All the Aximites described the Ebumesu bars as practically impassable. Cameron and I agreed that the only way of entering them is by running the boat ashore, unloading her, and warping her round the point, as we shall afterwards do at Prince's. But the best line to the Izrah concession has not yet been discovered. I strongly impressed the necessity of careful search upon Mr. A. A. Robertson, the traffic-manager of the Company. For the present I hold the surf along shore and the Ebumesu bar to be equally dangerous. The land-tongue between the two streams is the favourite haunt of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and it produces nothing save mud and mangroves, miasma and malaria. Yet here in 1873-74 loyal and stout-hearted King Blay defended himself against the whole Apollonian coast, which actively sympathised with the Ashantis. [Footnote: Captain Brackenbury, vol. ii, p. 29, _The Ashanti War_, &c., gives an account of King Blay fighting the Ashantis on the Ebumesu.] He was at last relieved by the Wasas (Wassaws) coming to his side; and now he has little to fear. He can put some 5,000 musketeers into the field; and, during the late Ashanti scare, he offered to aid us with 7,000, if we could supply the extras with arms and ammunition. When the 'Queen of Shades' arose, and it became too dark to see the world, we halted at the Sensyere village, and found good sleeping-quarters in the guest-house of the headman, Bato. Fortunately we had brought mattresses. The standing four-poster of the country offers only cross-planks covered with the thinnest matting. As the ancient joke of many a lugubrious African traveller says, it combines bed and board. Next morning, despite the chilly damp and the 'old-woman-cannot-see,' as the Scotch mist is here called, our men were ready within reasonable limits. After two hours' hammock we found ourselves at Atabo, capital of eastern Apollonia, about to pay our promised return-visit to good King Blay. It is useless to describe the settlement, which in no way differs from those passed on the path. The country-people related its origin as follows:--A Fanti man from the country between Secondee (Sekondi), or Fort Orange, and Shamah (Chamah), at the mouth of the Bosom Prah, when driven out by war, first founded 'Kabeku,' near the present place of that name. His sons built Bein, or Behin, [Footnote: The aspirate is hardly audible. Captain Brackenbury, generally so careful, manages to confound Bein and Benin.] meaning a 'strong man,' and Atabo, in Fanti _ataba_, the name of a tree with a reddish-yellow fruit. The latter was paramount till late years, when turbulent and unruly Bein was allowed to set up for herself an independent king; and the sooner things return to the _status quo ante_ the better for peace.