KING PREMPEH’S VISITORS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1247, 23 January 1896, Page 23

KING PREMPEH’S VISITORS.

(From Our Sjjccial Correspondent.) London, December 6. The correspondent of the Central News, who went out to Ashantee with the first batch of officers and stores for the campaign against King Prempeh, has sent the following amusing letter Lome. Writing on board the Angola be says: Upon this ship there are about twenty officers, every one of whom has seen active service, some in India, others in Afghanistan, others again in Egypt. They are all ardent and seasoned, and were re-vaccinated four years ago. Nevertheless, forth went the order, which was, of course, plaintively obeyed. One gallant gentleman, the nephew of a distinguished judge, who received his marching orders late, found himself with just time enough to secure his kit before starting for the Mersey. There was no time to go to the hospital, but still, true to an English officer’s fidelity to discipline, he used his last hour in Liverpool to be vaccinated. All this was very well for a day, but, oh! the exquisite torture of the day following, when the subtle forces of the vaccine began cunningly to declare themselves. The Angola left the Mersey on Saturday, and on Sunday the curious, if not pathetic, spectacle was witnessed of a gallant colonel, a full major, a dozeu captains, and a group of lieutenants biting their moustaches in muffled anger as each rubbed his left arm gently up and down. With mutual sympathy the colonel aud the major con doled with one another ; the captains in a rebellious mood, born of inability to get squarely into their jackets, talked of “ red tape ” ; and a lieutenant condemned to a bed on the sofa besought the doctor to “give me something to stop this infernal Blague.” It was generally agreed allround that if Sir Evelyn Wood and the Army medical officers could be only just sent to sea in a West African coaster in bad weather, in unavoidably overcrowded cabins, and suffering from the after-effects of vaccination, there would henceforth be one “ fad” the fewer at the War Office. A TEETOTAL FORCE. The authorities in Pall Mall (the correpondent continues) are stinting us in nothing. The voice of the Army Medical Department should be heard to some purpose, for in order to convey the medical comforts to the front a special corps of 2000 coolies is to be formed at Cape Coast Castle. Some of the officeis on board here go out with quantities of medical comforts of their own. One gallant gentleman has twelve gross of quinine pills for his protection against fever. Your temperance readers will hear with satisfaction that the pioneer force are almost rigid teetotalers. Of the force of noncommissioned officers under Captain King nine are temperance men. All the officers drink water with but a few exceptions, and these are satisfied with a small bottle of beer at lunch or dinner, or a whiskey hot before turning in. Local Option, in short, is in full swing here. “ A CORPORAL’S GUARD OF ARCHANGELS.” There is an amusing story on board concerning Sir Evelyn Wood and a certain gallant officer who is not with us, though his name is on the passenger list. Ho was actually appointed to an important position but demurred at some purely technical point of seniority. Sir Evelyn Wood was not in a humour to hear any quibbling of that or any other character, so he replied with an emphatic thump on the table, “By Heavens, sir, you shan’t go now; no, not if a corporal’s guard of archangels came on your behalf.” And there the spirited interview ended. The officer left the room of the Quartermaster-General, and someone else is coming out in the next or succeeding boat. The fact is, the military authorities 1 had had so many applications from volunteers that not a single post has gone begging. The only fear is that King Prempeh may not fight. A weak-mannered colonial ventured to suggest this, and was unanimously put in Coventry for forty-oight hours, until, said an Irish officer, he “ learns better manners, and be hanged to him.”