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 next world.

It was thought 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....

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." The expedition to bring Mr.Prempeh to his senses was under the command of Sir Francis Scott, and Baden-Powell received the pink flimsy bearing the magic words, "You are selected to proceed on active service," with a gush of elation, which, he tells us, a flimsy of another kind and of a more tangible value would fail to evoke.

Of course he was keen to go.