Beyond Mansue the forest was thick and gloomy. There was little undergrowth, but a perfect wilderness of climbers clustered round the trees, twisting in a thousand fantastic windings, and finally running down to the ground, where they took fresh root and formed props to the dead tree their embrace had killed. Not a flower was to be seen, but ferns grew by the roadside in luxuriance. Butterflies were scarce, but dragonflies darted along like sparks of fire. The road had the advantage of being shady and cool, but the heavy rain and traffic had made it everywhere slippery, and in many places inches deep in mud, while all the efforts of the engineers and working parties had failed to overcome the swamps. It was a relief to the party when they emerged from the forests into the little clearings where villages had once stood, for the gloom and quiet of the great forest weighed upon the spirits. The monotonous too too of the doves--not a slow dreamy cooing like that of the English variety, but a sharp quick note repeated in endless succession--alone broke the hush. The silence, the apparently never ending forest, the monotony of rank vegetation, the absence of a breath of wind to rustle a leaf, were most oppressive, and the feeling was not lessened by the dampness and heaviness of the air, and the malarious exhalation and smell of decaying vegetation arising from the swamps. Sootah was the station beyond Mansue, beyond this Assin and Barracoo. Beyond Sootah the odors of the forest became much more unpleasant, for at Fazoo they passed the scene of the conflict between Colonel Wood's regiment and the retiring Ashantis. In the forest beyond this were the remains of a great camp of the enemy's, which extended for miles, and hence to the Prah large numbers of Ashantis had dropped by the way or had crawled into the forest to die, smitten by disease or rifle balls. There was a general feeling of pleasure as the party emerged from the forest into the large open camp at Prahsue. This clearing was twenty acres in extent, and occupied an isthmus formed by a loop of the river. The 2d West Indians were encamped here, and huts had been erected under the shade of some lofty trees for the naval brigade. In the center was a great square. On one side were the range of huts for the general and his staff. Two sides of the square were formed by the huts for the white troops. On the fourth was the hospital, the huts for the brigadier and his staff, and the post office. Upon the river bank beyond the square were the tents of the engineers and Rait's battery of artillery, and the camps of Wood's and Russell's regiments. The river, some seventy yards wide, ran round three sides of the camp thirty feet below its level.