3-085-971 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

With the British Expedition from Accra to the Gold Coast Hinterland, 1898. 'Palaver [meeting] with Abu Bukari Demba, the son of Samory's priest, sent to Bualé as a messenger (the white figure is Abu). From Photographs by Lieutenant F. Henderson, D.S.O., in Command of the Mission. The Mission...left Accra in November last with the object of opening up negotiations with a number of chiefs of the interior, already in treaty or known to be friendly...All went well until, some distance beyond Kumasi, the party learned that the Sofa army, under the son of the great chief Samory, was out on a marauding raid, pillaging and laying waste the villages of the Hinterland. When Lieut. Henderson and his force reached Bualé, they found the place a smouldering ruin. In view of this Sofa outbreak, Wa was strongly garrisoned by the British force..., Lieut. Henderson, Mr. Ferguson, and forty-three Hausas only proceeding to Dawkita. There they were attacked by the Sofa army, but managed to keep the whole force at bay for four days, killing upwards of four hundred of the beleaguering forces. Eventually they had to fall back on Wa, which was in turn surrounded by Samory's followers...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.