CHAPTER XVI: CAPTIVES IN COOMASSIE
Upon the morning following the successful sortie not an enemy could
be seen from the walls. Swift runners were sent out, and these
returned in two hours with news that the enemy were in full retreat
towards their capital. The people of Abeokuta were half wild with
exultation and joy, and their gratitude to their white allies was
unbounded. Mr. Goodenough begged them not to lose an hour in burying
their slain enemies, and the entire population were engaged for
the two following days upon this necessary but revolting duty. The
dead were counted as they were placed in the great pits dug for
their reception, and it was found that no fewer than three thousand
of the enemy had fallen.
Mr. Goodenough also advised the Abeokutans to erect flanking towers
at short intervals round their walls, to dig a moat twenty feet
wide and eight deep at a few yards from their foot, and to turn
into it the water from the river in order that any future attack
might be more easily repelled.
The inhabitants were poor, but they would willingly have presented
all their treasures to their white allies. Mr. Goodenough, however,
would accept nothing save a few specimens of native cloth exquisitely
woven from the inner barks of the trees, and some other specimens
of choice native workmanship.
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