One of those bizarre incidents which sometimes make history interesting
has just occurred in Ashanti. The Kings of Coomassie, who were overlords of the whole country, acquired in the beginning of the century a huge gold nugget, which they promptly raised to the rank of the Royal seat. When King Prempeh fell before the British advance the Gold Stool of Royalty was carried• away, and all efforts to discover it proved fruitless. Recently, however, some one has betrayed the secret, and Sir Frederick Hodgson, Governor of the Gold Coast, while on a visit to the capital sent out a party to secure the Stool. The natives, especially the dominant tribe—the Coomassis—did not like this at all, valuing the Stool as a kind of fetish which might act as a standard in any rising, and leave its possessors, who are clearly themselves, masters of the country. They have therefore risen, and are besieging Sir Frederick in Coomassie. He has some Hausas with him, and a few West Indian Regulars, and a force is being pushed up from the Coast, while the smaller chiefs seem disposed to stand aloof, the Gold Stool being for them a symbol of oppression. On the whole the situation, though precarious, is not regarded by experts as in any way hopeless, the native tribesmen, who are armed with old muskets, having a healthy horror of the British rifle. There is, too, if we remember rightly, some sort of an entrenchment, and they have no artillery.
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