The reports from Ashanti are still unfavourable, a small party
of Haussas with a British officer having been cutoff and slain. Coomassie, however, has not fallen, though it is reported, we regret to say, that the Hausaa quarters have been burnt and a large number of Haussas killed, and a force of three thousand men is now in full march to its relief. We may trust, therefore, that authority will soon be re-established; but it must be remembered that Nigeria has been partially stripped to do it, and that if the relieving force were defeated, or even checked, we might have the whole of Western Africa to reconquer. We repeat that we ought to have a perfectly disciplined and officered black army of eight thousand men upon that coast, with light artillery and some reasonable means of transport. It is undignified, to say the least of it, that the Queen's troops should be dependent for mobility upon commandeered black girls, as has been the case in this affair.
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