exceedingly wrong to do a thing like that, you only frighten people
to death. You can't want new-dug graves daily. There are not
enough white men in the whole place to keep the institution up."
"We do," he replied, "at any rate at this season. Why, the other
day we had two white men to bury before twelve o'clock, and at four,
another dropped in on a steamer."

"At 4.30," said a companion, an exceedingly accurate member of the
staff. "How you fellows DO exaggerate!" Subsequent knowledge of
the Gold Coast has convinced me fully that the extra funeral being
placed half-an-hour sooner than it occurred is the usual percentage
of exaggeration you will be able to find in stories relating to the
local mortality. And at Accra, after I left it, and all along the
Gold Coast, came one of those dreadful epidemic outbursts sweeping
away more than half the white population in a few weeks.

But to return to our state journey along the Christiansborg road.
We soon reached the castle, an exceedingly roomy and solid edifice
built by the Danes, and far better fitted for the climate than our
modern dwellings, in spite of our supposed advance in tropical
hygiene. We entered by the sentry-guarded great gate into the
courtyard; on the right hand were the rest of the guard; most of
them asleep on their mats, but a few busy saying Dhikr, etc.,
towards Mecca, like the good Mohammedans these Haussas are, others
winding themselves into their cummerbunds. On the left hand was Sir
Brandford Griffiths' hobby--a choice and select little garden, of
lovely eucharis lilies mostly in tubs, and rare and beautiful
flowers brought by him from his Barbadian home; while shading it and
the courtyard was a fine specimen of that superb thing of beauty--a
flamboyant tree--glorious with its delicate-green acacia-like leaves