The closing months of Mr. Gladstone's Administration were marked by a short war on the Gold Coast, arising out of a dispute with Koffee Calcalli, King of Ashanti, who had claimed a tribute formerly paid to him by the Dutch for some territory which they sold to Great Britain in 1872. Failing to obtain acknowledgment of his claim, the King of Ashanti attacked the Fantis, a tribe under British protection, and it became necessary to chastise him. The difficulty of doing so lay, not in the character of the people of Ashanti, for, though brave and warlike, they could not stand before modern arms of precision, but in the nature of the climate and the difficulty of transport. The campaign had to be limited to the cool season; it was entrusted to Sir Garnet Wolseley, who well sustained the reputation he had earned in the Red River Expedition in 1870. The Expedition left England on September 12, 1873, and returned on March 21, 1874, having in the interval captured and destroyed Coomassie, the capital, brought the King to terms, and laid a perpetual interdict on the hideous human sacrifices which formed one of his most cherished institutions. The Ashanti warriors defended their forest roads gallantly, and the British loss was heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged. The total cost of this Expedition was reckoned at a little short of one million sterling. [Illustration: _Orlando Norrie_} {_From the Royal Collection._ THE ASHANTI WAR: THE 42ND HIGHLANDERS CROSSING THE OMDALI.] [Sidenote: Mr. Disraeli's Third Administration.]