Early in the forenoon (Jan. 9) we hammocked to the Kikam village, and were much disappointed. King Blay, too lame to leave his home, had sent his interpreter to show us the Yirima or 'Choke-full' reef; and the man, doubtless influenced by some intrigue, gave us wrong information. Moreover the _safahin_ Etie, before mentioned, had gone, they said, to his lands at Prince's: he was probably lurking in some adjacent hut. We breakfasted in his house, but all the doors were bolted and locked, and his people would hardly serve us with drinking water. We attempted in vain to buy the _boma_, or fetish-drum, a venerable piece of furniture hung round with human crania, of which only the roofs remained. King Blay, however, eventually sent us home a _boma_, and it was duly exhibited in town. Kikam was the only place in Apollonia where we met with churlish treatment; no hospitality, however, could be expected when the strangers were supposed to be mixed up in a native quarrel. Unwilling to linger any longer in the uninviting and uninteresting spot, we ordered our hammocks, set out at noon, and, following the line over which we had travelled, reached Axim at 5 P.M. We had no other reason to complain of our week's trip except its inordinate expense. Apparently one must be the owner of a rich gold-mine to live in and travel on the Gold Coast. We had already in a fortnight got through the 50_l_. of silver sent from England; and this, too, without including the expenses of bed and board. We came home with the conviction that the Inyoko property should have been the second proposed for exploitation, coming immediately after the Apatim. Our reasons were the peculiar facilities of reaching it and the certainty that, when work here begins, it will greatly facilitate communication with 'Izrah.' But progress is slow upon the Gold Coast, and our wishes may still be realised. I cannot better conclude this chapter than with an extract from Captain Brackenbury's 'Narrative of the Ashanti War.' [Footnote: Blackwoods, Edinburgh and London, 1874. Vol. ii. pp. 351, 352.] It will show how well that experienced and intelligent officer foresaw in 1873 the future of the Gold Coast.