We reached Anamaboe about 10 a.m., and found the fort prepared for our reception as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Of late years it had been occupied by two or three Fanti policemen with their numerous wives and dependents, and consequently was not as clean as it might have been; while no attempt had been made to make good the damage resulting from years of neglect. As a military position, the defects which were the cause of the surrender of the fort to the Ashantis in 1806 had not been remedied; the loopholes in the curtain were so made that fire could only be brought to bear on a point some forty yards from the walls, and persons beyond or within that distance could not be touched, while the embrasures yawned to such an extent that it would cost many lives to work guns so exposed to the fire of an enemy. Added to this, the native swish-houses extended on one side to within twenty yards of the walls; and on another side stood an immense house, built of stone, which actually overlooked the bastions and commanded the whole fort. As neither food nor water fit to drink were to be obtained here, these necessaries of life had to be forwarded daily from Cape Coast in surf-boats: sometimes the water, through some oversight, failed to appear, and we had to use the dysenteric liquid from the neighbouring pools, or go without; the former alternative was usually chosen, and, in spite of every precaution, such as boiling and filtering, a very large percentage of the men were constantly on the sick-list. As for the officers, three in number, we were always more or less ill. The town was in a condition of indescribable filth, and at times the stench which arose was so suffocating that, in spite of the intense heat, we were obliged to keep the doors and windows of our rooms closed. The streets, the yards, the bush--in fact the whole surface of the earth within a radius of half-a-mile from the fort--was covered with the collected refuse of half-a-century, which, under the combined influence of sun and rain, gave forth a curious variety of pestilential odours. Altogether, Anamaboe was an exceedingly salubrious and, under the circumstances, useful post. On February 17th a third embassy arrived at Cape Coast from Coomassie, consisting of a linguist, a sword-bearer, three court-criers, and an old fetish priestess, the latter of whom threatened to utterly destroy both the English and the Fantis if they did not at once abandon any intention they might have of making war upon Ashanti. On the 18th these ambassadors, with the exception of the old lady, had an interview with the Lieutenant-Governor at Elmina, Enguie and Busumburu being again in attendance. After the preliminary formalities, Bendi, the linguist, said:--