Several
others were flogged, and after some hours' excitement the place
quieted down. Sir Garnet was greatly vexed at the occurrence, as
he had the evening before sent a messenger to the king asking him
to come in and make peace, and promising to spare the town if he
did so.
Although Coomassie was well known to Frank he was still ignorant of
the character of the interior of the chiefs' houses, and the next
day he wandered about with almost as much curiosity as the soldiers
themselves. The interiors even of the palaces of the chiefs showed
that the Ashantis can have no idea of what we call comfort. The
houses were filled with dust and litter, and this could not be
accounted for solely by the bustle and hurry of picking out the things
worth carrying away prior to the hurried evacuation of the place.
From the roofs hung masses of spiders' web, thick with dust, while
sweeping a place out before occupying it brought down an accumulation
of dust which must have been the result of years of neglect. The
principal apartments were lumbered up with drums, great umbrellas,
and other paraphernalia of processions, such as horns, state chairs,
wooden maces, etc. Before the door of each house stood a tree, at
the foot of which were placed little idols, calabashes, bits of
china, bones, and an extraordinary jumble of strange odds and ends
of every kind, all of which were looked upon as fetish.
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