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. Frank was often filled with disgust at seeing these noble savages lying indolently from morn till night while their wives went miles in the forest searching for pineapples and fruits, bent down and prematurely aged by toil and hardship. Many of the young girls among the negroes are pretty, with their soft eyes and skin like velvet, their merry laugh and graceful figures. But in a very few years all this disappears, and by middle age they are bent, and wrinkled, and old. All loads are carried by women, with the exception only of hammocks, which are exclusively carried by men. Thus, then, the Ashantis settled down to what appeared to Frank to be an interminable business, and what rendered it more tantalizing was, that the morning and evening guns at the English forts could be plainly heard. It was on the 7th of June that Ammon Quatia reconnoitered Elmina, and the news came next day that a hundred and ten white men in red coats had landed from a ship which had arrived that morning off the coast. Frank judged from the description that these must be marines from a ship of war. In this he was correct, as they consisted of marines and marine artillerymen under Lieutenant Colonel Festing, who had just arrived from England. Three days later the Ashanti general, with a portion of his force, moved down close to Elmina; Frank was told to accompany them. Shortly afterwards the news came that the Elminas were all ordered to lay down their arms. They replied by going over in a body to the Ashantis. Ammon Quatia determined at once to attack the town, but as he was advancing, the guns of the ships of war opened fire upon the native town of Elmina, which lay to the west of the European quarter. The sound of such heavy cannon, differing widely from anything they had ever heard before, caused the Ashantis to pause in astonishment. Then came the howl of the shells, which exploded in rapid succession in the village, from which flames began immediately to rise. After a few minutes' hesitation the Ashantis and Elminas again advanced. The general, who was carried in a chair upon the shoulders of four men, took his post on rising ground near the burning village.