatting, eating plantains, and jabbering away, indifferent to every other sound. ‘Call the chief.’ Yes, the chief is most willing to do anything; would march straight on to Kumassi if ordered. But his captains are at present engaged in talking over the situation, and he cannot well disturb them. The white chief does not take long about disturbing them, but still the rank and file don’t move. The captains have something they would like to communicate to the white chief. ‘Well, out with it.’
“The head captain has come to the conclusion, from information received, that the Ashantis are a most cowardly race.
“‘Quite right. Just what I have told you all along; and if you will only hurry up, we can get right up to them in a few days and smash them.’
“‘Ah! the white chief speaks brave words, but he does not know the ways of the bush warriors. No; the plan which the captains in council have agreed upon is to draw the enemy on by retiring straight away back to Cape Coast Castle. The enemy will follow them, and will run on to the bayonets of the white soldiers who are coming up from the coast.’
“‘A very good plan, but not quite identical with that of the white chief. There is only one plan in his mind, and that is to go forward, and this plan must be carried out by all. He has in his hand a repeating rifle which fires fourteen shots. When the regiment begins its retirement, he will go to the head of it and will shoot at each man as he comes by. Fourteen corpses will suffice to block up the path. And now any who like to go back on these conditions can do so; the gun is already loaded. Those who like to go forward to get their chop at the next halting-place can move on. Those who like to sit where they are can do so till it is their turn to be tied to a tree, to get a dozen lashes, commencing with this gentleman.’ Loads are taken up, and in a moment the whole force goes laughing and singing on the forward path.
“On through the deep, dark aisles, still foggy with the morning mist and wet with the dripping dew. Twisting and turning, now up, now down, clambering over giant tree-roots or splashing through the sucking mud—all in moist and breathless heat, till, tired and dripping, we reach the next site for a camp. Two hours’ rest for mid-day chop, and then parade. More delays, more excuses, and at last every man has his tool issued to him, and every company has its work assigned to it. No. 1 to clear the bush. No. 2 to cut stockade posts. No. 3 to cut palm-leaf wattle. No. 4 to dig stockade holes. No. 5 to mount sentries and prevent men hiding in huts; and so on, till every one is at work. We lay out the plan and trace of the fort that is to be built, and of the huts that are to form the camp.
“‘Hallo! where are the hole-diggers?’
“‘They have retired to have some chop.’
“‘Chop? they’ve only just finished two hours of chop.’
“‘Yes—but the white chief works them so hard that they have big appetites.’
“‘They—and you, their chief—will all be fined a day’s pay.’
“‘Yes, well, the white man is powerful. Still, we prefer that to not having our chop. Many thanks.’
“‘Oh, but you’ll have to work as well. See this little instrument? That’s a hunting-crop. Come, I’ll show you how it can be used. I’ll begin on you, my friend!’
“No need to. They all fly to their work. Then you go round. Every company in turn is found sitting down, or eye-serving.
“‘Down with that tree, my lad—you with the felling-axe! Not know how to use it?’
“For three days I felled trees myself, till I found that I could get the tree felled equally well by merely showing the cracker of the hunting-crop. The men had loved to see me work. The crop came to be called ‘Volapük,’ because it was understood by every tribe. But, though often shown, it was never used.
“The bush-clearing company are sitting down, not a yard of bush cut. ‘Why?’
“‘Oh, we are fishermen by occupation, and don’t know anything about bush-cutting.’
“The bush soon comes down nevertheless, and, what is more wonderful, by sunset there is an open space of some seven or eight acres where this morning there was nothing but a sea of bush jungle. Large palm thatched sheds have sprung up in regular lines, and in the centre stands a nearly finished fort, with its earth rampart bound up by stockade and wattle. Within it are two huts, for hospital and storehouse. Trains of carriers are already arriving with hundreds of boxes of beef and biscuit to be checked, arranged, and stored. At sunset sounds the drum, the treasure box and ledger are opened, and the command comes up for pay.
“‘First company—how many men present?’
“‘Sixty-eight, sir.’
“‘But it has only got fifty-nine on its establishment!’
“‘Next company.’
“‘All here, sir, but some few men away sick—and two he never come’—and so on and so on. At last it is over, except that a despatch-runner comes in with a telegram, forwarded from the last telegraph station, to ask from Cape Coast Castle offices immediate reason why the men’s pay-list has been sent in in manuscript, instead of on Army Form O 1729!”
From Prahsu the expedition, under the command of Sir Francis Scott, went on its way towards Kumassi. Its formation when it came near to that plague-spot of the earth was as follows:—First came Baden-Powell’s crowd of red-fezzed natives, keeping a variable distance from the advanced guard, which consisted of two companies of the Gold Coast Houssas and a Maxim gun. A quarter of a mile after that came the main body, covering a distance of nine miles, and consisting of Special Service Corps, two guns, a Maxim gun, the Headquarters Staff, a half of the Bearer Company, six companies of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment, two guns and two rockets, the other half of the Bearer Company, the Ammunition Column, the Baggage Column, the Supply Column, the Field Hospital, and, as rearguard, two more companies of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment and the Lagos Houssas with a Maxim. Flanking the latter portion of the main column on the right, and distributed by half-sections, came one company of the 2nd West India Regiment. It is evident from his diary that Baden-Powell wanted some fighting—at Ordasu an embassy from King Prempeh offered that bloodthirsty savage’s complete and unconditional surrender to Captain Stuart, Political Officer accompanying the column, and Baden-Powell remarks, characteristically enough, “Alas! this looks like a peaceful end of all our work,” and a few days afterwards, recording the entrance into Kumassi, he dwells rather bitterly on the disappointment which the men felt in having no fighting. But the expedition was destined to be a peaceful one—the British troops and native levies marched into the city of death quietly enough. Baden-Powell and his assistant, Graham, with their scouts, were in first, and with them were the Political Officer and Major Piggott, who bore the Union Jack on a silver-mounted hog-spear. Then came the native levies, then Major Gordon’s flank detachment, and finally the main body—and Prempeh and his chiefs sat by and watched. Baden-Powell’s account of the scene is full of life and colour:—
King Prempeh watching the arrival of Troops.
“The drumming in the town was getting louder, and the roar of voices filled the air; but, alas! it was peace drumming. The great coloured umbrellas were soon seen dancing and bobbing above the heads of the surging crowds of natives. Stool-bearers ran before, then came the whirling dancers with their yellow skirts flying round them. Great drums, like beer-barrels, decked with human skulls, were booming out their notes, and bands of elephant-tusk horns were adding to the din. The king and all his chiefs were coming out to see the troops arrive. Presently they arranged themselves in a dense long line. The umbrellas formed a row of booths, beneath which the chiefs sat on their brass-nailed chairs, with all their courtiers round them. This was nine o’clock, and there they sat till five.
“Often had they sat like this before upon that same parade-ground; but never had their sitting been without the sight of blood. The object of this open space was not for parading troops, but for use as the theatre of human sacrifice. Orders had been given before our arrival to clean away all signs of this custom, nor were the people to speak of it to the white men; but with very little cross-examination all the facts came out. Indeed, while standing about the parade-ground, ‘The Sutler’ peered into the coppice close by, where the trees supported a flock of healthy-looking vultures, and there at once he found skulls and bones of human dead.
“And there sits Prempeh, looking very bored, as three scarlet-clad dwarfs dance before him, amid the dense crowd of sword-bearers, court criers, fly-catchers, and other officials. He looks a regal figure as he sits upon a lofty throne with a huge velvet umbrella standing over him, upon his head a black and gold tiara, and on his neck and arms large golden beads and nuggets.”
It was all over with Prempeh. He and his chiefs heard the doom of the nation pronounced, and found themselves prisoners, and within a very short time of the arrival of the British punitive force at Kumassi it was on its way back to Cape Coast Castle with the Ashanti monarch and his queen-mother in custody of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment. It is very evident that Baden-Powell was disappointed because there was no fighting—disappointed, perhaps, more on account of the men than on his own. In his journal, under date February 8th, 1896, he pays a magnificent tribute to the British soldier’s pluck and endurance:—
“Cape Coast Castle, February 8th, 1896.
“The march up to Kumassi was a weary, toilsome business, even in spite of the excitement and hope which buoyed the men up. What, then, can one say of the march down, when the same long depressing road had to be re-traversed by men whose spirits were now lowered by the deep disappointment they had suffered, and whose systems were gradually giving in to the attacks of the ever-present fever fiend? In truth, that march down was in its way as fine an exhibition of British stamina and pluck as any that has been seen of late years. For the casual reader in England this is difficult to realize, but to one who has himself wearily tramped that interminable path, heartsick and footsore, the sight of those dogged British ‘Tommies,’ heavily accoutred as they were, still defying fever in the sweltering heat, and ever pressing on, was one which opened one’s eyes and one’s heart as well.
“There was no malingering there; each man went on until he dropped. It showed more than any fight could have done, more than any investment in a fort, or surprise in camp, what stern and sterling stuff our men are made of, notwithstanding all that cavillers will say against our modern army system and its soldiers.
“To one fine young fellow—who, though evidently gripped by fever, still was doggedly marching on—I suggested that his kit was very heavy, whereat he replied, with the tight drawn smile and quavering voice one knows too well out here, ‘It ain’t the kit, sir! it’s only these extra rounds that I feel the weight of.’ ‘These extra rounds’ being those intended for the fight which never came. The never-ending sameness of the forest was in itself sufficient to depress the most light and cheerful mind, and thus it was a great relief at length to get to Mansu, where the bush begins to open out, and where there is more of the light and air of heaven. But the change is not altogether for the better. The forest, it is true, is gone, but the road is open to the sun, while the undergrowth on either hand is denser now than ever, and forms a high, impenetrable hedge that seems to shut out every breath of breeze. Acting on the experiences of the upward march, this portion of the road was now traversed by the troops by night, and consequently heat apoplexy and sunstroke were not encountered. But the string of loaded hammocks grew longer every day!”
With the despatch of Prempeh and his mother into exile the Ashanti Expedition practically came to an end, and Baden-Powell returned to England, having done a vast amount of pioneering work, kept a full journal, seen a king dance, made numerous sketches, and generally added to his store of knowledge of men and things. The powers that be gave him a brevet-lieutenant-colonelcy and a star for his pains, and then sent him off to his regiment in Ireland to resume his usual avocations of hard work and hard play.