In 1899, while in the service of the Gold Coast Government, and stationed at Kumasi, I received orders “per bearer, who will accompany you,” to proceed to a point on Volta not far south of where it debouches from among the Saraga Hills. “The bearer,” a nice young fellow called Strange, was newly arrived in the colony, and his pleasant home gossip was not less welcome to me than my information about the country we were in was to him. Our rough forest journey, then, passed as pleasantly as such journeys can, and by the time we arrived at our destination we were the best of friends. Akroful, a town of about seven hundred inhabitants, was the nearest place of any size to the spot where we pitched our camp, and we were soon on good terms with its headman, Otibu Daku, and his son, Dansani, both of whom put us in the way of some good shooting. We had been in this place about a fortnight, when we began to be annoyed by the depredations of a marauding leopard, who took to visiting our live-stock pens, and at last we decided to lie in wait for him. I took the first watch until a snake crawled over my legs; then I went to bed. It was a harmless one, but it reminded me of the need of precaution, so next night found our lair surrounded by a very uninviting floor of cactus leaves. The fourth night after our vigil commenced Strange succeeded in wounding our sell-invited guest, and we determined to track him down as soon as it was light. Otibu Daku and his son willingly agreed to help us; and I took, in addition, two of my own men who would, I knew, “stand fire”--Ashong Tawiah, an Accra man, and Nyato, my chief steward-boy, a Krooman. The two Ashantis led the way, Otibu Daku carrying a “long Dane” gun; his son, a machete. Tawiah and Nyato also carried machetes, and the former, on leaving camp, had picked up a broad-bladed Hausa spear. Strange and I each had a repeating rifle and a revolver, for, as Nyato told me, “Dem headman, ’e say, plenty tiger lib dem part.” The trail was easy to follow. There was not much blood, but the ground was soft from recent rain. It was rough going, however, and the machetes were constantly at work clearing a way. Up and down small watersheds, squelching through marshy bottoms, crossing streams on fallen trees, we frequently lost the track, but by some sort of instinct our guides always found it again.