These matters I revolved gloomily in my mind as I stumbled along the rugged path through the solemn, shadowy forest. But more grave than the food question was the conduct of Annan. Evidently he intended to rob me and, as Aba had pointed out, nothing would be simpler than for him to murder me and report that I had been killed by the Ashantis. All my weapons were sewn up in my bundle, so that I was absolutely unarmed, while Annan, as I knew, carried a formidable sheath knife. This state of things I determined to remedy at once as well as I could, for an emergency might arise at any moment. I had cut myself a stick on the previous day from a hard-wood sapling, and now, remembering the very efficient wooden spears of the Australian natives, I proceeded to trim one end of it to a moderately sharp point, and so provided myself with a really formidable although harmless-looking weapon. We had not been long on the march before I received a disagreeable hint as to Annan’s intentions towards me. About three hours’ journey from Akonsírrim the path entered a deep valley, at the bottom of which was a small stream, and when we had forded this we came to the foot of a lofty hill, the face of which was so precipitous as to form a kind of cliff. Up this the path could be traced in a series of zig-zags among projecting bosses of rock and clumps of bushes. I rested at the bottom of the cliff until Annan and the carriers had nearly reached the top, and then commenced the ascent. I was about half-way when, happening to glance up, I perceived Annan standing immediately above me and watching my progress. A few moments later I was startled by a sudden noise overhead, and again looking up, saw a ponderous mass of iron-stone bounding down the cliff straight on to me. I had barely time to seize a branch and swing myself aside before it whizzed by, dislodging in its descent a shower of stones and smaller fragments. When I reached the summit, Annan was nowhere to be seen, and it was some minutes before I overtook him striding along with the carriers down the northern slope of the hill. That he had rolled the rock down on me I had not the faintest doubt, but as there was nothing to be gained by taxing him with it I held my peace. A little further on we came upon a scene that filled me with joy and hope. In the midst of a small opening by the roadside lay the ashes of a wood fire, still hot and sending up a tiny thread of smoke, and by its side three diminutive huts built of grass and leaves fastened to central upright sticks. The still smouldering ashes told us that the travellers who had encamped here had left but recently and, as we had not met them, they must be travelling in the same direction as ourselves; while the familiar beehive shape of the huts showed that the strangers were not forest people (who always build square shelters) but Hausas or Moslem travellers from the far north.