After three hours’ marching over vile roads and steep hills we halted for an hour for breakfast at a small village in the bush about nine miles from Cape Coast; the men piled arms and bivouacked under some umbrella-trees in the centre of the village, while we, the officers, went towards a fairly good sort of house that stood close by; The owner and occupier of this mansion was a local preacher belonging to some missionary society, and he at once said, like any other native would have said, that we might make use of his house during our stay; but added, unlike any other native, provided we paid him: we made no difficulty about this, and proceeded to breakfast. While we were discussing that meal the preacher came in accompanied by two young girls, about twelve or thirteen years of age, attired in gorgeous native cloths, with their wool distorted into the latest Fanti fashion, and bedecked with brilliant handkerchiefs. We asked our host if he required anything, and he said “No,” he had only come to do a little business with us; we then inquired what that business might be, and, after a little beating about the bush, he informed us that, as Anamaboe was rather a dull place for Europeans, he thought we might like to buy these two girls, and, if so, we could have them for 4_l._ a piece. We asked him what authority he had for disposing of them in this unceremonious fashion, and he replied that they were his servants; but, on being pressed for further information, he confessed that they had been given to him by their parents in payment of some debt--in fact they were slaves. Much to his disappointment we felt ourselves obliged to decline his generous offer, which refusal he attributed entirely to the price, and lowered his terms first to 3_l._ 10_s._ and then to 3_l._, equally without success; while it was easy to see that the dusky damsels considered our rejection of the proposal as a proof of our exceedingly bad taste, and were as much disappointed and chagrined as their master.