Soon after daybreak on the second morning after my departure from Quittáh, the fishing canoe, which had been sent to fetch me ashore, swept round the bluff into the quieter waters of Winneba Bay, and presently took the ground not far from the mouth of the little river Ainsu; and as I jumped out on to the beach, I found myself folded in the embrace of no less a person than Mr. David Annan. He seemed very pleased to see me, and not without reason, as I presently discovered, for it appeared that, relying on my assumed opulence, he had refrained from burdening himself with an undue amount of that which is vulgarly known as “the ready,” and was even now in a state of some pecuniary embarrassment. The “carrier men” were, in fact, “not fit,” to use his expression, and refused to lift a load until they had received tangible evidence of their employer’s solvency. A sovereign from my purse, rapidly converted into eighty “thor-pennies” at an adjacent store, revived the flagging confidence of our followers, and half an hour after landing, we formed up our little caravan and stepped out briskly up the steep street of the town. I looked around me with growing pleasure and interest, for everything was new and strange. The little church with its tower of sun-dried clay, that had looked so imposing from the anchorage and now appeared so mean; the bright red walls of the houses, so different from the grimy hovels of Quittáh, built of the black lagoon-mud; the steep rocky road, the strange trees, the gay and comely Fanti women, were all elements of novelty that came upon me with singular force after my long sojourn amidst the sandy flats and changeless horizon of the Bight of Benin. Even when we descended into the wide plain the novelty was not abated, for the meadow-like expanse, with its pink soil and waving grass, was as great a change from Quittáh as the rocky upland. And so, while Isabel was mourning my absence in the dull and silent house, here was I striding gaily along the narrow track, watching the little zebra mice and the white-breasted crows and the circling vultures, with an exhilaration that I blush to reflect on. We walked on at a good swinging pace until nearly noon, when, reaching a belt of woodland, we halted in the shade of a silk-cotton tree to rest and take our midday meal. I had left the commissariat arrangements to Annan, and now reaped the harvest of my folly, for that child of Belial had laid in, with my money, a supply of kanki--a disgusting mess of boiled maize which I had never tasted before, and hope never to taste again. It was highly satisfying, however, and its flavour encouraged moderation, so that when we resumed our march after an hour’s rest I was completely refreshed.