To people like these time is of absolutely no value. Their
wants are few. Their garden furnishes them with tobacco. They make
drink from the palm or by fermenting the juice of the cocoanut.
The fowls that wander about in the clearings suffice when carried
down occasionally to the port, to pay for the few yards of calico
and strings of beads which are all that is necessary for the clothing
and decoration of a family.
Such people are never in a hurry. To wait means to do nothing. To
do nothing is their highest joy. Their tomorrow means a month hence,
directly, a week. If, then, the Ashanti army had been detained
for one year or five before the English settlements, it would have
been a matter of indifference to them, so long as they could obtain
food. Their women were with them, for the wife and daughters of each
warrior had carried on head, with the army, his household goods, a
tiny stool, a few calabashes for cooking, a mat to sleep on, and
baskets high piled with provisions. They were there to collect
sticks, to cook food, draw water, bring fire for his pipe, minister
to his pleasures. He could have no more if he were at home, and
was contented to wait as long as the king ordered, were that time
years distant.
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