thus prevent him from devastating the entire country as in former wars.  Sir Charles McCarthy was a brave man, and worthy of old England; but in this instance his courage was foolhardy.  He crossed the Prah River to meet a wily and desperate foe.  His troops were the worthless natives, hastily gathered, and were intoxicated with the hope of deliverance from Ashantee rule.  He should have waited for the trained troops of Major Chisholm.  This was his fatal mistake.  His pickets felt the enemy early in the morning of the 21st of January, 1824.  A lively skirmish followed.  In a short time the clamorous war-horns of the advancing Ashantees were heard, and a general engagement came on.  The first fighting began along a shallow stream.  The Ashantees came up with the courage and measured tread of a well-disciplined army.  They made a well-directed charge to gain the opposite bank of the stream, but were repulsed by an admirable bayonet charge from Sir Charles’s troops.  The Ashantees then crossed the stream above and below the British army, and fell with such desperation upon its exposed and naked flanks, that it was bent into the shape of a letter A, and hurled back toward Cape Coast in dismay.  Wounded and exhausted, toward evening Sir Charles fled from his exposed position to the troops of his allies under the command of the king of Denkera.  He concentrated his artillery upon the heaviest columns of the enemy; but still they came undaunted, bearing down upon the centre like an avalanche.  Sir Charles made an attempt to retreat with his staff, but met instant death at the hands of the Ashantees.  His head was removed from the body and sent to Kumasi.  His heart was eaten by the chiefs of the army that they might imbibe his courage, while his flesh was dried and issued in small rations among the line-officers for the same purpose.  His bones were kept at the capital of the Ashantee kingdom as national fetiches.[62]

Major Chisholm and Capt.  Laing, learning of the disaster that had well-nigh swallowed up Sir Charles’s army, retreated to Cape Coast.  There were about thirty thousand troops remaining, but they were so terrified at the disaster of the day that they could not be induced to make a stand against the gallant Ashantees.  The king of Ashantee, instead of following the routed army to the gates of Cape Coast, where he could have dealt it a death-blow, offered the English conditions of peace.  Capt.  Ricketts met the Ashantee messengers at Elmina, and heard from them the friendly messages of the king.  The Ashantees only wanted the British to surrender Kudjoh Chibbu of the province of Denkera; but this fugitive from the Ashantee king, while negotiations were pending, resolved to rally the allied armies and make a bold stroke.  He crossed the Prah at the head of a considerable force, and fell upon the Ashantee army in its camp.  The English were charmed by this bold stroke, and sent a reserve force; but the whole army was again defeated by the Ashantees, and came back to Cape Coast in complete confusion.